Cyclical Change
Editor
Linguistic Cycles are ever present in language change and involve a phrase or word that gradually disappears and is replaced by a new linguistic item. The most well-known cycles involve negatives, where an initial single negative, such as not, is reinforced by another negative, such as no thing, and subjects, where full pronouns are reanalyzed as endings on the verb. This book presents new data and insights on the well-known cyclical changes as well as on less well-known ones, such as the preposition, auxiliary, copula, modal, and complementation cycles. Part I covers the negative cycle with chapters looking in great detail at the steps that are typical in this cycle. Part II focuses on pronouns, auxiliaries, and the left periphery. Part III includes work on modals, prepositions, and complementation. The book ends with a psycholinguistic chapter. This book brings together linguists from a variety of theoretical frameworks and contributes to new directions in work on language change.
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 146] 2009. viii, 329 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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List of contributors | pp. vii–viii
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Chapter 1. Cyclical change, an introductionElly van Gelderen
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Part I. Negatives
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Chapter 2. Jespersen recycledJack Hoeksema
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Chapter 3. The Jespersen cyclesJohan van der Auwera
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Chapter 4. The negative cycle in Early and Modern RussianOlena Tsurska
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Chapter 5. Jespersen off course? The case of contemporary Afrikaans negationTheresa Biberauer
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Part II. Pronouns, agreement, and topic markers
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Chapter 6. Weak pronouns in Italian: Instances of a broken cycle?Diana Vedovato
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Chapter 7. The subject cycle of pronominal auxiliaries in Old North RussianKyongjoon Kwon
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Chapter 8. Two instances of a broken cycle: Sentential particles in Old ItalianCecilia Poletto
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Part III. Copulas, auxiliaries, and adpositions
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Chapter 9. The Copula cycleTerje Lohndal
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Chapter 10. RATHER – On a modal cycleRemus Gergel
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Chapter 11. Cycles of complementation in the Mayan languagesClifton Pye
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Chapter 12. The Preposition cycle in EnglishCathleen Waters
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Part IV. An experiment
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Chapter 13. The study of syntactic cycles as an experimental scienceRoeland Hancock and Thomas G. Bever
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Author index
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Subject index
“This is a very useful comparative volume that also raises interesting general questions about the nature of syntactic change. It puts pathways and cycles of change firmly at the heart of historical syntax and shows their relevance for wider theoretical questions.”
David Willis, University of Cambridge, in Diachronica Vol. 28:2, 2011
“This volume significantly adds to the research on the linguistic status of cyclical change. It provides new evidence and analysis of changes that could reasonably be regarded as cyclical.”
Philip Wallage, Northumbria University, in Journal of Linguistics 46. doi: 10.1017/S002226710000277
“The concept of cyclical change proves a fruitful one: it is applicable across various syntactic domains, as the present volume demonstrates. With the wide range of phenomena covered and the profound formal analyses given, this book presents a milestone in the area of research in cyclical change and more generally in diachronic syntax. It will no doubt be an inspiration on future work on the topic.”
Agnes Jäger, Goethe University Frankfurt, in Language 87(2): 430-432, 2011
“This is a valuable and unique volume which provides plenty for the linguist intrigued by cyclical change to his/her teeth into. One can only hope it will spur further investigations in this vein.”
George Walkden, University of Manchester, in Journal of Historical Linguistics 2(2): 283-290, 2012
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.
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van Gelderen, Elly
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Zeijlstra, Hedde
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Subjects & Metadata
BIC Subject: CFK – Grammar, syntax
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General