Items related to Historical Linguistics and Language Change (Cambridge...
Historical Linguistics and Language Change (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, Series Number 81) - Hardcover
Language change happens in the spatio-temporal world. Historical linguistics is the craft linguists exercise upon its results, in order to tell coherent stories about it. In a series of linked essays Roger Lass offers a critical survey of the foundations of the art of historical linguistics, and its interaction with its subject matter, language change. He takes as his background some of the major philosophical issues which arise from these considerations, such as ontology, realism and conventionalism, and explanation. Along the way he poses such questions as: where does our data come from; how trustworthy is it; what is the empirical basis for the reconstructive techniques we standardly take as yielding facts; and how much does the historian create data rather than receiving it? The paradoxical conclusion is that our historiographical methods are often better than the data they have to work with.
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Review:
'This is a very interesting book, and the reader who is familiar with the basics of historical linguistics will find it inspiring and stimulating.' Moderna Sprak
Book Description:
Roger Lass offers a critical survey of the foundations of the art of historical linguistics, and its interaction with its subject matter, language change, taking as his background some of the major philosophical issues which arise from these considerations.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherCambridge University Press
- Publication date1997
- ISBN 10 0521453089
- ISBN 13 9780521453080
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages447
- Rating
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