5. Basic ideas

Chapters in this book

1. Prelim pages i
2. On this book v
3. Table of contents ix
4. I. Orientation
5. 1. Linguistic variables 3
6. 2. Major approaches to linguistic variation 13
7. 3. An overview of syntactic variation studies 23
8. II. Setting the stage
9. 4. The diachronic perspective 33
10. 5. Basic ideas 45
11. 6. In defense of variety structures: the problem of idiolects 51
12. 7. In defense of variety structures: classification systems 57
13. 8. The variety structure of a historical language: overview 63
14. III. A theory of language varieties
15. 9. Variety structures as classification systems 77
16. 10. External criteria 93
17. 11. System-based criteria 101
18. 12. Language, varieties, idiolects 115
19. 13. Varieties and idiolect systems 125
20. IV. Integrating the component approach
21. 14. Variants and variables 135
22. 15. Reconstructions: Chomsky and Seiler 147
23. 16. On the conception of evaluation grammars 157
24. 17. Evaluation grammars, variable rules, and lingustic variables 165
25. 18. Solving the integration problem 177
26. V. Extensions
27. 19. Going beyond varieties 187
28. 20. Grammars and their terminology 203
29. 21. Grammatical statements 219
30. Bibliography 235
31. Index of names 245
32. Index of subjects and terms 248
33. List of symbols and abbreviations 259