The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the WorldJoan Bybee and her colleagues present a new theory of the evolution of grammar that links structure and meaning in a way that directly challenges most contemporary versions of generative grammar. This study focuses on the use and meaning of grammatical markers of tense, aspect, and modality and identifies a universal set of grammatical categories. The authors demonstrate that the semantic content of these categories evolves gradually and that this process of evolution is strikingly similar across unrelated languages. Through a survey of seventy-six languages in twenty-five different phyla, the authors show that the same paths of change occur universally and that movement along these paths is in one direction only. This analysis reveals that lexical substance evolves into grammatical substance through various mechanisms of change, such as metaphorical extension and the conventionalization of implicature. Grammaticization is always accompanied by an increase in frequency of the grammatical marker, providing clear evidence that language use is a major factor in the evolution of synchronic language states. The Evolution of Grammar has important implications for the development of language and for the study of cognitive processes in general. |
Contents
ONE Theoretical Background | 1 |
TWO Method Used in the Study | 27 |
THREE Anteriori Perfective and Related Senses | 51 |
FOUR A Quantitative Approach to Grammaticization | 106 |
FIVE Progressive Imperfective Present and Related Senses | 125 |
SIX Mood and Modality | 176 |
SEVEN Future | 243 |
EIGHT Mechanisms of Semantic Change | 281 |
Meaning Labels | 316 |
Sources of Language Data | 325 |
Bibliography for GRAMCATS Sample | 357 |
References | 365 |
| 377 | |
| 380 | |
| 384 | |
GRAMCATS Sampling Procedure | 303 |
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Common terms and phrases
ability Abkhaz action affixes allomorph Alyawarra anteriors Atchin AUX-I auxiliary Baluchi Basque Buriat Bybee Bybee and Pagliuca chapter Chepang coded complement clauses completive concessive construction contexts cross-linguistic Dahl database derivational diachronic domain dynamic verbs English examples expression functions fusion future grams gram-types grammatical meaning grammaticization grams Guaymí Heine hypothesis immediate future imperative indicates inference inflectional Inuit irrealis iterative lexical sources Linguistics locative Maidu main clause main verb marker matical meaning labels mechanisms of change Mengal metaphor morphemes Mwera Nakanai occur participle particle past imperfective Past Tense paths of development Perfage perfective periphrastic phonological present tense progressive reduplication reference grammar Related Strings remote restricted resultative root possibility sample semantic change sense sentences signal simple past situation speaker specific stative predicates stative verbs subjunctive subordinate clauses suffix Table temporal tense and aspect tion tive Tok Pisin Trukese Tucano types University verb forms weak obligation Yagaria Yessan-Mayo zero
References to this book
An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics Friedrich Ungerer,Hans-Jörg Schmid No preview available - 2006 |