LINGUIST List 12.2463

Thu Oct 4 2001

Books: Historical Linguistics

Editor for this issue: Richard John Harvey <richardlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Jessica Balaschak, Historical Linguistics: Abraham, Brinton

John Benjamins Publishing would like to announce the publication of
two new titles in the field of Historical Linguistics:

Pr�teritumschwund und Diskursgrammatik.
Pr�teritumschwund in gesamteurop�ischen Bez�gen: areale
Ausbreitung, heterogene Entstehung, Parsing sowie diskursgrammatische
Grundlagen und Zusammenh�nge. Werner Abraham (University of
Groningen, University of California at Berkeley)and C. Jac Conradie
(Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit Johannesburg)


United States and Canada: 1 58811 050 8 / USD 26.95 (Paperback)
Rest of World: 90 272 2576 1 / NLG 60.00 (Paperback)

This work demonstrates that what is commonly called 'preterite decay
in Upper German' (PS; cf. German Pr�teritumschwund) is in fact a
phenomenon common to a great number of European languages, all of
which are in areal con-tact. However, the conclusion that this is a
phenomenon arising under areal influence appears clearly mistaken -
not only so because it would no more than postpone the search for the
real trigger of this development. It will be shown, first, that the
preterite loss in the languages under inspection comes in different
states of completion. It will be seen that the loss of the preterite,
under this perspective, German is by no means a completed
process. Second, and what is more, it will be argued that the trigger
for this decay of the synthetic preterite and its replacement by
analytic preterite forms is the specific criteria under which oral (as
opposed to written) communication is executed. Counter to the rich,
existing literature on the topic, a number of parsing principles will
be claimed to be responsible for this diachronic development yielding
different results due to a different execution of these principles.


Historical Linguistics 1999.
Selected papers from the 14th International Conference on Historical 
Linguistics, Vancouver, 9-13 August 1999.
Laurel J. Brinton (University of British Columbia) (ed.)
Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 215

United States and Canada: 1 58811 064 8 / USD 105.00 (Hardcover)
Rest of World: 90 272 3722 0 / NLG 230.00 (Hardcover)

This is a selection of papers from the 14th International Conference
on Historical Linguistics held August 9-13, 1999, at the University of
British Columbia. From the rich program and the many papers given
during this conference, the present twenty-three papers were carefully
selected to display the state of current research in the field of
historical linguistics. Contributions by: Minoji Akimoto: How far has
far from become grammaticalized?; Gregory D.S. Anderson and Norman
H. Zide: Recent advances in the reconstruction of the Proto-Munda
verb; Janice M. Aski: Multivariable analysis and phonological split;
Kristin Bech: Are Old English conjunct clauses really verb-final?;
Delia Bentley and Th�rhallur Eyth�rsson: Alternation according to
person in Italo-Romance; Vit Bubenik: On ablaut and aspect in the
history of Aramaic; Young-mee Y. Cho: Language change and the
phonological lexicon of Korean; Karen Dakin: Animals and vegetables,
Uto-Aztecan noun derivation, semantic classification, and cultural
history; David Denison: Gradience and linguistic change; Randall Gess:
Distinctive vowel length in Old French: evidence and implications;
Gunnar �lafur Hansson: Remains of a submerged continent:
preaspiration in the languages of Northwest Europe; Jacob Hoeksema:
Rapid change among expletive polarity items; Maria M. Manoliu: The
conversational factor in language change: from prenominal to
postnominal demonstratives; Ana Maria Martins: On the origin of the
Portuguese inflected infinitive: a new perspective on an enduring
debate; D. Gary Miller: Innovation of the indirect reflexive in Old
French; Marianne Mithun: Lexical forces shaping the evolution of
grammar; Johanna Nichols: Why 'me' and 'thee'?; Anette Rosenbach: The
English s-genitive: animacy, topicality and possessive relationship in
a diachronic perspective; Gregory Stump: Default inheritance
hierarchies and the evolution of inflectional classes; Marie-Lucie
Tarpent: On the eve of a new paradigm: the current challenges to
comparative linguistics in a Kuhnian perspective; Donald N. Tuten:
Modeling koineization; Annette Veerman-Leichsenring: Coreference in
the Popolocan languages; Theo Vennemann: Atlantis Semitica: structural
contact features in Celtic and English.

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