Towards a comprehensive view of language change: Three recent evolutionary approaches
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Esme Winter-Froemel
Abstract
This article investigates whether evolutionary accounts can offer new insights into the paradox of language change. Specifically, I will examine three recent influential accounts (Haspelmath 1999, Keller 1994, and Croft 2000). As they contain a broad spectrum of positions on the relations between language and biology, they can be divided into metaphorical, biologistic and generalized views. Cross-cutting these, two types of evolutionary accounts are distinguished, which I call adaptive and two-level views, respectively. I critically evaluate their potential to provide satisfactory explanations for various types of change, drawing on examples from Romance and Germanic. Finally, I propose a revised explanation scheme which brings together the two-level approaches with theoretical distinctions and explanatory factors that have been suggested in earlier non-evolutionary frameworks, so that a more comprehensive view of language change can be obtained.
Abstract
This article investigates whether evolutionary accounts can offer new insights into the paradox of language change. Specifically, I will examine three recent influential accounts (Haspelmath 1999, Keller 1994, and Croft 2000). As they contain a broad spectrum of positions on the relations between language and biology, they can be divided into metaphorical, biologistic and generalized views. Cross-cutting these, two types of evolutionary accounts are distinguished, which I call adaptive and two-level views, respectively. I critically evaluate their potential to provide satisfactory explanations for various types of change, drawing on examples from Romance and Germanic. Finally, I propose a revised explanation scheme which brings together the two-level approaches with theoretical distinctions and explanatory factors that have been suggested in earlier non-evolutionary frameworks, so that a more comprehensive view of language change can be obtained.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Syntactic change from within and from without syntax: A usage-based analysis 13
- On explaining the rise of c'est -clefts in French 31
- The role of the plural system in Romance 57
- Morphological developments affecting syntactic change 85
- Grammaticalisation within the IP-domain 107
- Imperfect systems and diachronic change 127
- From temporal to modal: Divergent fates of the Latin synthetic pluperfect in Spanish and Portuguese 147
- Non-lexical core-arguments in Basque, Romance and German: How (and why) Spanish syntax is shifting towards clausal headmarking and morphological cross-reference 181
- Towards a comprehensive view of language change: Three recent evolutionary approaches 215
- Subject Index 251
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Syntactic change from within and from without syntax: A usage-based analysis 13
- On explaining the rise of c'est -clefts in French 31
- The role of the plural system in Romance 57
- Morphological developments affecting syntactic change 85
- Grammaticalisation within the IP-domain 107
- Imperfect systems and diachronic change 127
- From temporal to modal: Divergent fates of the Latin synthetic pluperfect in Spanish and Portuguese 147
- Non-lexical core-arguments in Basque, Romance and German: How (and why) Spanish syntax is shifting towards clausal headmarking and morphological cross-reference 181
- Towards a comprehensive view of language change: Three recent evolutionary approaches 215
- Subject Index 251
