Language Change: Contributions to the Study of Its Causes

Couverture
Leiv E. Breivik, Leiv Egil Breivik, Ernst Håkon Jahr
Walter de Gruyter, 1989 - 281 pages
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TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

 

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Table des matières

Preface
1
On the causes of syntactic change in English
29
Pragmatics and syntactic change
71
Language planning and language change
99
The origin and function of switch reference in Green Hmong
115
Invisiblehand processes and the universal laws of language change
131
Sound change is drawn from a pool of synchronic variation
173
The role of children in linguistic change
199
Contact and isolation in linguistic change
227
Index
277
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Page 6 - Although many sound-changes shorten linguistic forms, simplify the phonetic system, or in some other way lessen the labor of utterance, yet no student has succeeded in establishing a correlation between sound-change and any antecedent phenomenon: the causes of sound-change are unknown.
Page 33 - INFORMATION: there¡ functions as a signal to the addressee that he must be prepared to direct his attention towards an item of new information.
Page 56 - SVO base order a) # V — > # pronoun, V b) fronting c) subject-verb inversion d) V pronoun — > V 0 (obligatory) The underlying order VSO of Stage 0 has been reinterpreted as SVO.
Page 1 - ... (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 43) This collection of 11 papers reflects the recent upsurge of interest in historical linguistics, delving into the complex causes not only of phonological change, but of language change in general. This work draws on the developments and expansion of disciplines such as sociolinguistics, language contact research, communication theory, child language and creole studies, together with innovations in the study of language-internal developments as...
Page 35 - These verbs or verbal phrases undoubtedly imply or even explicitly express "appearance -- a kind of coming into existence -- on the scene" (ie the scene created by the narrow, ad hoc context at the moment of utterance) or simply "existence" on this scene
Page 232 - ... adults, and therefore a relatively high degree of simplification. If I were given a month to learn a language, I would certainly choose Norwegian or Spanish rather than Faroese or Latin. It should be made clear at this point, however, that when we talk of high-contact situations, what we say can in fact only be true of certain high-contact situations, namely those where it is principally post-adolescent second-variety acquisition that is involved. High-contact situations come in many different...
Page 228 - Dialect contact, it appears, leads most usually to what we call simplification, not reduction, as had been observed by a number of scholars. Jakobson long ago, for instance, noted that dialects which serve a relatively wide socio-spatial function tend to have simpler systems than dialects with a more restricted function (Jakobson, 1929). And Labov has pointed out that, in contact situations, phonological mergers spread at the expense of contrasts. In dialect contact generally, it seems that we most...
Page 33 - We are looking at an extraordinary picture painted by X. A middleaged man and three boys are seated on chairs or stools at a spindly square table. An account book is on the table. In order for sentences like (3a) to be acceptable, they must bring something - literally or figuratively - before our eyes.
Page 228 - Milroy (1985b: 375), circumstances like this are particularly apt to promote language change: 'linguistic change is slow to the extent that the relevant populations are well established and bound by strong ties, whereas it is rapid to the extent that weak ties exist in populations'.
Page 152 - ... developing Aboriginal and even personal access to national and commercial media CULTURECIDAL CONTENT OR COMMUNITY ACCESS Edmund Carpenter, an anthropologist who was employed in the 1960s to advise the Australian government on the impact of modern media in traditional New Guinea culture, concluded that: "We use media to destroy cultures, but first we use media to create a false record of what we are about to destroy.

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