Syntactic Effects of Morphological Change

by David W. Lightfoot (Editor)

Overview

This book presents the latest thinking on the nature and causes of language change. The authors consider how far changes in morphology (e.g. inflectional word endings) cause changes in syntax (e.g. word order). They examine such phenomena from the perspective of current syntactic and psycholinguistic theory, in particular addressing the issues raised by the hypothesis that grammatical change is driven by how children acquire language.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199250691
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/29/2002
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	9.18(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

David W. Lightfoot is Dean of the Graduate School at Georgetown University. Until recently he was Professor of Linguistics and Associate Director of the Neural and Cognitive Science Program at the University of Maryland with a joint appointment as Professor of Linguistics at the University of Reading. His books include Principles of Diachronic Syntax (CUP 1979), The Language Lottery: Toward a Biology of Grammars (MIT Press, 1982), How to Set Parameters: Arguments from Language Change (MIT Press, 1991), and The Development of Language: Acquisition, Change, and Evolution (Blackwell, 1999).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, David W. LightfootPart I: Morphologically Driven Changes2. The History of the Future, Ian Roberts and Anna Roussou3. Case and Middle English Genitive Noun Phrases, Cynthia L. Allen4. Split Constituents Within NP in the History of English: Commentary on Allen, Zeljko Boskovic5. Inflectional Morphology and the Loss of Verb-Second in English, Eric Haeberli6. The Rise of the to Dative in Middle English, Thomas McFadden7. Double Objects and Morphological Triggers for Syntactic Case, Chiara Polo8. Cue-Based Change: Inflection and Subjects in the History of Portuguese Infinitives, Acrisio Pires9. Loss of Verbal Morphology and the Status of Referential Null Subjects in Brazilian Portuguese, Cilene Rodrigues10. Loss of Overt Wh-Movement in Old Japanese, Akira Watanabe11. Changes in Subject Case Marking in Icelandic, Thorhallur EythorssonPart II: Indirect Links Between Morphology and Syntax12. A Reinterpretation of the loss of verb-second in Welsh, Dirk Bury13. The Loss of IP-Scrambling in Portuguese: Clause Structure, Word Order Variation and Change, Ana Maria MartinsPart III: Independent Changes in Movement Operations14. Residual V-to-I, Dianne Jonas15. Syntax and Morphology are Different: Commentary on Jonas, Stephen R. Anderson16. Verb-Object Order in Old English: Variation as Grammatical Competition, Susan Pintzuk17. VO or OV? That's the Underlying Question: Commentary on Pintzuk, Jairo Nunes18. Movement, Morphology, and Learnability, Susana Bejar19. Object Shift and Holmberg's Generalization in the History of Norwegian, John D. SundquistPart IV: Computer Simulations20. The Computational Study of Diachronic Linguistics, Partha Niyogi21. Grammar Competition and Language Change, Charles D. Yang