Morphosyntactic Change: Functional and Formal Perspectives (Oxford Surveys in Syntax and Morphology) (Oxford Surveys in Syntax & Morphology) - Softcover

Fischer, Olga

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199267057 ISBN 13: 9780199267057

Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A., 2004

Synopsis

Olga Fischer presents a critical analysis of morphosyntactic change and the mechanisms that trigger it. She shows how changes in discourse, lexicon, semantics, pragmatics, and sound interact with changes in morphosyntax, and considers the interface between the internal and external factors of change. She reveals how rates and speed of change in morphosyntax can be used to explore the degree to which grammar is innate or learned. Her book will be of central interest and value to students of linguistic change, at graduate level and above.

About this title

About the Author

Olga Fischer is Professor of Germanic Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam, where her PhD thesis Syntactic Change and Causation: Developments in Infinitival Constructions in English was accepted in 1990. She is a contributor to the Cambridge History of the English Language (CUP 1992), co-author of The Syntax of Early English (CUP 2000), and co-editor of Form Miming Meaning and Pathways of Change (Benjamins 2000 and 2001).

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199267057
• ISBN 13: 9780199267057
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400