Bringing together the explanatory potential of recent grammaticalization theory, and the insights from the latest studies of the process of auxiliation and the psychology of language use, this book represents a valuable achievement in the investigation of grammatical language change and linguistic communication in general.

Auxiliation: An Enquiry into the Nature of Grammaticalization (Oxford Linguistics)

Reference

Kuteva, Tania

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Oxford University Press

This book reconstructs what the earliest grammars might have been and shows how they could have led to the languages of modern humankind. Like other biological phenomena, language cannot be fully understood without reference to its evolution, whether proven or hypothesized," wrote Talmy Givón in 2002. As the languages spoken 8,000 years ago were typologically much the same as they are today and as no direct evidence exists for languages before then, evolutionary linguists are at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts in biology. Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva seek to overcome this obstacle by combining grammaticalization theory, one of the main methods of historical linguistics, with work in animal communication and human evolution. The questions they address include: do the modern languages derive from one ancestral language or from more than one? What was the structure of language like when it first evolved? And how did the properties associated with modern human languages arise, in particular syntax and the recursive use of language structures? The authors proceed on the assumption that if language evolution is the result of language change then the reconstruction of the former can be explored by deploying the processes involved in the latter. Their measured arguments and crystal-clear exposition will appeal to all those interested in the evolution of language, from advanced undergraduates to linguists, cognitive scientists, human biologists, and archaeologists.

The Genesis of Grammar: A Reconstruction (Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language)

Heine, Bernd

"This book reconstructs what the earliest grammars might have been and shows how they could have led to the languages of modern humankind." Like other biological phenomena, language cannot be fully understood without reference to its evolution, whether proven or hypothesized," wrote Talmy Givón in 2002. As the languages spoken 8,000 years ago were typologically much the same as they are today and as no direct evidence exists for languages before then, evolutionary linguists are at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts in biology. Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva seek to overcome this obstacle by combining grammaticalization theory, one of the main methods of historical linguistics, with work in animal communication and human evolution. The questions they address include: do the modern languages derive from one ancestral language or from more than one? What was the structure of language like when it first evolved? And how did the properties associated with modern human languages arise, in particular syntax and the recursive use of language structures? The authors proceed on the assumption that if language evolution is the result of language change then the reconstruction of the former can be explored by deploying the processes involved in the latter. Their measured arguments and crystal-clear exposition will appeal to all those interested in the evolution of language, from advanced undergraduates to linguists, cognitive scientists, human biologists, and archaeologists.

Bringing together the explanatory potential of recent grammaticalization theory, and the insights from the latest studies of the process of auxiliation and the psychology of language use, this book represents a valuable achievement in the investigation of grammatical language change and linguistic communication in general.

Auxiliation: An Enquiry into the Nature of Grammaticalization

This book shows that the languages and dialects of Europe are becoming increasingly alike and furthermore that this unifying process goes back to Roman times, is accelerating, and affects every European language including those of different families such as Basque and Finnish. The unifying process involves every grammatical aspect of the languages and operates through changes so minute that native speakers fail to notice them. The authors reveal when, how, and why common grammatical structures have evolved and continue to evolve in processes of change that will transform the linguistic landscape of Europe.

The Changing Languages of Europe (Oxford Linguistics)

The Changing Languages of Europe

Words, Language & Grammar

World Lexicon of Grammaticalization

While the comparative method is concerned with regularities in phonological change, grammaticalization theory deals with regularities of grammatical change. In an A-Z format, this book summarizes the most salient generalizations that have been made on the unidirectional change of grammatical forms and constructions. It thus demonstrates that grammatical change is regular and also adds to our knowledge of universal properties of human languages. Indices organized by source and target concepts allow for flexible use, and the findings delineated in the book are relevant to students of language across theoretical boundaries.

Cambridge University Press

Language Contact and Grammatical Change (Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact)

The phenomenon of language contact, and how it affects the structure of languages, has been of great interest to linguists in recent years. This pioneering new study looks at how grammatical forms and structures evolve when speakers of two languages come into contact, and offers insight into the mechanism that induces people to transfer grammatical structures from one language to another. The book will be of great interest to all working in grammaticalization, language contact, and language change.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

The Rise of Discourse Markers

Discourse markers constitute an important part of linguistic communication, and research on this phenomenon has been a thriving field of study over the past three decades. However, a problem that has plagued this research is that these markers exhibit a number of structural characteristics that are hard to interpret based on existing methodologies, such as grammaticalization. This study argues that it is possible to explain such characteristics in a meaningful way. It presents a cross-linguistic survey of the development of discourse markers, their important role in communication, and their relation to the wider context of sociocultural behaviour, with the goal of explaining their similarities and differences across a typologically wide range of languages. By giving a clear definition of discourse markers, it aims to provide a guide for future research, making it essential reading for students and researchers in linguistics, and anyone interested in exploring this fascinating linguistic phenomenon.

Long, Haiping

Kaltenböck, Gunther

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Books by Kuteva, Tania

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kuteva, Tania. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Auxiliation: An Enquiry into the Nature of Grammaticalization (Oxford Linguistics)

The Genesis of Grammar: A Reconstruction (Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language)

The Genesis of Grammar: A Reconstruction (Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language)

Auxiliation: An Enquiry into the Nature of Grammaticalization

The Changing Languages of Europe (Oxford Linguistics)

The Changing Languages of Europe

World Lexicon of Grammaticalization

World Lexicon of Grammaticalization

Language Contact and Grammatical Change (Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact)

The Rise of Discourse Markers