Analysing changes from every area of grammar, this title addresses recent developments in socio-historical linguistics.

Klappentext

How and why do language changes begin; how and why do they spread; and how can they ultimately be explained? This new textbook sets out to answer these questions in a clear and helpful way which will be accessible to all students with only an elementary knowledge of linguistics.

Zusammenfassung
This new textbook will be accessible to all students with only an elementary knowledge of linguistics. In the first half of the book Dr McMahon analyses changes from from every area of grammar. In the second she addresses recent developments in socio-historical linguistics, and looks at such topics as language contact, linguistic variation, pidgins and creoles, and language death.

Inhalt

Preface and acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. Three views of sound change; 3. Sound change 2 - the implementation problem; 4. Morphological change; 5. Syntactic change 1 - the Transparency Principle; 6. Word order change and grammaticalisation: language change and general laws; 7. Semantic and lexical change; 8. Language contact; 9. Linguistic variation; 10. Pidgins and creoles; 11. Language death; 12. Linguistic evolution?; Bibliography; Index.