Understanding Language Change [Paperback]

This textbook analyses changes from every area of grammar and addresses recent developments in socio-historical linguistics.How and why do language changes begin and spread? This text answers these questions for students with only an elementary knowledge of linguistics by analyzing changes from every area of grammar and looking at language contact, linguistic variation, pidgins and Creoles and language death.How and why do language changes begin and spread? This text answers these questions for students with only an elementary knowledge of linguistics by analyzing changes from every area of grammar and looking at language contact, linguistic variation, pidgins and Creoles and language death.How and why do language changes begin; how and why do they spread; and how can they ultimately be explained? This new textbook sets out to answer these questions in a clear and helpful way that will be accessible to all students with only an elementary knowledge of linguistics. In the first half of the book Dr. McMahon analyzes changes from every area of grammar. In the second she looks at such topics as language contact, linguistic variation, pidgins and Creoles, and language death. Throughout, the discussion is illustrated by a wealth of examples from English and other languages.Preface and acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. Three views of sound change; 3. Sound change 2 - the implementation problem; 4. Morphological change; 5. Syntactic change 1 - the Transparency Principle; 6. Word order change and grammaticalisation: language change and general laws; 7. Semantic and lexical change; 8. Language contact; 9. Linguistic variation; 10. Pidgins and creoles; 11. Language death; 12. Linguistic evolution?; Bibliography; Index. ...an admirable review and summary of research and theory of language change over the last two centuries... Language Understanding Language Chnage is a clear and coherent guide to many of the complex issues of contemporary historical linguistics....the bl“+