Full Description
The issue of permanence and change of word-order patterns has long been debated in both historical linguistics and structural theories. The interest in this theme has been revamped by contemporary research in typology with its emphasis on correlation or 'harmonies' of structures of word-order as explicative principles of both synchronic and diachronic processes. The aim of this book is to stimulate a critical reconsideration of perspectives and methods in the study of continuities and discontinuities of word-order patterns. Bringing together contributions by specialists of various theoretical backgrounds and with expertise in different language families or groups (Caucasian, Hamito-Semitic, and — among Indo-European — Hittite, Greek, Celtic, Germanic, Slavonic, Romance), the book addresses issues like the notions of stability, variation and change of word-order and their interrelations, the interplay of syntactic and pragmatic factors, and the role of internal and external factors in synchronic and diachronic dynamics of word-order. The book contains a selection of papers presented at a workshop held at the XIII International Conference on Historical Linguistics (Düsseldorf, August 1997) and additonal invited contributions.
Contents
1. Acknowledgements; 2. Introduction; 3. Part I. Stylistic and Pragmatic Principles in Stability, Variation and Change; 4. La formation des principes de l'ordre des mots du russe moderne en tant que probleme de stylistique litteraire et de linguistique (by Benoist, Jean-Pierre); 5. From VSO to SVO? Word Order and Rear Extraposition in Coptic (by Loprieno, Antonio); 6. Constitutent Order in Middle Welsh: The Stability of the Pragmatic Principle (by Poppe, Erich); 7. Part II. Stability and Diachrony; 8. Stability Against the Odds? The Survival of Verb Final Order in Akkadian (by Deutscher, Guy); 9. Stability in Clausal/Phrasal Pattern Constituent Sequencing: 4000 Year of Egyptian (with some theoretical reflections, also on Celtic) (by Shisha-Halevy, Ariel); 10. Stability, Variation and Change in Word Order: Some Evidence from the Romance Languages (by Sornicola, Rosanna); 11. Part III. Reanalysis, Grammaticalization and Change; 12. Reanalysis in Word Order Stability and Change (by Faarlund, Jan Terje); 13. Word Order Harmonies and Word Order Change in Georgian (by Harris, Alice C.); 14. Word Order and the First Person Imperative (by Justus, Carol F.); 15. Part IV. Variation and Change; 16. Variant Order of Surface Segmentables on the Border between Morphology and Syntax: The Case of Preradical Verbal Morphology in Kartvelian (by Cherchi, Marcello); 17. Word Order Stability and Change from a Sociolinguistic Perspective: The Case of Early Modern Welsh (by Currie, Oliver); 18. Convergence and Divergence in the Development of the Greek and Latin Clitic Pronouns (by Janse, Mark); 19. Two Word Order Patterns in the History of English: Stability, Variation, and Change (by Koopman, Willem F.); 20. Genitive Constructions in Early Modern English. New Evidence from a Corpus Analysis (by Rosenbach, Anette); 21. Index of names; 22. Index of subjects; 23. Index of languages
