The Linguistic Cycle: Language Change and the Language Faculty - Couverture rigide

Van Gelderen, Elly

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0199756058 ISBN 13 : 9780199756056

Editeur : Oxford University Press Inc, 2011

Synopsis

Elly van Gelderen provides examples of linguistic cycles from a number of languages and language families, along with an account of the linguistic cycle in terms of minimalist economy principles. A cycle involves grammaticalization from lexical to functional category followed by renewal. Some well-known cycles involve negatives, where full negative phrases are reanalyzed as words and affixes and are then renewed by full phrases again. Verbal agreement is another example: full pronouns are reanalyzed as agreement markers and are renewed again. Each chapter provides data on a separate cycle from a myriad of languages. Van Gelderen argues that the cross-linguistic similarities can be seen as Economy Principles present in the initial cognitive system or Universal Grammar. She further claims that some of the cycles can be used to classify a language as analytic or synthetic, and she provides insight into the shape of the earliest human language and how it evolved.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Elly van Gelderen is Regents' Professor in the Department of English at Arizona State University.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oxford University Press Inc
• Date d'édition: 2011
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0199756058
• ISBN 13: 9780199756056
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 464
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Messaggerie Libri; ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it; ; Via Verdi, 8; Assago Milano; Italie