219-7677
10
7500817
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Marketing Department / Karin Plijnaar, Pieter Lamers
onix@benjamins.nl
201903221409
ONIX title feed
eng
01
EUR
860017829
03
01
01
JB
John Benjamins Publishing Company
01
JB code
LA 254 Eb
15
9789027262752
06
10.1075/la.254
13
2018056738
DG
002
02
01
LA
02
0166-0829
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today
254
01
The Determinants of Diachronic Stability
The
Determinants of Diachronic Stability
01
la.254
01
https://benjamins.com
02
https://benjamins.com/catalog/la.254
1
B01
Anne Breitbarth
Breitbarth, Anne
Anne
Breitbarth
Ghent University
2
B01
Miriam Bouzouita
Bouzouita, Miriam
Miriam
Bouzouita
Ghent University
3
B01
Lieven Danckaert
Danckaert, Lieven
Lieven
Danckaert
University of Lille
4
B01
Melissa Farasyn
Farasyn, Melissa
Melissa
Farasyn
Ghent University
01
eng
300
vi
294
LAN009010
v.2006
CFF
2
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.HL
Historical linguistics
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.SOCIO
Sociolinguistics and Dialectology
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.THEOR
Theoretical linguistics
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.TYP
Typology
06
01
While much of the literature has focused on explaining diachronic variation and change, the fact that sometimes change does not seem to happen has received much less attention. The current volume unites ten contributions that look for the determinants of diachronic stability, mainly in the areas of morphology and (morpho)syntax. The relevant question is approached from different angles, both empirical and theoretical. Empirically, the contributions deal with the absence of change where one may expect it, uncover underlying stability where traditionally diachronic change was postulated, and, inversely, superficial stability that disguises underlying change. Determining factors ranging from internal causes to language contact are explored. Theoretically, the questions of whether stable variation is possible, and how it can be modeled are addressed. The volume will be of interest to linguists working on the causes of language change, and to scholars working on the history of Germanic, Romance, and Sinitic languages.
04
09
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/475/la.254.png
04
03
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/475_jpg/9789027202413.jpg
04
03
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/475_tif/9789027202413.tif
06
09
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_front/la.254.hb.png
07
09
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/125/la.254.png
25
09
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_back/la.254.hb.png
27
09
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/3d_web/la.254.hb.png
10
01
JB code
la.254.01bre
1
10
10
Chapter
1
01
Chapter 1. The determinants of diachronic stability
1
A01
Miriam Bouzouita
Bouzouita, Miriam
Miriam
Bouzouita
Ghent University
2
A01
Anne Breitbarth
Breitbarth, Anne
Anne
Breitbarth
Ghent University
3
A01
Lieven Danckaert
Danckaert, Lieven
Lieven
Danckaert
Université de Lille, CNRS
4
A01
Melissa Farasyn
Farasyn, Melissa
Melissa
Farasyn
Ghent University
10
01
JB code
la.254.02wat
11
38
28
Chapter
2
01
Chapter 2. Gender stability, gender loss
What didn’t happen to German
1
A01
Sheila Watts
Watts, Sheila
Sheila
Watts
University of Cambridge
01
This paper investigates the factors which have led to the diachronic stability of gender as a three-way category in German. Old High German and Old English are contrasted to show how phonological, morphological and semantic changes contribute to a reinforcement of gender as a grammatical category in German, while in English it suffers attrition and loss. The early restructuring of the pronominal declension through analogical pattern generalization is shown to combine gender and case marking in ways which allow the three-way distinction to become more salient over time. The resulting cohesion within noun phrases and gender marking on targets, particularly through the interaction of gender and case marking in the high-frequency nominative and accusative cases, gives gender marking a role in communication. As a result the cognitive effort of acquiring gender pays off and the three-way distinction remains stable.
10
01
JB code
la.254.03far
39
68
30
Chapter
3
01
Chapter 3. Apparent competing agreement patterns in Middle Low German non-restrictive relative clauses with a first or second person head
1
A01
Melissa Farasyn
Farasyn, Melissa
Melissa
Farasyn
Ghent University
01
This paper updates Farasyn (2017), who charted the agreement patterns found in Middle Low German (non-restrictive) relative clauses with a first or second person head. In related West Germanic languages, these clauses show different types of agreement patterns. This study presents new corpus data illustrating how Middle Low German compares to these. Expanding on Farasyn (2017), it investigates the historical development and elements introducing the relative clause, showing that φ-features in older stages of the West Germanic languages are always encoded in the non-restrictive relative clause, though often in different positions. Middle Low German displays a remarkable stability in retaining a covert resumptive pronoun bearing φ-features. An apparent competing pattern with an overt resumptive is a later innovation, as are structures with third person agreement found in neighboring languages.
10
01
JB code
la.254.04sig
69
100
32
Chapter
4
01
Chapter 4. Stability and change in Icelandic weather verbs
Syntax, semantics and argument structure
1
A01
Sigridur Saeunn Sigurdardottir
Sigurdardottir, Sigridur Saeunn
Sigridur Saeunn
Sigurdardottir
Yale University
2
A01
Thórhallur Eythórsson
Eythórsson, Thórhallur
Thórhallur
Eythórsson
University of Iceland
01
Contrary to previous claims, weather verbs in Icelandic are not “no-argument” predicates. Both in Old and Modern Icelandic they can appear with an NP either in nominative, accusative or dative case. It can be shown that in Modern Icelandic the NPs are subjects, and this is likely to have been the case in Old Icelandic. Diachronically, in addition to some changes in subject case marking (Nominative Substitution and Impersonalization), the main innovations in weather verbs involve the introduction of the “expletive” elements <i>það</i> and <i>hann</i>. On the whole, however, there is considerable stability in the use of weather verbs in the history of Icelandic. Not only are the lexical items nearly all the same, but a clear continuity in the syntax of weather expressions can be documented.
10
01
JB code
la.254.05dja
101
130
30
Chapter
5
01
Chapter 5. Disharmony in harmony with diachronic stability
The case of Chinese
1
A01
Redouane Djamouri
Djamouri, Redouane
Redouane
Djamouri
Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale, CNRS-EHESS-INALCO
2
A01
Waltraud Paul
Paul, Waltraud
Waltraud
Paul
Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale, CNRS-EHESS-INALCO
01
Chinese is an intriguing case of syntactic stability. Since the earliest available documents (13th c. BC) up to today, it has displayed SVO order in combination with a head final NP as well as – in subsequent stages – other phenomena said to be typical of SOV languages, such as postpositions (since 1st c. BC) and a head-final CP (since 5th c. BC). This contradicts the received wisdom in the literature that highly ‘disharmonic’ stages are unstable and liable to change towards a (more) ‘harmonic’ one. Taking Chinese as a starting point, the assumption that the concept of stability itself – although inaccessible to the child acquirer and only observable with hindsight by the linguist – is an inbuilt part of human language and hence of universal grammar, is shown to be wrong.
10
01
JB code
la.254.06sit
131
156
26
Chapter
6
01
Chapter 6. Against V2 in Old Spanish
1
A01
Ioanna Sitaridou
Sitaridou, Ioanna
Ioanna
Sitaridou
University of Cambridge, Queens' College
01
In this article, using rich data from 13th C. Spanish, it is argued that Old Spanish does not belong to any known V2 type of language, even the most flexible/relaxed attested type – the latter defined as mandatory verb movement from T-to-Fin/Force without the necessary raising of an XP to the preverbal field (as is the case in prototypical V2 languages such as German); neither does it constitute a new one for lack of evidence for formal movement of the verb to a C-related head. Instead, it is claimed that V2 effects in Old Spanish are due either because (i) verb movement is associated with some discourse effect or polarity; or, (ii) it is simply linear V2. Such V2 effects are trivially found in non-V2 languages and may also relate to rhetorical schemata and the discourse tradition.
10
01
JB code
la.254.07puj
157
190
34
Chapter
7
01
Chapter 7. V1 clauses in Old Catalan
1
A01
Afra Pujol i Campeny
Pujol i Campeny, Afra
Afra
Pujol i Campeny
Queens' College/Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge
01
This paper explores verb initial clauses in Old Catalan, contributing to the debate surrounding Old Romance verb placement. Using data from <i>El Llibre dels Feyts</i>, a 13th century Catalan chronicle, it is established that analyses proposed for V1 clauses for other Old Romance languages do not generally hold for Old Catalan. Instead, V1 clauses from <i>El Llibre dels Feyts</i> behave like Modern Catalan V1 clauses, that is, like V1 clauses of an SVO language. V1 clauses are examined in relation to information structure and predicate types, and systematically compared to their Modern Catalan counterparts. Through this analysis it is established that the uses and structure of Catalan V1 clauses have remained stable through the centuries.
10
01
JB code
la.254.08gal
191
214
24
Chapter
8
01
Chapter 8. Competition, stability and change in the emergence of Brazilian Portuguese
1
A01
Charlotte Galves
Galves, Charlotte
Charlotte
Galves
IEL-Unicamp, Campinas
01
This chapter discusses morphological variation in Brazilian Portuguese, namely the clitic/tonic pronoun alternation and the variation in the morphological realization of subject-verb agreement. We argue on diachronic and synchronic grounds that while the alternation between the clitic and tonic pronoun in the 3rd person is clearly a case of competition between the conservative European grammar and the innovative Brazilian grammar, the other cases of variation are produced by the latter. Both in the case of 1st and 2nd person clitics and in the case of verbal agreement, conservative forms have innovative uses. This supports the claim that they have been reanalyzed in the new system. Clitic doubling of tonic pronouns without a preposition suggests that there was a functional specialization of the 1st and 2nd person clitic forms. As for subject-verb agreement, the licensing and interpretation of null subjects shows that the inflection is too weak to referentially identify empty categories in subject position, even when person and number are overtly realized on the verb. We conclude that part of the morphological variation due to linguistic contact is indeed integrated to the innovative grammar, with morphological elements of the old grammar surviving in apparent, but not actual, competition with new forms.
10
01
JB code
la.254.09ste
215
244
30
Chapter
9
01
Chapter 9. What is a diachronically stable system in a language-contact situation?
The case of the English recipient passive
1
A01
Achim Stein
Stein, Achim
Achim
Stein
Universität Stuttgart
2
A01
Richard P. Ingham
Ingham, Richard P.
Richard P.
Ingham
Universität Mannheim/University of Westminster
3
A01
Carola Trips
Trips, Carola
Carola
Trips
Universität Mannheim
01
In this paper we present data showing that the development of the English recipient passive (RP) was linked predominantly to verbs of French origin, although Old French (OF) did not have an RP. We present two explanations of the role that contact with French could have played in this development. The first explanation builds on the fact that only structurally case-marked arguments can become subjects of passive clauses and assumes that the RP was developed with French verbs because the OF structural dative was copied to Middle English (ME). The second explanation is that clause-taking ditransitive verbs in Anglo-French (AF, the variety of OF spoken in England) showed case idiosyncracies that licensed the RP in AF and may thus have acted as a bridge construction. We relate both explanations to current approaches in contact linguistics as well as to the degrees of stability of the three languages involved, ME, OF, and AF.
10
01
JB code
la.254.10wal
245
262
18
Chapter
10
01
Chapter 10. A variational theory of specialization in acquisition and diachrony
1
A01
Joel C. Wallenberg
Wallenberg, Joel C.
Joel C.
Wallenberg
Newcastle University
01
This article presents an empirical case study in the diachronic <i>specialization</i> of morphosyntactic forms for different syntactic contexts, and uses it to develop a theory of variational specialization. This theory links specialization in diachrony to specialization in language acquisition, sociolinguistic coordination in a speech community, and a general understanding of evolutionary dynamics. The case study illustrates these relationships with the specialization of <i>melted</i> and <i>molten</i> in Early Modern English, and tests the hypothesis that even diachronic specialization in a lexical domain will not take the same trajectory for different speakers, but that the community will nevertheless coordinate on a direction of specialization given multiple generations. In doing so, it answers a question referred to as Yang’s Paradox: how can we reconcile diachronic results showing that specialization is slow, with experimental results on acquisition showing that it’s fast? The study ultimately shows that specialization in a speech community is orders of magnitude slower than specialization for an individual child in an experimental setting, due to the problem of coordinating the dimension and direction of specialization among many speakers. I also show how Yang’s (2000) variational grammar learning model can be extended to the problem of specialization, and that children plausibly do not play an active role in specializing linguistic forms: they only need to identify potential contexts that the forms could specialize for, and the learning analog of natural selection does the rest.
10
01
JB code
la.254.11kau
263
290
28
Chapter
11
01
Chapter 11. Stable variation in multidimensional competition
1
A01
Henri Kauhanen
Kauhanen, Henri
Henri
Kauhanen
The University of Manchester
01
The Fundamental Theorem of Language Change (Yang 2000) implies the impossibility of stable variation in the Variational Learning framework, but only in the special case where two, and not more, grammatical variants compete. Introducing the notion of an advantage matrix, I generalize Variational Learn-ing to situations where the learner receives input generated by more than two grammars, and show that diachronically stable variation is an intrinsic feature of several types of such multiple-grammar systems. This invites experimentalists to take the possibility of stable variation seriously and identifies one possible place where to look for it: situations of complex language contact.
10
01
JB code
la.254.index
291
294
4
Miscellaneous
12
01
Index
02
JBENJAMINS
John Benjamins Publishing Company
01
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam/Philadelphia
NL
04
20190320
2019
John Benjamins B.V.
02
WORLD
13
15
9789027202413
01
JB
3
John Benjamins e-Platform
03
jbe-platform.com
09
WORLD
21
01
00
99.00
EUR
R
01
00
83.00
GBP
Z
01
gen
00
149.00
USD
S
484017828
03
01
01
JB
John Benjamins Publishing Company
01
JB code
LA 254 Hb
15
9789027202413
13
2018053690
BB
01
LA
02
0166-0829
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today
254
01
The Determinants of Diachronic Stability
The
Determinants of Diachronic Stability
01
la.254
01
https://benjamins.com
02
https://benjamins.com/catalog/la.254
1
B01
Anne Breitbarth
Breitbarth, Anne
Anne
Breitbarth
Ghent University
2
B01
Miriam Bouzouita
Bouzouita, Miriam
Miriam
Bouzouita
Ghent University
3
B01
Lieven Danckaert
Danckaert, Lieven
Lieven
Danckaert
University of Lille
4
B01
Melissa Farasyn
Farasyn, Melissa
Melissa
Farasyn
Ghent University
01
eng
300
vi
294
LAN009010
v.2006
CFF
2
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.HL
Historical linguistics
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.SOCIO
Sociolinguistics and Dialectology
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.THEOR
Theoretical linguistics
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.TYP
Typology
06
01
While much of the literature has focused on explaining diachronic variation and change, the fact that sometimes change does not seem to happen has received much less attention. The current volume unites ten contributions that look for the determinants of diachronic stability, mainly in the areas of morphology and (morpho)syntax. The relevant question is approached from different angles, both empirical and theoretical. Empirically, the contributions deal with the absence of change where one may expect it, uncover underlying stability where traditionally diachronic change was postulated, and, inversely, superficial stability that disguises underlying change. Determining factors ranging from internal causes to language contact are explored. Theoretically, the questions of whether stable variation is possible, and how it can be modeled are addressed. The volume will be of interest to linguists working on the causes of language change, and to scholars working on the history of Germanic, Romance, and Sinitic languages.
04
09
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/475/la.254.png
04
03
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/475_jpg/9789027202413.jpg
04
03
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/475_tif/9789027202413.tif
06
09
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_front/la.254.hb.png
07
09
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/125/la.254.png
25
09
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/1200_back/la.254.hb.png
27
09
01
https://benjamins.com/covers/3d_web/la.254.hb.png
10
01
JB code
la.254.01bre
1
10
10
Chapter
1
01
Chapter 1. The determinants of diachronic stability
1
A01
Miriam Bouzouita
Bouzouita, Miriam
Miriam
Bouzouita
Ghent University
2
A01
Anne Breitbarth
Breitbarth, Anne
Anne
Breitbarth
Ghent University
3
A01
Lieven Danckaert
Danckaert, Lieven
Lieven
Danckaert
Université de Lille, CNRS
4
A01
Melissa Farasyn
Farasyn, Melissa
Melissa
Farasyn
Ghent University
10
01
JB code
la.254.02wat
11
38
28
Chapter
2
01
Chapter 2. Gender stability, gender loss
What didn’t happen to German
1
A01
Sheila Watts
Watts, Sheila
Sheila
Watts
University of Cambridge
01
This paper investigates the factors which have led to the diachronic stability of gender as a three-way category in German. Old High German and Old English are contrasted to show how phonological, morphological and semantic changes contribute to a reinforcement of gender as a grammatical category in German, while in English it suffers attrition and loss. The early restructuring of the pronominal declension through analogical pattern generalization is shown to combine gender and case marking in ways which allow the three-way distinction to become more salient over time. The resulting cohesion within noun phrases and gender marking on targets, particularly through the interaction of gender and case marking in the high-frequency nominative and accusative cases, gives gender marking a role in communication. As a result the cognitive effort of acquiring gender pays off and the three-way distinction remains stable.
10
01
JB code
la.254.03far
39
68
30
Chapter
3
01
Chapter 3. Apparent competing agreement patterns in Middle Low German non-restrictive relative clauses with a first or second person head
1
A01
Melissa Farasyn
Farasyn, Melissa
Melissa
Farasyn
Ghent University
01
This paper updates Farasyn (2017), who charted the agreement patterns found in Middle Low German (non-restrictive) relative clauses with a first or second person head. In related West Germanic languages, these clauses show different types of agreement patterns. This study presents new corpus data illustrating how Middle Low German compares to these. Expanding on Farasyn (2017), it investigates the historical development and elements introducing the relative clause, showing that φ-features in older stages of the West Germanic languages are always encoded in the non-restrictive relative clause, though often in different positions. Middle Low German displays a remarkable stability in retaining a covert resumptive pronoun bearing φ-features. An apparent competing pattern with an overt resumptive is a later innovation, as are structures with third person agreement found in neighboring languages.
10
01
JB code
la.254.04sig
69
100
32
Chapter
4
01
Chapter 4. Stability and change in Icelandic weather verbs
Syntax, semantics and argument structure
1
A01
Sigridur Saeunn Sigurdardottir
Sigurdardottir, Sigridur Saeunn
Sigridur Saeunn
Sigurdardottir
Yale University
2
A01
Thórhallur Eythórsson
Eythórsson, Thórhallur
Thórhallur
Eythórsson
University of Iceland
01
Contrary to previous claims, weather verbs in Icelandic are not “no-argument” predicates. Both in Old and Modern Icelandic they can appear with an NP either in nominative, accusative or dative case. It can be shown that in Modern Icelandic the NPs are subjects, and this is likely to have been the case in Old Icelandic. Diachronically, in addition to some changes in subject case marking (Nominative Substitution and Impersonalization), the main innovations in weather verbs involve the introduction of the “expletive” elements <i>það</i> and <i>hann</i>. On the whole, however, there is considerable stability in the use of weather verbs in the history of Icelandic. Not only are the lexical items nearly all the same, but a clear continuity in the syntax of weather expressions can be documented.
10
01
JB code
la.254.05dja
101
130
30
Chapter
5
01
Chapter 5. Disharmony in harmony with diachronic stability
The case of Chinese
1
A01
Redouane Djamouri
Djamouri, Redouane
Redouane
Djamouri
Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale, CNRS-EHESS-INALCO
2
A01
Waltraud Paul
Paul, Waltraud
Waltraud
Paul
Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale, CNRS-EHESS-INALCO
01
Chinese is an intriguing case of syntactic stability. Since the earliest available documents (13th c. BC) up to today, it has displayed SVO order in combination with a head final NP as well as – in subsequent stages – other phenomena said to be typical of SOV languages, such as postpositions (since 1st c. BC) and a head-final CP (since 5th c. BC). This contradicts the received wisdom in the literature that highly ‘disharmonic’ stages are unstable and liable to change towards a (more) ‘harmonic’ one. Taking Chinese as a starting point, the assumption that the concept of stability itself – although inaccessible to the child acquirer and only observable with hindsight by the linguist – is an inbuilt part of human language and hence of universal grammar, is shown to be wrong.
10
01
JB code
la.254.06sit
131
156
26
Chapter
6
01
Chapter 6. Against V2 in Old Spanish
1
A01
Ioanna Sitaridou
Sitaridou, Ioanna
Ioanna
Sitaridou
University of Cambridge, Queens' College
01
In this article, using rich data from 13th C. Spanish, it is argued that Old Spanish does not belong to any known V2 type of language, even the most flexible/relaxed attested type – the latter defined as mandatory verb movement from T-to-Fin/Force without the necessary raising of an XP to the preverbal field (as is the case in prototypical V2 languages such as German); neither does it constitute a new one for lack of evidence for formal movement of the verb to a C-related head. Instead, it is claimed that V2 effects in Old Spanish are due either because (i) verb movement is associated with some discourse effect or polarity; or, (ii) it is simply linear V2. Such V2 effects are trivially found in non-V2 languages and may also relate to rhetorical schemata and the discourse tradition.
10
01
JB code
la.254.07puj
157
190
34
Chapter
7
01
Chapter 7. V1 clauses in Old Catalan
1
A01
Afra Pujol i Campeny
Pujol i Campeny, Afra
Afra
Pujol i Campeny
Queens' College/Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge
01
This paper explores verb initial clauses in Old Catalan, contributing to the debate surrounding Old Romance verb placement. Using data from <i>El Llibre dels Feyts</i>, a 13th century Catalan chronicle, it is established that analyses proposed for V1 clauses for other Old Romance languages do not generally hold for Old Catalan. Instead, V1 clauses from <i>El Llibre dels Feyts</i> behave like Modern Catalan V1 clauses, that is, like V1 clauses of an SVO language. V1 clauses are examined in relation to information structure and predicate types, and systematically compared to their Modern Catalan counterparts. Through this analysis it is established that the uses and structure of Catalan V1 clauses have remained stable through the centuries.
10
01
JB code
la.254.08gal
191
214
24
Chapter
8
01
Chapter 8. Competition, stability and change in the emergence of Brazilian Portuguese
1
A01
Charlotte Galves
Galves, Charlotte
Charlotte
Galves
IEL-Unicamp, Campinas
01
This chapter discusses morphological variation in Brazilian Portuguese, namely the clitic/tonic pronoun alternation and the variation in the morphological realization of subject-verb agreement. We argue on diachronic and synchronic grounds that while the alternation between the clitic and tonic pronoun in the 3rd person is clearly a case of competition between the conservative European grammar and the innovative Brazilian grammar, the other cases of variation are produced by the latter. Both in the case of 1st and 2nd person clitics and in the case of verbal agreement, conservative forms have innovative uses. This supports the claim that they have been reanalyzed in the new system. Clitic doubling of tonic pronouns without a preposition suggests that there was a functional specialization of the 1st and 2nd person clitic forms. As for subject-verb agreement, the licensing and interpretation of null subjects shows that the inflection is too weak to referentially identify empty categories in subject position, even when person and number are overtly realized on the verb. We conclude that part of the morphological variation due to linguistic contact is indeed integrated to the innovative grammar, with morphological elements of the old grammar surviving in apparent, but not actual, competition with new forms.
10
01
JB code
la.254.09ste
215
244
30
Chapter
9
01
Chapter 9. What is a diachronically stable system in a language-contact situation?
The case of the English recipient passive
1
A01
Achim Stein
Stein, Achim
Achim
Stein
Universität Stuttgart
2
A01
Richard P. Ingham
Ingham, Richard P.
Richard P.
Ingham
Universität Mannheim/University of Westminster
3
A01
Carola Trips
Trips, Carola
Carola
Trips
Universität Mannheim
01
In this paper we present data showing that the development of the English recipient passive (RP) was linked predominantly to verbs of French origin, although Old French (OF) did not have an RP. We present two explanations of the role that contact with French could have played in this development. The first explanation builds on the fact that only structurally case-marked arguments can become subjects of passive clauses and assumes that the RP was developed with French verbs because the OF structural dative was copied to Middle English (ME). The second explanation is that clause-taking ditransitive verbs in Anglo-French (AF, the variety of OF spoken in England) showed case idiosyncracies that licensed the RP in AF and may thus have acted as a bridge construction. We relate both explanations to current approaches in contact linguistics as well as to the degrees of stability of the three languages involved, ME, OF, and AF.
10
01
JB code
la.254.10wal
245
262
18
Chapter
10
01
Chapter 10. A variational theory of specialization in acquisition and diachrony
1
A01
Joel C. Wallenberg
Wallenberg, Joel C.
Joel C.
Wallenberg
Newcastle University
01
This article presents an empirical case study in the diachronic <i>specialization</i> of morphosyntactic forms for different syntactic contexts, and uses it to develop a theory of variational specialization. This theory links specialization in diachrony to specialization in language acquisition, sociolinguistic coordination in a speech community, and a general understanding of evolutionary dynamics. The case study illustrates these relationships with the specialization of <i>melted</i> and <i>molten</i> in Early Modern English, and tests the hypothesis that even diachronic specialization in a lexical domain will not take the same trajectory for different speakers, but that the community will nevertheless coordinate on a direction of specialization given multiple generations. In doing so, it answers a question referred to as Yang’s Paradox: how can we reconcile diachronic results showing that specialization is slow, with experimental results on acquisition showing that it’s fast? The study ultimately shows that specialization in a speech community is orders of magnitude slower than specialization for an individual child in an experimental setting, due to the problem of coordinating the dimension and direction of specialization among many speakers. I also show how Yang’s (2000) variational grammar learning model can be extended to the problem of specialization, and that children plausibly do not play an active role in specializing linguistic forms: they only need to identify potential contexts that the forms could specialize for, and the learning analog of natural selection does the rest.
10
01
JB code
la.254.11kau
263
290
28
Chapter
11
01
Chapter 11. Stable variation in multidimensional competition
1
A01
Henri Kauhanen
Kauhanen, Henri
Henri
Kauhanen
The University of Manchester
01
The Fundamental Theorem of Language Change (Yang 2000) implies the impossibility of stable variation in the Variational Learning framework, but only in the special case where two, and not more, grammatical variants compete. Introducing the notion of an advantage matrix, I generalize Variational Learn-ing to situations where the learner receives input generated by more than two grammars, and show that diachronically stable variation is an intrinsic feature of several types of such multiple-grammar systems. This invites experimentalists to take the possibility of stable variation seriously and identifies one possible place where to look for it: situations of complex language contact.
10
01
JB code
la.254.index
291
294
4
Miscellaneous
12
01
Index
02
JBENJAMINS
John Benjamins Publishing Company
01
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam/Philadelphia
NL
04
20190320
2019
John Benjamins B.V.
02
WORLD
08
680
gr
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
21
60
22
01
02
JB
1
00
99.00
EUR
R
02
02
JB
1
00
104.94
EUR
R
01
JB
10
bebc
+44 1202 712 934
+44 1202 712 913
sales@bebc.co.uk
03
GB
21
22
02
02
JB
1
00
83.00
GBP
Z
01
JB
2
John Benjamins North America
+1 800 562-5666
+1 703 661-1501
benjamins@presswarehouse.com
01
https://benjamins.com
01
US CA MX
21
22
01
gen
02
JB
1
00
149.00
USD