Discover how analogy shapes language at every level.
This classic study explores how mind and memory organize speech, showing how people group sounds, signs, and meanings to create coherent systems. It illuminates why some forms stick while others shift, and how linguistic change reflects deeper psychological and physiological processes.
This edition presents a clear framework for understanding the role of analogy in language history, with examples drawn from a wide range of Indo-European languages. It explains why phonetic rules have universal tendencies in some contexts, while analogy operates more freely in others. The work also discusses how scholars classify and interpret the forces that drive linguistic growth, from root forms to derived words, across dialects and time.
- Learn how the mind’s drive for unity pushes language toward simpler, more regular patterns.
- See how signification, use, and form interact to produce grouping and reform across languages.
- Explore the tension between unconscious linguistic habits and conscious linguistic analysis.
- Understand why folk etymologies and surface similarities can mislead or illuminate.
Ideal for readers of historical linguistics and serious language study who want a rigorous, readable account of how analogy affects language structure and change.