45032221 03 01 01 JB John Benjamins Publishing Company 01 JB code CILT 371 Eb 15 9789027243232 06 10.1075/cilt.371 DG 002 02 01 CILT 02 0304-0763 Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 371 01 cilt.371 01 https://benjamins.com 02 https://benjamins.com/catalog/cilt.371 1 B01 Jadranka Gvozdanović Gvozdanović, Jadranka Jadranka Gvozdanović University of Heidelberg 01 eng 440 vi 428 + index LAN009010 v.2006 CFF 2 24 JB Subject Scheme LIN.HL Historical linguistics 24 JB Subject Scheme LIN.THEOR Theoretical linguistics 06 01 This collection of selected papers from the 26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL26, held in Heidelberg on September 4-8, 2023) marks a milestone of 50 years since the inaugural conference of the International Society for Historical Linguistics (ISHL) in Edinburgh in 1973. It presents a wide range of contemporary trends in this vibrant and expanding area of linguistics. The topics include discussion of linguistic method, theory, principles of language change, explanation of pertinacity in change, historical sociolinguistics, language and cognition, and language contact, applied to empirical data from the different language levels, but also revealing interaction of levels such as between syntax and pragmatics. The contents include a discussion of reconstruction methods, of different kinds of expectancy, and of ideological backgrounds of language evaluation and acceptance. This volume also demonstrates the typological diversity of contemporary historical linguistics and some of the employed quantitative methods. The concluding chapter presents a overview of facts, figures and topics of fifty years of conferences on historical linguistics. 04 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475/cilt.371.png 04 03 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475_jpg/9789027237811.jpg 04 03 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475_tif/9789027237811.tif 06 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_front/cilt.371.hb.png 07 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/125/cilt.371.png 25 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_back/cilt.371.hb.png 27 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/3d_web/cilt.371.hb.png 10 01 JB code cilt.371.prelim i iv 4 Prelim pages -1 10 01 JB code cilt.371.toc v vi 2 Table of contents 0 10 01 JB code cilt.371.int 1 12 12 Chapter 1 1 A01 Jadranka Gvozdanović Gvozdanović, Jadranka Jadranka Gvozdanović University of Heidelberg 10 01 JB code cilt.371.01bos 13 29 17 Chapter 2 1 A01 Koen Bostoen Bostoen, Koen Koen Bostoen Ghent University 20 Africa 20 Bantu 20 Comparative Method 20 decolonization 20 language contact 20 language convergence 20 language divergence 20 universality 01 Against current popular opinion on knowledge production in the social and human sciences, this essay argues that the Comparative Method in historical linguistics does not require decolonization, also not when applied to languages spoken in regions of the world once subjected to European imperialism. In Africa, the reconstruction of Proto-Bantu is one of greatest accomplishments of the Comparative Method. In line with its pre-colonial intellectual roots in German Romanticism, the Comparative Method has been of key importance for retrieving the deep history of languages and societies without long-standing written traditions world-wide. Moreover, the Comparative Method starts out from language divergence and language-internal change following the family tree model, but it also acknowledges the role of contact and multilingualism in language evolution. It has even been indispensable in detecting deep-time contact events in the absence of historical records. To rescue the Comparative Method from attempts to deconstruct it, this essay advocates for its careful and knowledgeable application as an emancipatory and decolonial tool essential for gaining a better understanding of Africa’s deep past and its contributions to human history. By rejecting the universality of the Comparative Method, decolonizers will ultimately deny history to those they intend to liberate. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.02gug 30 54 25 Chapter 3 1 A01 Katalin Gugán Gugán, Katalin Katalin Gugán Hungarian Academy of Sciences 20 complex predicates 20 Middle Hungarian 20 negation 20 Old Hungarian 20 outliers 20 verb modifiers 20 word order 01 This chapter examines the history of sentence negation in Hungarian, focusing on variability and heterogeneity preceding change. The investigated variants of negation have coexisted since the earliest written document of substantial length (1370/1440), although their distribution changed significantly in the 19th century. The study analyses texts from three groups: Old Hungarian codices, Old and Middle Hungarian informal texts, and early Middle Hungarian New Testament translations. While the overall distribution of variants is similar across these groups, each contains an outlier. This chapter explores whether these outliers differ similarly from the majority or from each other, and if they foreshadow the 19th-century change. It concludes that although the reasons for the given texts to contain outliers vary, the patterns of variation are similar. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.03ham 55 81 27 Chapter 4 1 A01 Camiel S.J.N. Hamans Hamans, Camiel S.J.N. Camiel S.J.N. Hamans Adam Mickiewicz University 20 affixation 20 frequency and productivity 20 non-morphemic language change 20 paradigmatic morphological processes 01 This chapter studies the origin of affix formation in English. Two main processes appear to oppose each other: a syntagmatic process and a pa­ra­dig­matic one. The syntagmatic process, which is the process that is traditionally the only one which is referred to, breaks down into a gram­mat­ical­iz­ation process in which compounds form an important intermediate step, and a recognition process, followed by reinterpretation into compounds. The paradigmatic process, which recently has become popular, also breaks down into two subprocesses: libfixing, in which opaque forms are consciously broken open by the speaker, and blending, where the second part of the blend can detach itself from the new form based on frequency or productivity and can develop into an affix in a way similar to the libfix. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.04has 82 101 20 Chapter 5 1 A01 Martin Haspelmath Haspelmath, Martin Martin Haspelmath Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology 20 ambiguity avoidance 20 differential object marking 20 differential place marking 20 expectation sensitivity 20 function-content associations 01 There is a long tradition of invoking ambiguity avoidance as a functional factor in explaining the rise of differential argument marking. But more recently, some authors have contrasted anti-ambiguity as a motivating factor with “predictability-based marking” or “expectation sensitivity”. Here I revisit the debate, starting from the observation that ambiguity or indeterminacy is rampant in language use and language structures. It could not be otherwise because there is no way to specify every aspect of meaning that might conceivably be interesting. On the empirical side, I extend the discussion of functional motivations and pathways in differential argument marking to other kinds of differential coding, especially “differential discourse function” marking. I argue that in all these systematic differential-coding situations, expectation sensitivity provides a good explanation of the typological patterns and their diachronic motivations, while ambiguity avoidance is often irrelevant. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.05hol 102 120 19 Chapter 6 1 A01 Sampsa Holopainen Holopainen, Sampsa Sampsa Holopainen University of Helsinki 20 Alanic 20 etymology 20 historical phonology 20 Hungarian 20 loanwords 20 sound change 20 Turkic 20 Uralic 01 This chapter investigates the emergence of word-initial voiced plosives (<i>b, d, g</i>) in Hungarian. Despite a long history of research, no sufficient explanation of the conditions under which <i>b, d</i> and <i>g</i> emerged has yet been given. The chapter revisits the old claims of their emergence through “sporadic” sound change and reanalyzes the sound substitutions in the prehistoric Turkic and Iranian loanwords. The results of this chapter show that almost all examples of inherited vocabulary involve erroneous etymologies, and that in most loanwords the reason for the voicing must be sought in the source languages rather than in Hungarian. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.06jan 121 139 19 Chapter 7 1 A01 Richard D. Janda Janda, Richard D. Richard D. Janda Indiana University 2 A01 Brian D. Joseph Joseph, Brian D. Brian D. Joseph Ohio State University 20 allophony 20 drift 20 hypercorrection 20 proto-language 20 sociolinguistic stigmatization 20 supervescence 20 uniformitarianism 20 variation 20 West Germanic 01 To anchor socio-historical linguistics, we derive from ‘uniformitarianism’ (well known, and copiously discussed in Janda &#38; Joseph 2003) the innovative concept of ‘supervescence<i>’</i>. The latter denotes a situation, first discussed in Joseph (2006), where seemingly parallel changes in later stages of related languages are explained as reflecting proto-language variation that was inherited as sociolinguistically submerged — as stigmatized — in each branch, but then “bubbled up” to the surface (better: “supervesced”) separately, as sociolinguistic conditions subsequently altered. A supervescence approach offers insights into the long-standing conundrum posed by the change from -<i>s</i> to -<i>st</i> as a West Germanic 2.sg. verb-ending, whereby the new perspective obviates multiply invoking the notion of (<i>co-</i>)<i>drift</i>, which tends to be unrevealingly overworked (cf. Janda &#38; Joseph 2023b). 10 01 JB code cilt.371.07jug 140 157 18 Chapter 8 1 A01 Matthew L. Juge Juge, Matthew L. Matthew L. Juge Texas State University 20 historical morphology 20 Hungarian 20 lexical semantics 20 motion verbs 20 overlapping suppletion 20 Romance languages 20 semantic distance 20 synonymy 01 The dominant-recessive hypothesis proposes that suppletive patterns derive largely from an asymmetrical relationship between contributing lexemes (Börjars &#38; Vincent 2011). The dominant lexeme is more semantically general and receives forms from the recessive lexeme, which is semantically less general. Exemplifying their hypothesis with verbs meaning ‘go’ and special emphasis on adjectives in Scandinavian, Börjars &#38; Vincent highlight suppletion caused by incursion. This chapter argues that the dominant-recessive hypothesis oversimplifies the semantic relationships between roots and does not address overlapping suppletion or cases with more than two contributing lexemes. The claim is that detailed lexical semantic analysis — including considerations of synonymy, semantic distance, and hyponymy/hypernymy relations — and examination of paradigmatic relationships better account for the data. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.08van 158 179 22 Chapter 9 1 A01 Ans M.C. van Kemenade Kemenade, Ans M.C. van Ans M.C. van Kemenade Radboud University Nijmegen 20 interaction with pragmatics 20 Late Middle English 20 Old English 20 syntactic change 20 Verb Second word orders 20 word order change 01 Present-day English stands out in the Germanic context in that Verb Second (V2) word order in main clauses is restricted to auxiliaries in <i>wh</i>-questions (<i>Why did you go there?</i>) and in clauses with an emphatic initial negative constituent (<i>Never would I do such a thing!</i>). Early English (pre-1600) showed several types of alternation in the position of finite verbs, for lexical verbs and pre-auxiliaries alike. This chapter identifies three patterns by their word orders and the diagnostics for their syntactic structures, showing that they are in different ways the result of syntactic reanalysis resulting from pragmatic levelling and from prosodic developments. This chapter will trace the pathways of change over the Middle English period leading to the parametric changes that led to the restriction of V2 to auxiliaries in questions and negative-initial clauses, and its loss in other patterns. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.09kip 180 241 62 Chapter 10 1 A01 Paul Kiparsky Kiparsky, Paul Paul Kiparsky Stanford University 01 Long-term changes, and their independent recurrence in different languages and families, are an unsolved problem for historical linguistics. They are hard to reconcile with the standard view that morphological and syntactic changes are due to error-driven reanalysis by language learners. I defend instead a <i>bias-driven</i> model based on Optimality Theory, which posits that the course of acquisition is shaped by learners’ construction of successively more accurate fully ranked constraint systems. <br />Suppose the probability of a language is measured by the proportion of fully ranked constraint systems that generate it, its <i>r-volume</i> (Riggle 2010), and that learners continuously revise their evolving grammars to accommodate new data they encounter. The likelihood of a language being projected by a learner will then be proportional to its <i>r-</i>volume. The learning process is thus intrinsically biased in favor of the most probable language that is consistent with the learner’s experience. The hypothesis is that this is the mechanism behind drift. Here we investigate word-order change from this perspective. <br />Languages with consistently head-initial phrase structure tend to have a richly branching spine of functional projections, whereas languages with head-final phrase structure tend to have relatively flat syntax. Over time, languages can change from either of these types to the other. I present a simple OT constraint system that derives the core categorical universals of clausal word order, including the preference for Subject-Object order over Object-Subject order, and an improved version of the Final-Over-Final-Constraint, and then show that this constraint system also predicts the observed correlation between basic word-order type and the repertoire of syntactic functional heads. Coupled with the assumption of bias-driven language acquisition, this yields an explanation of word order drift. The well-established processes by which function words are morphologized and lost, and then replaced again with new syntactic heads by grammaticalization, can be seen to drive a syntactic word order cycle. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.10kre 242 256 15 Chapter 11 1 A01 Julian Kreidl Kreidl, Julian Julian Kreidl Indiana University 20 Bactrian 20 language contact 20 Nuristani 20 Pamir languages 20 Pashto 01 As an important language in Afghanistan and the Hindukush area of the first millennium <sc>ce</sc>, Bactrian exerted influence on surrounding, mostly unattested, Middle Indo-Iranian languages, many of whose descendants are still spoken today in the region. The present chapter draws attention to a number of Bactrian loanwords in Pashto, Ishkashmi-Sanglechi, Munji, Wakhi, Nuristani and Khowar. At the same time, individual words or entire layers in regional languages are discussed which, despite an a priori attractiveness of this idea, cannot stem from Bactrian for phonological reasons. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.11lah 257 283 27 Chapter 12 1 A01 Aditi Lahiri Lahiri, Aditi Aditi Lahiri University of Oxford 2 A01 Joshua Booth Booth, Joshua Joshua Booth University of Oxford 3 A01 Isabella Fritz Fritz, Isabella Isabella Fritz University of Oxford 4 A01 Emily Lindsay-Smith Lindsay-Smith, Emily Emily Lindsay-Smith University of Oxford 5 A01 Johanneke Sytsema Sytsema, Johanneke Johanneke Sytsema University of Oxford 6 A01 Hilary Wynne Wynne, Hilary Hilary Wynne University of Oxford 20 metrical and phrasal phonology 20 pertinacity 20 phonological representations 01 ‘Not everything goes’: a familiar phrase, applicable to phonological and morpho-phonological variation, observable both in synchronic systems and in change. Variability occurs on all levels — segmental, metrical as well as tonal. Critical sources of variation range from differences in vocal tract sizes, regular phonological alternation followed by the attrition of phonological contexts of regular rules and of course loans, leading to the maximal modification of reanalysis. <br />The level of variation as well as change, we will claim, is however, severely constrained. The hypothesis entertained is the following: phonological opacity may lead to varying choices for native speakers, and the resulting choice is governed by existing phonological preferences. Evidence that the native system plays a constraining influence comes from detailed examination of texts and poetry from Germanic languages (Dutch, English, German, Norwegian, Swedish) and Bengali. Phonological <i>nonesuches</i> (segmental, quantity and tonal) could change the statistical preferences but at each stage the phonological grammar has a restrictive effect. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.12lav 284 311 28 Chapter 13 1 A01 Nikolaos Lavidas Lavidas, Nikolaos Nikolaos Lavidas University of Athens 2 A01 Leonid Kulikov Kulikov, Leonid Leonid Kulikov Ghent University 20 antisyncretism 20 contact-induced change 20 syncretism 20 valency 20 voice 01 In the present study, we investigate the direction of change of voice morphology in Indo-European (IE), as directly related to the isoglosses of syncretic type of development of voice marking and of antisyncretic type of development. According to our hypothesis, the syncretic type of direction of change concerns IE languages that showed a common direction of change following a model of an IE language or IE languages; the antisyncretic type of IE languages is connected with the influence of non-IE languages, which is evident in other aspects of grammar that are related to voice, such as in the case system. We argue that these isoglosses present different characteristics because they are the result of different types of contact-induced changes. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.13mar 312 337 26 Chapter 14 1 A01 Lutz Marten Marten, Lutz Lutz Marten SOAS University of London 20 Bantu languages 20 convergence 20 decolonising linguistics 20 history of linguistics 20 language contact 20 language variation 20 Translanguaging 20 Ubuntu 01 Bantu languages are a well-established African language group with an extensive research tradition. However, questions remain of how to best understand the history behind today’s complex linguistic variation found among Bantu languages. In this chapter I propose that this is due in part to a methodological bias in the study of Bantu languages, and in historical linguistics more generally, arising from the inception of the field at a particular time in Western intellectual history. This bias favours inheritance over contact, divergence over convergence, and European (perceived) monolingual linguistic ecologies over multilingual ecologies. In order to address this bias, I introduce the model of Ubuntu Translanguaging (Makalela 2016) and propose that it provides the conceptual architecture for a more balanced and comprehensive understanding of the historical linguistics of Bantu languages and beyond. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.14sig 338 365 28 Chapter 15 1 A01 Sigridur Saeunn Sigurdardottir Sigurdardottir, Sigridur Saeunn Sigridur Saeunn Sigurdardottir University of Iceland 2 A01 Thórhallur Eythórsson Eythórsson, Thórhallur Thórhallur Eythórsson University of Iceland 20 anticausative 20 case 20 Icelandic. 20 morphosyntax 20 oblique subject 20 productivity 01 In Icelandic, a language characterized by rich inflection, different morpho­syntactic strategies used to form anticausatives are productive in different periods. Moreover, shifts in anticausativization strategies coincide with factors in other domains of grammar. Our results show that, in general, morphological marking with anticausatives is preferred over an unmarked (labile) option, leading us to propose a hierarchy of the strategies for Present-Day Icelandic. Various conflicting factors, however, create a micro-level tension in the grammar, affecting the productivity of the different anti­causa­ti­vi­zation strategies. Thus, Nominative Substitution replaces oblique subjects with case-preserving anti­causatives and the otherwise very productive “middle” suffix <i>-st-</i> reaches a point of saturation due to its multi­func­tion­ality, leaving the morphologically unmarked option as a viable one in some cases. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.15sch 366 385 20 Chapter 16 1 A01 Michael Schulte Schulte, Michael Michael Schulte University of Agder 20 anacrusis 20 Germanic long line 20 older runic inscriptions 20 resolution 01 This chapter explores a “problem of detail” in the metrical inscriptions of the older runic corpus. It re-evaluates resolution in alliterative lifts (notation in metrical phonology: L<sc>ight</sc>+L<sc>ight</sc> = H<sc>eavy</sc>, e.g. <i>Hlewa</i>- on the Gallehus horn) which occurs in conjunction with the alleged phenomenon of anacrusis, i.e. an optional initial drop (<i>ek</i>). The basic position of this chapter is that resolution in North-West Germanic metrics was an automatic, phonologically driven process, and hence a consequence of the phonological structure of the language. What has generally been regarded as anacrusis in the Gallehus inscription, and other similar structures, compensates for the resolved structure (<i>Hlewa</i>-) and forms part of the metrical schema. Most importantly, Old Norse verse supports this claim, e.g. <i>Vǫlospá</i> 3.3–4 <i>vara <b>s</b>andr né <b>s</b>ær || <u>né</u> <x> </x> <b>s</b>valar unnir</i>. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.16sow 386 410 25 Chapter 17 1 A01 Lena Sowada Sowada, Lena Lena Sowada University of Heidelberg 20 Alsace 20 historical multilingualism 20 linguistic identity 20 private letters 20 script switching 01 This study examines historical language contact in Alsace from 1914 to 1919, focusing on multilingual writing in the private sphere. The research combines historical sociolinguistics and language contact studies to explore the linguistic dynamics between French, German, and Alsatian. Utilizing a corpus of private correspondence and diaries, the study analyzes how individuals navigated multilingualism under socio-political pressures, such as official language policies and military censorship. The findings reveal complex linguistic behaviors, including code-switching, script-switching, and morphosyntactic borrowing, reflecting the interplay of identity, power, and language legislation. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of historical multilingualism, demonstrating how individual language use in private texts provides insights into broader socio-linguistic contexts and historical language contact phenomena. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.17smi 411 428 18 Chapter 18 1 A01 John Charles Smith Smith, John Charles John Charles Smith University of Oxford 02 JBENJAMINS John Benjamins Publishing Company 01 John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia NL 02 December 2026 20261215 2026 John Benjamins B.V. 02 WORLD 13 15 9789027237811 01 JB 3 John Benjamins e-Platform 03 jbe-platform.com 09 WORLD 10 20261215 01 00 135.00 EUR R 01 00 113.00 GBP Z 01 gen 00 176.00 USD S 2032220 03 01 01 JB John Benjamins Publishing Company 01 JB code CILT 371 Hb 15 9789027237811 BB 01 CILT 02 0304-0763 Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 371 01 cilt.371 01 https://benjamins.com 02 https://benjamins.com/catalog/cilt.371 1 B01 Jadranka Gvozdanović Gvozdanović, Jadranka Jadranka Gvozdanović University of Heidelberg 01 eng 440 vi 428 + index LAN009010 v.2006 CFF 2 24 JB Subject Scheme LIN.HL Historical linguistics 24 JB Subject Scheme LIN.THEOR Theoretical linguistics 06 01 This collection of selected papers from the 26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL26, held in Heidelberg on September 4-8, 2023) marks a milestone of 50 years since the inaugural conference of the International Society for Historical Linguistics (ISHL) in Edinburgh in 1973. It presents a wide range of contemporary trends in this vibrant and expanding area of linguistics. The topics include discussion of linguistic method, theory, principles of language change, explanation of pertinacity in change, historical sociolinguistics, language and cognition, and language contact, applied to empirical data from the different language levels, but also revealing interaction of levels such as between syntax and pragmatics. The contents include a discussion of reconstruction methods, of different kinds of expectancy, and of ideological backgrounds of language evaluation and acceptance. This volume also demonstrates the typological diversity of contemporary historical linguistics and some of the employed quantitative methods. The concluding chapter presents a overview of facts, figures and topics of fifty years of conferences on historical linguistics. 04 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475/cilt.371.png 04 03 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475_jpg/9789027237811.jpg 04 03 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/475_tif/9789027237811.tif 06 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_front/cilt.371.hb.png 07 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/125/cilt.371.png 25 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_back/cilt.371.hb.png 27 09 01 https://benjamins.com/covers/3d_web/cilt.371.hb.png 10 01 JB code cilt.371.prelim i iv 4 Prelim pages -1 10 01 JB code cilt.371.toc v vi 2 Table of contents 0 10 01 JB code cilt.371.int 1 12 12 Chapter 1 1 A01 Jadranka Gvozdanović Gvozdanović, Jadranka Jadranka Gvozdanović University of Heidelberg 10 01 JB code cilt.371.01bos 13 29 17 Chapter 2 1 A01 Koen Bostoen Bostoen, Koen Koen Bostoen Ghent University 20 Africa 20 Bantu 20 Comparative Method 20 decolonization 20 language contact 20 language convergence 20 language divergence 20 universality 01 Against current popular opinion on knowledge production in the social and human sciences, this essay argues that the Comparative Method in historical linguistics does not require decolonization, also not when applied to languages spoken in regions of the world once subjected to European imperialism. In Africa, the reconstruction of Proto-Bantu is one of greatest accomplishments of the Comparative Method. In line with its pre-colonial intellectual roots in German Romanticism, the Comparative Method has been of key importance for retrieving the deep history of languages and societies without long-standing written traditions world-wide. Moreover, the Comparative Method starts out from language divergence and language-internal change following the family tree model, but it also acknowledges the role of contact and multilingualism in language evolution. It has even been indispensable in detecting deep-time contact events in the absence of historical records. To rescue the Comparative Method from attempts to deconstruct it, this essay advocates for its careful and knowledgeable application as an emancipatory and decolonial tool essential for gaining a better understanding of Africa’s deep past and its contributions to human history. By rejecting the universality of the Comparative Method, decolonizers will ultimately deny history to those they intend to liberate. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.02gug 30 54 25 Chapter 3 1 A01 Katalin Gugán Gugán, Katalin Katalin Gugán Hungarian Academy of Sciences 20 complex predicates 20 Middle Hungarian 20 negation 20 Old Hungarian 20 outliers 20 verb modifiers 20 word order 01 This chapter examines the history of sentence negation in Hungarian, focusing on variability and heterogeneity preceding change. The investigated variants of negation have coexisted since the earliest written document of substantial length (1370/1440), although their distribution changed significantly in the 19th century. The study analyses texts from three groups: Old Hungarian codices, Old and Middle Hungarian informal texts, and early Middle Hungarian New Testament translations. While the overall distribution of variants is similar across these groups, each contains an outlier. This chapter explores whether these outliers differ similarly from the majority or from each other, and if they foreshadow the 19th-century change. It concludes that although the reasons for the given texts to contain outliers vary, the patterns of variation are similar. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.03ham 55 81 27 Chapter 4 1 A01 Camiel S.J.N. Hamans Hamans, Camiel S.J.N. Camiel S.J.N. Hamans Adam Mickiewicz University 20 affixation 20 frequency and productivity 20 non-morphemic language change 20 paradigmatic morphological processes 01 This chapter studies the origin of affix formation in English. Two main processes appear to oppose each other: a syntagmatic process and a pa­ra­dig­matic one. The syntagmatic process, which is the process that is traditionally the only one which is referred to, breaks down into a gram­mat­ical­iz­ation process in which compounds form an important intermediate step, and a recognition process, followed by reinterpretation into compounds. The paradigmatic process, which recently has become popular, also breaks down into two subprocesses: libfixing, in which opaque forms are consciously broken open by the speaker, and blending, where the second part of the blend can detach itself from the new form based on frequency or productivity and can develop into an affix in a way similar to the libfix. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.04has 82 101 20 Chapter 5 1 A01 Martin Haspelmath Haspelmath, Martin Martin Haspelmath Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology 20 ambiguity avoidance 20 differential object marking 20 differential place marking 20 expectation sensitivity 20 function-content associations 01 There is a long tradition of invoking ambiguity avoidance as a functional factor in explaining the rise of differential argument marking. But more recently, some authors have contrasted anti-ambiguity as a motivating factor with “predictability-based marking” or “expectation sensitivity”. Here I revisit the debate, starting from the observation that ambiguity or indeterminacy is rampant in language use and language structures. It could not be otherwise because there is no way to specify every aspect of meaning that might conceivably be interesting. On the empirical side, I extend the discussion of functional motivations and pathways in differential argument marking to other kinds of differential coding, especially “differential discourse function” marking. I argue that in all these systematic differential-coding situations, expectation sensitivity provides a good explanation of the typological patterns and their diachronic motivations, while ambiguity avoidance is often irrelevant. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.05hol 102 120 19 Chapter 6 1 A01 Sampsa Holopainen Holopainen, Sampsa Sampsa Holopainen University of Helsinki 20 Alanic 20 etymology 20 historical phonology 20 Hungarian 20 loanwords 20 sound change 20 Turkic 20 Uralic 01 This chapter investigates the emergence of word-initial voiced plosives (<i>b, d, g</i>) in Hungarian. Despite a long history of research, no sufficient explanation of the conditions under which <i>b, d</i> and <i>g</i> emerged has yet been given. The chapter revisits the old claims of their emergence through “sporadic” sound change and reanalyzes the sound substitutions in the prehistoric Turkic and Iranian loanwords. The results of this chapter show that almost all examples of inherited vocabulary involve erroneous etymologies, and that in most loanwords the reason for the voicing must be sought in the source languages rather than in Hungarian. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.06jan 121 139 19 Chapter 7 1 A01 Richard D. Janda Janda, Richard D. Richard D. Janda Indiana University 2 A01 Brian D. Joseph Joseph, Brian D. Brian D. Joseph Ohio State University 20 allophony 20 drift 20 hypercorrection 20 proto-language 20 sociolinguistic stigmatization 20 supervescence 20 uniformitarianism 20 variation 20 West Germanic 01 To anchor socio-historical linguistics, we derive from ‘uniformitarianism’ (well known, and copiously discussed in Janda &#38; Joseph 2003) the innovative concept of ‘supervescence<i>’</i>. The latter denotes a situation, first discussed in Joseph (2006), where seemingly parallel changes in later stages of related languages are explained as reflecting proto-language variation that was inherited as sociolinguistically submerged — as stigmatized — in each branch, but then “bubbled up” to the surface (better: “supervesced”) separately, as sociolinguistic conditions subsequently altered. A supervescence approach offers insights into the long-standing conundrum posed by the change from -<i>s</i> to -<i>st</i> as a West Germanic 2.sg. verb-ending, whereby the new perspective obviates multiply invoking the notion of (<i>co-</i>)<i>drift</i>, which tends to be unrevealingly overworked (cf. Janda &#38; Joseph 2023b). 10 01 JB code cilt.371.07jug 140 157 18 Chapter 8 1 A01 Matthew L. Juge Juge, Matthew L. Matthew L. Juge Texas State University 20 historical morphology 20 Hungarian 20 lexical semantics 20 motion verbs 20 overlapping suppletion 20 Romance languages 20 semantic distance 20 synonymy 01 The dominant-recessive hypothesis proposes that suppletive patterns derive largely from an asymmetrical relationship between contributing lexemes (Börjars &#38; Vincent 2011). The dominant lexeme is more semantically general and receives forms from the recessive lexeme, which is semantically less general. Exemplifying their hypothesis with verbs meaning ‘go’ and special emphasis on adjectives in Scandinavian, Börjars &#38; Vincent highlight suppletion caused by incursion. This chapter argues that the dominant-recessive hypothesis oversimplifies the semantic relationships between roots and does not address overlapping suppletion or cases with more than two contributing lexemes. The claim is that detailed lexical semantic analysis — including considerations of synonymy, semantic distance, and hyponymy/hypernymy relations — and examination of paradigmatic relationships better account for the data. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.08van 158 179 22 Chapter 9 1 A01 Ans M.C. van Kemenade Kemenade, Ans M.C. van Ans M.C. van Kemenade Radboud University Nijmegen 20 interaction with pragmatics 20 Late Middle English 20 Old English 20 syntactic change 20 Verb Second word orders 20 word order change 01 Present-day English stands out in the Germanic context in that Verb Second (V2) word order in main clauses is restricted to auxiliaries in <i>wh</i>-questions (<i>Why did you go there?</i>) and in clauses with an emphatic initial negative constituent (<i>Never would I do such a thing!</i>). Early English (pre-1600) showed several types of alternation in the position of finite verbs, for lexical verbs and pre-auxiliaries alike. This chapter identifies three patterns by their word orders and the diagnostics for their syntactic structures, showing that they are in different ways the result of syntactic reanalysis resulting from pragmatic levelling and from prosodic developments. This chapter will trace the pathways of change over the Middle English period leading to the parametric changes that led to the restriction of V2 to auxiliaries in questions and negative-initial clauses, and its loss in other patterns. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.09kip 180 241 62 Chapter 10 1 A01 Paul Kiparsky Kiparsky, Paul Paul Kiparsky Stanford University 01 Long-term changes, and their independent recurrence in different languages and families, are an unsolved problem for historical linguistics. They are hard to reconcile with the standard view that morphological and syntactic changes are due to error-driven reanalysis by language learners. I defend instead a <i>bias-driven</i> model based on Optimality Theory, which posits that the course of acquisition is shaped by learners’ construction of successively more accurate fully ranked constraint systems. <br />Suppose the probability of a language is measured by the proportion of fully ranked constraint systems that generate it, its <i>r-volume</i> (Riggle 2010), and that learners continuously revise their evolving grammars to accommodate new data they encounter. The likelihood of a language being projected by a learner will then be proportional to its <i>r-</i>volume. The learning process is thus intrinsically biased in favor of the most probable language that is consistent with the learner’s experience. The hypothesis is that this is the mechanism behind drift. Here we investigate word-order change from this perspective. <br />Languages with consistently head-initial phrase structure tend to have a richly branching spine of functional projections, whereas languages with head-final phrase structure tend to have relatively flat syntax. Over time, languages can change from either of these types to the other. I present a simple OT constraint system that derives the core categorical universals of clausal word order, including the preference for Subject-Object order over Object-Subject order, and an improved version of the Final-Over-Final-Constraint, and then show that this constraint system also predicts the observed correlation between basic word-order type and the repertoire of syntactic functional heads. Coupled with the assumption of bias-driven language acquisition, this yields an explanation of word order drift. The well-established processes by which function words are morphologized and lost, and then replaced again with new syntactic heads by grammaticalization, can be seen to drive a syntactic word order cycle. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.10kre 242 256 15 Chapter 11 1 A01 Julian Kreidl Kreidl, Julian Julian Kreidl Indiana University 20 Bactrian 20 language contact 20 Nuristani 20 Pamir languages 20 Pashto 01 As an important language in Afghanistan and the Hindukush area of the first millennium <sc>ce</sc>, Bactrian exerted influence on surrounding, mostly unattested, Middle Indo-Iranian languages, many of whose descendants are still spoken today in the region. The present chapter draws attention to a number of Bactrian loanwords in Pashto, Ishkashmi-Sanglechi, Munji, Wakhi, Nuristani and Khowar. At the same time, individual words or entire layers in regional languages are discussed which, despite an a priori attractiveness of this idea, cannot stem from Bactrian for phonological reasons. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.11lah 257 283 27 Chapter 12 1 A01 Aditi Lahiri Lahiri, Aditi Aditi Lahiri University of Oxford 2 A01 Joshua Booth Booth, Joshua Joshua Booth University of Oxford 3 A01 Isabella Fritz Fritz, Isabella Isabella Fritz University of Oxford 4 A01 Emily Lindsay-Smith Lindsay-Smith, Emily Emily Lindsay-Smith University of Oxford 5 A01 Johanneke Sytsema Sytsema, Johanneke Johanneke Sytsema University of Oxford 6 A01 Hilary Wynne Wynne, Hilary Hilary Wynne University of Oxford 20 metrical and phrasal phonology 20 pertinacity 20 phonological representations 01 ‘Not everything goes’: a familiar phrase, applicable to phonological and morpho-phonological variation, observable both in synchronic systems and in change. Variability occurs on all levels — segmental, metrical as well as tonal. Critical sources of variation range from differences in vocal tract sizes, regular phonological alternation followed by the attrition of phonological contexts of regular rules and of course loans, leading to the maximal modification of reanalysis. <br />The level of variation as well as change, we will claim, is however, severely constrained. The hypothesis entertained is the following: phonological opacity may lead to varying choices for native speakers, and the resulting choice is governed by existing phonological preferences. Evidence that the native system plays a constraining influence comes from detailed examination of texts and poetry from Germanic languages (Dutch, English, German, Norwegian, Swedish) and Bengali. Phonological <i>nonesuches</i> (segmental, quantity and tonal) could change the statistical preferences but at each stage the phonological grammar has a restrictive effect. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.12lav 284 311 28 Chapter 13 1 A01 Nikolaos Lavidas Lavidas, Nikolaos Nikolaos Lavidas University of Athens 2 A01 Leonid Kulikov Kulikov, Leonid Leonid Kulikov Ghent University 20 antisyncretism 20 contact-induced change 20 syncretism 20 valency 20 voice 01 In the present study, we investigate the direction of change of voice morphology in Indo-European (IE), as directly related to the isoglosses of syncretic type of development of voice marking and of antisyncretic type of development. According to our hypothesis, the syncretic type of direction of change concerns IE languages that showed a common direction of change following a model of an IE language or IE languages; the antisyncretic type of IE languages is connected with the influence of non-IE languages, which is evident in other aspects of grammar that are related to voice, such as in the case system. We argue that these isoglosses present different characteristics because they are the result of different types of contact-induced changes. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.13mar 312 337 26 Chapter 14 1 A01 Lutz Marten Marten, Lutz Lutz Marten SOAS University of London 20 Bantu languages 20 convergence 20 decolonising linguistics 20 history of linguistics 20 language contact 20 language variation 20 Translanguaging 20 Ubuntu 01 Bantu languages are a well-established African language group with an extensive research tradition. However, questions remain of how to best understand the history behind today’s complex linguistic variation found among Bantu languages. In this chapter I propose that this is due in part to a methodological bias in the study of Bantu languages, and in historical linguistics more generally, arising from the inception of the field at a particular time in Western intellectual history. This bias favours inheritance over contact, divergence over convergence, and European (perceived) monolingual linguistic ecologies over multilingual ecologies. In order to address this bias, I introduce the model of Ubuntu Translanguaging (Makalela 2016) and propose that it provides the conceptual architecture for a more balanced and comprehensive understanding of the historical linguistics of Bantu languages and beyond. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.14sig 338 365 28 Chapter 15 1 A01 Sigridur Saeunn Sigurdardottir Sigurdardottir, Sigridur Saeunn Sigridur Saeunn Sigurdardottir University of Iceland 2 A01 Thórhallur Eythórsson Eythórsson, Thórhallur Thórhallur Eythórsson University of Iceland 20 anticausative 20 case 20 Icelandic. 20 morphosyntax 20 oblique subject 20 productivity 01 In Icelandic, a language characterized by rich inflection, different morpho­syntactic strategies used to form anticausatives are productive in different periods. Moreover, shifts in anticausativization strategies coincide with factors in other domains of grammar. Our results show that, in general, morphological marking with anticausatives is preferred over an unmarked (labile) option, leading us to propose a hierarchy of the strategies for Present-Day Icelandic. Various conflicting factors, however, create a micro-level tension in the grammar, affecting the productivity of the different anti­causa­ti­vi­zation strategies. Thus, Nominative Substitution replaces oblique subjects with case-preserving anti­causatives and the otherwise very productive “middle” suffix <i>-st-</i> reaches a point of saturation due to its multi­func­tion­ality, leaving the morphologically unmarked option as a viable one in some cases. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.15sch 366 385 20 Chapter 16 1 A01 Michael Schulte Schulte, Michael Michael Schulte University of Agder 20 anacrusis 20 Germanic long line 20 older runic inscriptions 20 resolution 01 This chapter explores a “problem of detail” in the metrical inscriptions of the older runic corpus. It re-evaluates resolution in alliterative lifts (notation in metrical phonology: L<sc>ight</sc>+L<sc>ight</sc> = H<sc>eavy</sc>, e.g. <i>Hlewa</i>- on the Gallehus horn) which occurs in conjunction with the alleged phenomenon of anacrusis, i.e. an optional initial drop (<i>ek</i>). The basic position of this chapter is that resolution in North-West Germanic metrics was an automatic, phonologically driven process, and hence a consequence of the phonological structure of the language. What has generally been regarded as anacrusis in the Gallehus inscription, and other similar structures, compensates for the resolved structure (<i>Hlewa</i>-) and forms part of the metrical schema. Most importantly, Old Norse verse supports this claim, e.g. <i>Vǫlospá</i> 3.3–4 <i>vara <b>s</b>andr né <b>s</b>ær || <u>né</u> <x> </x> <b>s</b>valar unnir</i>. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.16sow 386 410 25 Chapter 17 1 A01 Lena Sowada Sowada, Lena Lena Sowada University of Heidelberg 20 Alsace 20 historical multilingualism 20 linguistic identity 20 private letters 20 script switching 01 This study examines historical language contact in Alsace from 1914 to 1919, focusing on multilingual writing in the private sphere. The research combines historical sociolinguistics and language contact studies to explore the linguistic dynamics between French, German, and Alsatian. Utilizing a corpus of private correspondence and diaries, the study analyzes how individuals navigated multilingualism under socio-political pressures, such as official language policies and military censorship. The findings reveal complex linguistic behaviors, including code-switching, script-switching, and morphosyntactic borrowing, reflecting the interplay of identity, power, and language legislation. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of historical multilingualism, demonstrating how individual language use in private texts provides insights into broader socio-linguistic contexts and historical language contact phenomena. 10 01 JB code cilt.371.17smi 411 428 18 Chapter 18 1 A01 John Charles Smith Smith, John Charles John Charles Smith University of Oxford 02 JBENJAMINS John Benjamins Publishing Company 01 John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia NL 02 December 2026 20261215 2026 John Benjamins B.V. 02 WORLD 01 JB 1 John Benjamins Publishing Company +31 20 6304747 +31 20 6739773 bookorder@benjamins.nl 01 https://benjamins.com 01 WORLD US CA MX 10 20261215 01 02 JB 1 00 140.00 EUR R 02 02 JB 1 00 148.40 EUR R 01 JB 10 John Benjamins Publishing Company +31 20 6304747 bookorder@benjamins.nl 01 GB 10 20261215 02 02 JB 1 00 118.00 GBP Z 01 JB 2 Casemate Academic 610-853-9131 610-853-9143 Girard.Kratz@casematepublishers.com 01 https://benjamins.com 02 US CA MX 10 20261215 01 gen 02 JB 1 00 182.00 USD