Olga Fischer

This book presents a critical comparison of the two leading theories of linguistic change. After introducing the aims and methods of historical linguistics, Olga Fischer provides an exposition of the main theories used to describe morphosyntactic change and a full account of the causes and mechanisms by which their leading exponents seek to explain it. She measures the effectiveness of rival theories and methods in different contexts and in the process throws fresh light on the balance of factors influencing linguistic change. Professor Fischer emphazises the unity of form and meaning in the linguistic sign and examines the role played by analogy. She looks at how changes in discourse, lexicon, semantics, pragmatics, and sound interact with changes in morphosyntax, and explores the relationship between external and internal causes of change. She considers whether morphosyntactic change is gradual or abrupt and discusses how far rates of change reflect the degree to which grammar is innate or learned. She uses detailed case studies to illustrate different types of morphosyntactic change, and to show how each theory fares when put into practice. The author's clear style and her balanced approach to this fascinating and complex subject combine to make this a book that will be of central interest and value to scholars and students of linguistic change, at graduate level and above.

Functional and Formal Perspectives

Morphosyntactic Change

Lars Elleström

Christina Ljungberg

The contributions to Iconic Investigations deal with linguistic or literary aspects of language. While some studies analyze the cognitive structures of language, others pay close attention to the sounds of spoken language and the visual characteristics of written language. In addition this volume also contains studies of media types such as music and visual images that are integrated into the overall project to deepen the understanding of iconicity  the creation of meaning by way of similarity relations. Iconicity is a fundamental but relatively unexplored part of signification in language and other media types. During the last decades, the study of iconicity has emerged as a vital research area with far-reaching interdisciplinary scope and the volume should be of interest for students and researchers interested in scholarly fields such as semiotics, cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor studies, poetry, intermediality, and multimodality.

Iconic Investigations

Wim van der Wurff

Hendrik De Smet

In its 1500-year history, the English language has seen dramatic grammatical changes. This book offers a comprehensive and reader-friendly account of the major developments, including changes in word order, the noun phrase and verb phrase, changing relations between clausal constituents and the development of new subordinate constructions. The book puts forward possible explanations for change, drawing on the existing and most recent literature, and with reference to the major theoretical models. The authors use corpus evidence to investigate language-internal and language-external motivations for change, including the impact of language contact. The book is intended for students who have been introduced to the history of English and want to deepen their understanding of major grammatical changes, and for linguists in general with a historical interest. It will also be of value to literary scholars professionally engaged with older texts.

A Brief History of English Syntax

Muriel Norde

Harry Perridon

The basic idea behind this volume is to probe the nature of grammaticalization. Its contributions focus on the following questions: (i) In how far can grammaticalization be considered a universal diachronic process or mechanism of change and in how far is it conditioned by synchronic factors? (ii) What is the role of the speaker in grammaticalization? (iii) Does grammaticalization itself provide a cause for change or is it an epiphenomenon, i.e. a conglomeration of causal factors/mechanisms which elsewhere occur independently? (iv) If it is epiphenominal, how do we explain that similar pathways so often occur in known cases of grammaticalization? (v) Is grammaticalization unidirectional? (vi) What is the nature of the parameters guiding grammaticalization? The overall aim of the book is to enrich our understanding of what grammaticalization does or does not entail via detailed case studies in combination with theoretical and methodological discussions.

Up and down the Cline  The Nature of Grammaticalization

Max Nänny

Annotation Presents selected papers from a March 1997 symposium held in Zurich, in sections on general topics, sound and rhythm, typography and graphic design, word-formation, and syntax and discourse. Studies explore iconicity from two different angles. A first group of scholars is especially interested in how far the primary code, the code of grammar, is influenced by iconic motivation and how originally iconic models have become conventionalized. A second group of contributors is more interested in the presence of iconicity as part of the secondary code. Specific subjects include imagination by ideophones, the visual poetry of e. e. cummings, and iconic use of syntax in fiction. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Iconicity in Language and Literature

Form Miming Meaning

El?zbieta Tabakowska

Insistent Images presents a number of new departures dealing with iconicity on the conceptual and the structural levels. On the level of structure, the interface between different aspects of iconicity, lexical meaning and grammar is discussed in reference to both spoken and signed languages. Novel approaches to aural iconicity investigate a wide range of phenomena from phonological iconicity to the role of iconic features in discourse, in the nineteenth century practice of reading aloud, in the almost magic incantations of fin de siècle poetry and in Tolkien's invented languages. Several papers examine the function of iconicity in visual and avant-garde poetry, where iconic features allow a reduction of means, which, paradoxically, generates textual diversification and complexity. A discussion of iconic text strategies shows how texts are comprehended through iconic holistic transfer from complex natural and action patterns. 'Liberature', which integrates text, image and physical space, is another novel area of study, as are the investigations into the iconic properties of film and of multimedia performance. Film is intrinsically iconic, while at the same time being, like photography, indexical; in multimedia performance, on the other hand, iconicity functions intermedially by both integrating and reflecting processes of perception and conceptualization. These last two new fields of inquiry further enhance this truly interdisciplinary volume's explorations of icons as 'insistent images'.

Insistent Images

Wolfgang G. Müller

This volume, a sequel to Form Miming Meaning (1999) and The Motivated Sign (2001), offers a selection of papers given at the Third International Symposium on Iconicity in Language and Literature (Jena 2001). The studies collected here present a number of new departures. Special consideration is given to the way non-linguistic visual and auditory signs (such as gestures and bird sounds) are represented in language, and more specifically in 'signed' language, and how such signs influence semantic conceptualization. Other studies examine more closely how visual signs and representations of time and space are incorporated or reflected in literary language, in fiction as well as (experimental) poetry. A further new approach concerns intermedial iconicity, which emerges in art when its medium is changed or another medium is imitated. A more abstract, diagrammatic type of iconicity is again investigated, with reference to both language and literature: some essays focus on the device of reduplication, isomorphic tendencies in word formation and on creative iconic patterns in syntax, while others explore numerical design in Dante and geometrical patterning in Dylan Thomas. A number of theoretically-oriented papers pursue post-Peircean approaches, such as the application of reader-response theory and of systems theory to iconicity.

Iconicity in Language and Literature 3

From Sign to Signing

Roger Eaton

Willem F. Koopman

Frederike van der Leek

These papers are a selection from papers presented at the 4th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (Amsterdam, 1985). Most studies deal with some aspect of an earlier stage of English, though present day varieties of English are also under investigation. Many of the papers show that there is a growing interest in the question why a certain change has taken place. Furthermore, the volume contains a considerable number of papers on historical syntax.

Papers from the 4th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Amsterdam, April 1013, 1985

Universität Zürich

Costantino Maeder

William J. Herlofsky

Université Catholique de Louvain

Universiteit van Amsterdam

This fourth volume of the Iconicity series is like its predecessors devoted to the study of iconicity in language and literature in all its forms. Many of the papers turn the notion of iconicity 'inside-out', some suggesting that 'less-is-more'; others focus on the cognitive factors 'inside' the brain that are important for the iconic phenomena that are produced in the 'outside' world. In addition this volume includes a paper related to iconicity in music and its interaction with language. Other papers range from the theoretical issues involved in the evolution of language, to those that offer many 'inside-out' claims, such as claiming that nouns are derived from pronouns, and as such should more properly be called 'pro-pronouns'. Also, this volume includes perhaps the first English-language analysis of the iconic aspects of sound symbolism in a prayer from the Koran. This is a truly interdisciplinary collection that should turn some of the notions of iconicity in language and literature 'outside-in' and 'inside-out'.

Iconicity in Language and Literature 4

Outside-in, Inside-out

This volume, a sequel to Form Miming Meaning (1999), offers a selection of papers given at the second international symposium on iconicity (Amsterdam 1999). In the light of semiotic, linguistic and literary theory the studies gathered here investigate how iconicity works on all levels of language, in literary texts and other forms of verbal discourse. They investigate, among other subjects, the semiotic foundations of iconicity, the role played by iconicity in language evolution and in the way words are positioned syntactically. Special consideration is given to the iconic nature of metaphor and the 'mise en abyme', to iconically motivated punctuation and other typographic matters such as the manipulation of colour, fonts and spacing in advertising and in poetry. Other studies show how iconicity influences Shakespeare's rhetoric, the structural design of Margaret Atwood's writings and the changing fashions in fictional landscape description. Thus, these analyses of 'the motivated sign' represent yet another strong challenge to Saussure's dogma of arbitrariness (Jakobson).

Iconicity in Language and Literature 2

The Motivated Sign

Ans van Kemenade

Professor of Germanics Olga Fischer

Willem Koopman

This book is a guide to the development of English syntax between the Old and Modern periods. Beginning with an overview of the main features of early English syntax, it gives a unified account of the significant grammatical changes that occurred during this period. Four leading experts demonstrate how these changes can be explained in terms of grammatical theory and the theory of language acquisition. Drawing on a wealth of empirical data, the book covers a wide range of topics including changes in word order, infinitival constructions and grammaticalization processes.

Olga Fischer

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