About the Book
The studies in this volume are revised versions of a selection from the papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, held at Stanford University on 26–30 March 1979. Papers at this conference, and in this volume, treat aspects of all current topics in historical linguistics, including topics that are only recently considered relevant, such as acquisition, structure, and language use.
Table of Contents:
1. Acknowledgments, pv; 2. preface, p1-6; 3. Typology as instigator and regulator of linguistic change (by Holman, Eugene), p7-16; 4. Explaining universals and their exceptions (by Campbell, Lyle), p17-26; 5. Continuity of transmission and genetic relationship (by Thomason, Sarah G.), p27-35; 6. Chance cognition: A probabilistic model and decision procedure for historical inference (by Justeson, John S.), p37-45; 7. Redundancy as explanation in historical linguistics (by Christie, Jr., William M.), p47-51; 8. The structure of meaning in semiotic perspective (by Shapiro, Michael), p53-59; 9. Pragmatic and sociolinguitsic bias in semantic change (by Klein-Andreu, Flora), p61-74; 10. The marking of definiteness: A diachronic perspective (by Harris, Martin B.), p75-86; 11. A functional approach to syntactic reconstruction (by Mithun, Marianne), p87-96; 12. Implications of pre-complementizers with hittite sak-/sek- 'know' (by Justus, Carol F.), p97-106; 13. On word order in irish (by Ahlqvist, Anders), p107-113; 14. Marked and unmarked word order in old norse (by Christoffersen, Marit), p115-121; 15. An analysis of the rise of SOV patterns in dutch (by Gerritsen, Marinel), p123-136; 16. Developments in the dutch left-dislocation structures and the verb-second constraint (by Jansen, Frank), p137-149; 17. from passive too active in kurdish via the ergative construction (by Bynon, Theodora), p151-163; 18. On the loss of a rule of syntax (by Harris, Alice C.), p165-171; 19. The development of accusative-infinitive constructions (by Pepicello, W.J.), p175-182; 20. Syntactic diffusion (by Saltarelli, Mario), p183-191; 21. infinitival complements to verbs of motion in ontarian and quebec french (by Canale, Michael), p193-198; 22. Verb compounds in greek: the elimination of a transformational rule (by Horrocks, Geoffrey C.), p199-209; 23. The role of perception in restructuring and relexicalization: two case histories (by Herbert, Robert K.), p211-220; 24. the evolution of clitics (by Jeffers, Robert J.), p221-231; 25. Circumfixes and typological change (by Greenberg, Joseph H.), p233-241; 26. On the decline of declensional systems: the overall loss of OE nominal case inflections and the ME reanalysis of - es as his (by Janda, Richard D.), p243-252; 27. Conditions on object marking: stages in the history of the east slavic Genitive-accusative (by Klenin, Emily), p253-257; 28. Reduction of case markers in Lithuanian: data for discussion (by Reklaitis, Janine K.), p259-271; 29. Analogy and inflectional affix replacement (by Wheeler, Max W.), p273-283; 30. Russian conjugation: Acquisition and evolutive change (by Andersen, Henning), p285-301; 31. Sound change and child language (by Vihman, Marilyn), p303-320; 32. The fluctuating intensity of a 'sound law' (by Malkiel, Yakov), p321-330; 33. Linguistic reasons for phonetic archaisms in romance (by Wright, Roger), p331-337; 34. Early intervocalic voicing in tuscan (by Wanner, Dieter), p339-347; 35. The transition problem: lexical diffusion vs. variable rules (by Reighard, John), p349-354; 36. Lexical alternation and the history of english: evidence from an urban vernacular (by Milroy, James), p355-362; 37. Pragmatic features and phonological change (by Laferriere, Martha), p363-369; 38. Tonal accents in basque and greek (by Grundt, Alice Wyland), p371-379; 39. Acquisition and development of "gastarbeiterdeutsch" by migrant workers and their children in germany (by Pfaff, Carol W.), p381-395; 40. Pidginization and foreigner talk: chinese pidgin russian (by Nichols, Johanna), p397-407; 41. Concluding statement (by Kiparsky, Paul), p409-417; 42. Index of names, p419-428; 43. Index of languages, p429-432; 44. Index of subject matter, p433-437
