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Item Details
| Title:
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THE EVOLUTION OF GRAMMAR
TENSE, ASPECT AND MODALITY IN THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD |
| By: |
Joan L. Bybee, Revere D. Perkins, William Pagliuca |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| List price:
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£37.00 |
| Our price: |
£33.30 |
| Discount: |
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| You save:
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£3.70 |
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| ISBN 10: |
0226086658 |
| ISBN 13: |
9780226086651 |
| Availability: |
Usually dispatched within 1-3 weeks.
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| Stock: |
Currently 0 available |
| Publisher: |
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS |
| Pub. date: |
1 September, 1994 |
| Edition: |
2nd ed. |
| Pages: |
420 |
| Description: |
This study focuses on the use and meaning of grammatical markers of tense, aspect and modality, and identifies a universal set of grammatical categories. It argues that the same paths of change occur in languages in different phyla and that movement along these paths is in one direction only. |
| Synopsis: |
Joan Bybee and her colleagues present a new theory of the evolution of grammar that links structure and meaning in a way that directly challenges most contemporary versions of generative grammar. This study focuses on the use and meaning of grammatical markers of tense, aspect and modality and identifies a universal set of grammatical categories. The authors demonstrate that the semantic content of these categories evolves gradually and that this process of evolution is strikingly similar across unrelated languages. Through a survey of 76 languages in 25 different phyla, the authors show that the same paths of change occur universally and that movement along these paths is in one direction only. This analysis reveals that lexical substance evolves into grammatical substance through various mechanisms of change, such as metaphorical extension and the conventionalization of implicature. Grammaticization is always accompanied by an increase in frequency of the grammatical marker, providing clear evidence that language use is a major factor in the evolution of synchronic language states. |
| Illustrations: |
70 tables |
| Publication: |
US |
| Imprint: |
University of Chicago Press |
| Returns: |
Returnable |
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