Syntactic Change: A Minimalist Approach to Grammaticalization

by Ian Roberts, Anna Roussou

Overview

The phenomenon of grammaticalization—the historical process whereby new grammatical material is created—has attracted a great deal of attention within linguistics in recent years. This book shows how this approach leads to a number of important conceptual and theoretical issues concerning the nature of functional categories and the form of parameters, as well as the relation of both of these to language change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521790567
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/04/2003
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Linguistics , #100
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Ian Roberts is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Cambridge.

Anna Roussou is Assistant Professor at the University of Patras, Greece.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Parameters, functional heads and language change; 2. T elements; 3. C elements; 4. D elements; 5. Theoretical consequences; References; Index of languages; Index of names; Index of subjects.

Editorial Reviews

"a welcome and unique contribution to the vast body of research on grammaticalization. It offers a perspective different from the more functionalist or cognitivist perspective one usually finds ... and it is well-organized, well-written, and well-argued. This work is a must-read for anyone seriously interested in the nature of syntactic change."

From the Publisher