Linguistic universals and language change
By: edited by Jeff Good.
Contributors: Good, Jeff.
Publisher: Oxford University Press; Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 339
ISBN-13: 9780199228997; 9780199298495
Subjects: Universals (Linguistics); Linguistic change; Typology (Linguistics)
Description: This book looks at the relationship between linguistic universals and language change. Reflecting the resurgence of work in both fields over the last two decades, it addresses two related issues of central importance in linguistics: the balance between synchronic and diachronic factors in accounting for universals of linguistic structure, and the means of distinguishing genuine aspects of a universal human cognitive capacity forlanguage from regularities that may be traced to extraneous origins.
Table of contents: title: Universals constrain change; change results in typological generalizations / Paul Kiparsky; title: On the explanation of typologically unusual structures / Alice C. Harris; title: Consonant epenthesis / Juliette Blevins; title: Formal universals as emergent phenomena / Joan L. Bybee; title: Paradigmatic uniformity and markedness / Andrew Garrett; title: Explaining Universal Tendencies and Language Particulars in Analogical Change / Adam Albright; title: Creating Economical Morphosyntactic Patterns in Language Change / Martin Haspelmath; title: On the explanatory value of grammaticalization / Tania Kuteva and Bernd Heine; title: The classification of constituent order generalizations and diachronic explanation / John Whitman; title: Emergent serialization in English / Paul J. Hopper; title: Universals and diachrony / Johanna Nichols.