Description
Book SynopsisThis is the second book in a two-volume comparative history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean. The work integrates typological, general, and theoretical research, documents patterns and directions of change in negation across languages, and examines the linguistic and social factors that lie behind such changes. The aim of both volumes is to set out an integrated framework for understanding the syntax of negation and how it changes.While the first volume (OUP, 2013) presented linked case studies of particular languages and language groups, this second volume constructs a holistic approach to explaining the patterns of historical change found in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean over the last millennium. It identifies typical developments found repeatedly in the histories of different languages and explores their origins, as well as investigating the factors that determine whether change proceeds rapidly, slowly, or not at all. Language-internal fa
Trade ReviewThis volume can certainly be recommended... [A] generative account that does not omit the role of pragmatics and semantics in language change, that appeals to language contact as a motivator of change, and that, above all, is rooted in empirical observations, is an undoubtedly welcome addition to the field. * Roisin Cosnahan, Journal of Historical Syntax *
Table of Contents1: Introduction Part I: Jespersen's Cycle 2: Empirical generalizations 3: Internal motivations and formal approaches 4: External motivations for Jespersen's cycle Part II: Quantifier cycles and indefinites 5: Empirical generalizations 6: Internal motivations and formal approaches 7: External motivations for change in indefinite systems 8: Conclusion References Index of languages Index of subjects
