John Benjamins Publishing Company
Chapter 5. Disharmony in harmony with diachronic stability
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Redouane Djamouri
Abstract
Chinese is an intriguing case of syntactic stability. Since the earliest available documents (13th c. BC) up to today, it has displayed SVO order in combination with a head final NP as well as – in subsequent stages – other phenomena said to be typical of SOV languages, such as postpositions (since 1st c. BC) and a head-final CP (since 5th c. BC). This contradicts the received wisdom in the literature that highly ‘disharmonic’ stages are unstable and liable to change towards a (more) ‘harmonic’ one. Taking Chinese as a starting point, the assumption that the concept of stability itself – although inaccessible to the child acquirer and only observable with hindsight by the linguist – is an inbuilt part of human language and hence of universal grammar, is shown to be wrong.
Abstract
Chinese is an intriguing case of syntactic stability. Since the earliest available documents (13th c. BC) up to today, it has displayed SVO order in combination with a head final NP as well as – in subsequent stages – other phenomena said to be typical of SOV languages, such as postpositions (since 1st c. BC) and a head-final CP (since 5th c. BC). This contradicts the received wisdom in the literature that highly ‘disharmonic’ stages are unstable and liable to change towards a (more) ‘harmonic’ one. Taking Chinese as a starting point, the assumption that the concept of stability itself – although inaccessible to the child acquirer and only observable with hindsight by the linguist – is an inbuilt part of human language and hence of universal grammar, is shown to be wrong.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. The determinants of diachronic stability 1
- Chapter 2. Gender stability, gender loss 11
- Chapter 3. Apparent competing agreement patterns in Middle Low German non-restrictive relative clauses with a first or second person head 39
- Chapter 4. Stability and change in Icelandic weather verbs 69
- Chapter 5. Disharmony in harmony with diachronic stability 101
- Chapter 6. Against V2 in Old Spanish 131
- Chapter 7. V1 clauses in Old Catalan 157
- Chapter 8. Competition, stability and change in the emergence of Brazilian Portuguese 191
- Chapter 9. What is a diachronically stable system in a language-contact situation? 215
- Chapter 10. A variational theory of specialization in acquisition and diachrony 245
- Chapter 11. Stable variation in multidimensional competition 263
- Index 291
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. The determinants of diachronic stability 1
- Chapter 2. Gender stability, gender loss 11
- Chapter 3. Apparent competing agreement patterns in Middle Low German non-restrictive relative clauses with a first or second person head 39
- Chapter 4. Stability and change in Icelandic weather verbs 69
- Chapter 5. Disharmony in harmony with diachronic stability 101
- Chapter 6. Against V2 in Old Spanish 131
- Chapter 7. V1 clauses in Old Catalan 157
- Chapter 8. Competition, stability and change in the emergence of Brazilian Portuguese 191
- Chapter 9. What is a diachronically stable system in a language-contact situation? 215
- Chapter 10. A variational theory of specialization in acquisition and diachrony 245
- Chapter 11. Stable variation in multidimensional competition 263
- Index 291
