Textual Parameters in Older Languages (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory) - Hardcover

International Conference On Historical Linguistics 1993 University Of

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1556199732 ISBN 13: 9781556199738

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2001

Synopsis

Textual Parameters in Older Languages takes a contemporary approach to the inherent limitations of using older texts as data for linguistic analysis, drawing on methods of text analysis, pragmatics and sociolinguistics to supplement traditional historical and philological methods. The focus of the book is on the importance of controlling for textual parameters-defined by the editors as dimensions of variation associated with texts and their production, including text type, degree of poeticality, orality, and dialect-in the analysis of older language data. Failure to do so can result in invalid generalizations; recognizing the influence of textual parameters, conversely, raises a myriad of issues for the practice and theory of historical linguistics.
The 12 essays in this collection apply this approach in analyses of anaphora, non-finite verbal forms, particles, punctuation, word order and other phenomena in a wide range of languages including Ancient Tamil, Sanskrit, Latin, Heian Japanese, Medieval Greek, Old French, Old Russian, Middle English, and Modern Danish. An in-depth introduction by the editors lays out the goals of the textual parameters approach, and considers the methodological and theoretical consequences of the evidence presented in the book as a whole.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1556199732
• ISBN 13: 9781556199738
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 458
• Editor: Herring Susan C., Reenen Pieter Th. Van, Schosler Lene