Language change and survive

This paper examines what data from language change can tell us about derivations, and in particular the early part of the derivation where lexical items are selected from the lexicon using the Survive mechanism. It is well-known that in changes often referred to as grammaticalization the features of lexical items are not only lost but reanalyzed from semantic to grammatical. I argue this is due to principles economizing derivations. Unlike many using Survive, I argue that uninterpretable features are in fact necessary.

Published online: 29 July 2009
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.144.10gel