Mechanisms of syntactic change

Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse

Language demonstrates structure while also showing considerable variation at all levels: languages differ from one another while still being shaped by the same principles; utterances within a language differ from one another while exhibiting the same structural patterns; languages change over time, but in fairly regular ways. This book focuses on the dynamic processes that create languages and give them their structure and variance. It outlines a theory of language that addresses the nature of grammar, taking into account its variance and gradience, and seeks explanation in terms of the recurrent processes that operate in language use. The evidence is based on the study of large corpora of spoken and written language, what we know about how languages change, as well as the results of experiments with language users. The result is an integrated theory of language use and language change which has implications for cognitive processing and language evolution.

/pdf/language-usage-and-cognition-l1d6ccrn47.pdf

Language, Usage and Cognition

La theorie linguistique pourrait s'enrichir, selon l'auteur, en tenant compte du fait que le marquage de la tete du syntagme, dans les problemes d'accords, est plus repandu dans les langues du monde que le cas de marquage du " dependant " considere comme non parametre

https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/language/v062/62.1.nichols.pdf

Head-marking and dependent-marking grammar

The Creation of Tense and Aspect Systems in the Languages of the World

Lexicalization, a process of language change, has been conceptualized in a variety of ways. Broadly defined as the adoption of concepts into the lexicon, it has been viewed by syntacticians as the reverse process of grammaticalization, by morphologists as a routine process of word-formation, and by semanticists as the development of concrete meanings. In this up-to-date survey, Laurel Brinton and Elizabeth Traugott examine the various conceptualizations of lexicalization that have been presented in the literature. In light of contemporary work on grammaticalization, they then propose a new, unified model of lexicalization and grammaticalization. Their approach is illustrated with a variety of case studies from the history of English, including present participles, multi-word verbs, adverbs, and discourse markers, as well as some examples from other Indo-European languages. The first review of the various approaches to lexicalization, this book will be invaluable to students and scholars of historical linguistics and language change.

/pdf/lexicalization-and-language-change-1ns5aa532c.pdf

Lexicalization and Language Change

Communication using symbols (such as words) structured with grammar

Mechanisms of syntactic change

Citations

Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse

Language, Usage and Cognition

Head-marking and dependent-marking grammar

The Creation of Tense and Aspect Systems in the Languages of the World

Lexicalization and Language Change

Related Papers (5)

Subject and Topic

Some Universals of Grammar with Particular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elements

The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World

Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework

On Understanding Grammar