This book explores the key mechanisms underlying semantic change. Meaning changes work, the author shows, through modes of reanalysis undertaken by speakers and listeners, and are particularly evident in processes of grammaticalization in which lexical items lose autonomous meaning. Regine Eckardt's approach is derived from formal semantic theory and developed in the context of several in-depth case studies. Her book will interest scholars and advanced students of historical and comparative linguistics and formal semantics.
This book explores the key mechanisms underlying semantic change. Meaning changes work, the author shows, through modes of reanalysis undertaken by sp...
Can language change be modelled as an evolutionary process? Can notions like variation, selection and competition be fruitfully applied to facts of language development? This volume offers a rich spectrum of ways to elucidate these questions, confronting studies from the perspective of historical and creole linguistics with research in Artificial Intelligence and mathematical modelling of language change.
Can language change be modelled as an evolutionary process? Can notions like variation, selection and competition be fruitfully applied to facts of la...
This book explores the semantic and pragmatic mechanisms underlying grammaticalization. Regine Eckardt argues that language change frequently involves a structural reorganization at the phonological, morphological, and syntactic levels. Speakers not only master the structural aspect of such reanalyses, they also-as the author argues-keep a detailed mental record of what has happened to meaning. The author develops semantic reanalysis as the semantic correlate and tracks its effects in meaning change. Several case studies offer new insights in the architecture of conceptual thinking that is...
This book explores the semantic and pragmatic mechanisms underlying grammaticalization. Regine Eckardt argues that language change frequently involves...
TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science.
TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as...
TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work ...
