Essays on Time-Based Linguistic Analysis (Hardcover)

Charles-James N. Bailey

ISBN 10: 0198242204 / ISBN 13: 9780198242208

Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996

About this Item

Hardcover. The purpose of this volume is to make easily available a representative selection of Charles-James N. Bailey's views on linguistic theory. Several previously published papers have been extensively revised and updated for the collection, which also contains two new chapters. The collection is flanked by a new Prologue and Epilogue, and the whole is preceded by Peter Muehlhaeusler's Introduction which offers a critical appraisal of Professor Bailey'scontribution to the field. In the Prologue the author discusses the rationale for a Developmentalist, or time-based, framework for the scientific analysis of languages; in the Epilogue he laborates a newapproach to historical linguistics. These initial and final chapters reflect the volume's twofold emphasis on time-based analysis both in descriptive (multi-dialectal) analyses of languages and in historical analysis. For historical analysis Professor Bailey contrasts his approach with the current paradoxical practice of employing static models that exclude a time parameter - an approach which he characterizes as 'synchronic-idiolectal'. In doing so he offers explanations for matters which havenot previously been accounted for in a satisfactory way: why and when languages change, the disruptive effects of language contact in triggering important kinds of change and the role of markedness incomplex changes. Concentrating on the sound system and syntax of English, he presents a time-based model with rules for generating highly complex, multiphased phenomena which have been, until now, impervious to linguistic analysis. This volume makes available a collection of Bailey's writings on linguistic theory. The author argues for a theory which is time-based, and against the prevailing synchronic approach in linguistic theory. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780198242208

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Essays on Time-Based Linguistic Analysis (Hardcover)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198242204
• ISBN 13: 9780198242208
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

This volume on developmental linguistics offers method and rationale for analyses of complex variation in British English and ancient Greek within the grammar--i.e. without regard to the distribution of language variants in geographical or social space. The book offers a host of grammatical (and social) reasons for accepting the beginnings of English as a French creole with Romance-like syntactic phenomena too involved to be viewed as borrowings, though disguised to casual observers by reason of the many Anglo-Saxon calques on French functor words. Two long chapters show how assuming a non-Germanic origin of English combine with a sophisticated theory of reversals in marked environments to disclose an entirely new understanding of English grammar, especially with regard to verb modalities and pronoun usage. Other chapters deal with aspects of historical change and variation in a developmentalist framework.

About the Author

Charles-James N. Bailey is the Emeritus Professor of English and General Linguistics at the Technische University of Berlin.