Ask-A-Linguist Message Details
| Subject: | Examples of a language becoming more agglutinative over time. |
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| Question: |
It seems to me - at least when looking at Indo-European languages - that there ise a tendency for languages to turn more analytical over time (say we compare Proto-Indo-European to Ancient Greek to Modern Romance languages). Can you bring an example of the opposite to have happened (that is to say, the languages having turned more synthetical)? Furthermore, can you bring an example of a language having developed additional cases when compared to its older variation? |
| Reply: |
Just the <a href="http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler/Grammaticalization.pdf">Grammaticalization Cycle</a> at work. It works in both directions. |
| Reply From: | John M. Lawler click here to access email |
| Date: | 29-Oct-2012 |
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