Language Change: Progress or Decay? (Cambridge Approaches to Linguistics)

Aitchison, Jean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521795354 ISBN 13: 9780521795357

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2011

This book gives a lucid and up-to-date overview of language change, discussing where our evidence about language change comes from, how and why changes happen, and how languages begin and end. It considers both changes that occurred long ago, and those currently in progress. This substantially revised third edition includes two new chapters on change of meaning and grammaticalization. New sections have been added to other chapters, as well as over 150 new references. The work remains nontechnical in style and accessible to the reader with no previous knowledge of linguistics.

Review:

'The book is a very good and readable introduction to the discipline of historical linguistics and covers a very large number of questions.' The Linguist

Book Description:

This is a lucid and up-to-date overview of language change, considering both changes that occurred long ago and those currently in progress. This substantially revised third edition includes two new chapters on change of meaning and grammaticalization. New sections have also been added as well as over150 new references.