Meaning Change in Grammaticalization

An Enquiry into Semantic Reanalysis

Regine Eckardt (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

298 Seiten

2008
Oxford University Press (Verlag)
978-0-19-955647-2 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

This book explores the semantic and pragmatic mechanisms underlying grammaticalization. Regine Eckardt argues that language change frequently involves a structural reorganization at the phonological, morphological, and syntactic levels. Speakers not only master the structural aspect of such reanalyses, they also-as the author argues-keep a detailed mental record of what has happened to meaning. The author develops semantic reanalysis as the semantic correlate and tracks its effects in meaning change. Several case studies offer new insights in the architecture of conceptual thinking that is part of the human language faculty.

Professor Eckardt develops her approach in terms of formal semantic theory. She shows how neatly tailored analyses in truth-conditional compositional semantics can elucidate the structural mechanisms of meaning change. Her exposition is advanced in the context of several in-depth case studies containing data new to historical linguistics.

Regine Eckardt is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Göttingen and associate editor of the Journal of Semantics. She is the author of Events, Adverbs and Other Things (1998) and of numerous articles on semantics, pragmatics, and language change, and with Klaus von Heusinger and Christoph Schwarze, editor of Words in Time (2003).

1. Introduction ; 2. Meaning Change Under Reanalysis: Previous Views ; 3. Truth Conditional Semantics ; 4. What is Going to Happen ; 5. From Step to Negation: The Development of French Complex Negation Patterns ; 6. From Intensifier to Focus Particle ; 7. To Be or Not To Be a Determiner ; 8. Semantic Reanalysis: The Algebraic Backbone of Meaning Change ; Appendix ; Source Texts by Chapter ; References ; Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	2.10.2008
Zusatzinfo	Tables, figures, line drawings
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	157 x 234 mm
Gewicht	473 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Sprachphilosophie
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Sprachwissenschaft
ISBN-10	0-19-955647-4 / 0199556474
ISBN-13	978-0-19-955647-2 / 9780199556472
Zustand	Neuware