Actualization. Linguistic Change in Progress. Papers from a workshop held at the 14th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Vancouver, B.C., 14 August 1999

ANDERSEN, Henning (ed.)

ISBN 10: 9027237263 / ISBN 13: 9789027237262

Published by John Benjamins, 2001

About this Item

258 pages. 8.82x6.14x0.79 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # __9027237263

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Actualization. Linguistic Change in Progress. Papers from a workshop held at the 14th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Vancouver, B.C., 14 August 1999
• Publisher: John Benjamins
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9027237263
• ISBN 13: 9789027237262
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.4 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

This collection of papers consolidates the observation that linguistic change typically is actualized step by step: any structural innovation being introduced, accepted, and generalized, over time, in one grammatical environment after another, in a progression that can be understood by reference to the markedness values and the ranking of the conditioning features. The Introduction to the volume and a chapter by Henning Andersen clarify the theoretical bases for this observation, which is exemplified and discussed in separate chapters by Kristin Bakken, Alexander Bergs and Dieter Stein, Vit Bubenik, Ulrich Busse, Marianne Mithun, Lene Schøsler, and John Charles Smith in the light of data from the histories of Norwegian, English, Hindi, Northern Iroquoian, and Romance. A final chapter by Michael Shapiro adds a philosophical perspective. The papers were first presented in a workshop on “Actualization Patterns in Linguistic Change” at the XIV International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Vancouver, B.C. in 1999.