Overview

This volume centers on three important theoretical concepts for the study of language change and the ways in which language structure emerges and turns into new structure: reanalysis, actualization, and indexicality. Reanalysis is a part of ongoing everyday language use, a process through which language is reproduced and changed. Actualization refers to the processes through which a reanalyzed structure spreads throughout single communities and society. Indexicality covers the way in which parts of a linguistic system can point to other parts of the system, both syntagmatically and paradigmatically. The inclusion of indexicality leads to fine-grained analysis in morphology, word order, and constructional syntax.

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9789027203090

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The potential for fruitful co-existence between historically different approaches to language change is also illustrated by the volume, which takes upinternal ('evolutive') changes analysable interms of stammbaum-type patterns, grammaticalization, the rise of constructional and word order paradigms as well as the role of external factors. -- Peter Harder, University of Copenhagen, in Revue Romane, Volume 56:2 (2021).

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