The studies in this volume are revised versions of a selection from the papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, held at Stanford University on 26 30 March 1979. Papers at this conference, and in this volume, treat aspects of all current topics in historical linguistics, including topics that are only recently considered relevant, such as acquisition, structure, and language use.
These papers are a selection from papers presented at the 4th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (Amsterdam, 1985). Most studies deal with some aspect of an earlier stage of English, though present day varieties of English are also under investigation. Many of the papers show that there is a growing interest in the question why a certain change has taken place. Furthermore, the volume contains a considerable number of papers on historical syntax.
The studies in this volume are revised versions of a selection from the papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, held at Stanford University on 26–30 March 1979. Papers at this conference, and in this volume, treat aspects of all current topics in historical linguistics, including topics that are only recently considered relevant, such as acquisition, structure, and language use.
The collected articles in this volume address an array of cutting-edge issues in the field of historical linguistics, including new theoretical approaches and innovative methodologies for studying language through a diachronic lens. The articles focus on the following themes: I. Case & Argument Structure, II. Alignment & Diathesis, III. Patterns, Paradigms, & Restructuring, IV. Grammaticalization & Construction Grammar, V. Corpus Linguistics & Morphosyntax, VI. Languages in Contact. Papers reflect a wide range of perspectives, and focus on issues and data from an array of languages and language families, from new analyses of case and argument structure in Ancient Greek to phonological evidence for language contact in Vietnamese, from patterns of convergence in Neo-Aramaic to the development of the ergative in Basque. The volume contributes substantially to the debate surrounding core issues of language change: the role of the individual speaker, the nature of paths of grammaticalization, the role of contact, the interface of diachrony and synchrony, and many other issues. It should be useful to any reader hoping to gain insight into the nature of language change.
The collection of articles presented in this volume addresses a number of general theoretical, methodological and empirical issues in the field of Historical Linguistics, in different levels of analysis and on different themes: (i) phonology, (ii) morphology, (iii) morphosyntax, (iv) syntax, (v) diachronic typology, (vi) semantics and pragmatics, and (vii) language contact, variation and diffusion. The topics discussed, often in a comparative perspective, feature a variety of languages and language families and cover a wide range of research areas. Novel analyses and often new diachronic data — also from less known and under-investigated languages — are provided to the debate on the principles, mechanisms, paths and models of language change, as well as the relationship between synchronic variation and diachrony. The volume is of interest to scholars of different persuasions working on all aspects of language change.
This is a selection of papers from the 14th International Conference on Historical Linguistics held August 9-13, 1999, at the University of British Columbia. From the rich program and the many papers given during this conference, the present twenty-three papers were carefully selected to display the state of current research in the field of historical linguistics.
The use of linguistic forms derived from the lexicon denoting sacred entities is often subject to tabooing behaviour. In the 15th and 16th century phrases like by gogges swete body or by cockes bones allowed speakers to address God without really saying the name; cf. Hock (1991: 295). The religious interjections based on the phonetically corrupt gog and cock are evidenced to have gained currency in the 16th century. In the 17th century all interjections based on religious appellations ceased to appear on stage in accordance with the regulations of the Act to Rest.
