Understanding Language Change

374 Pages·1994·18.281 MB·

by  April M. S. McMahon

This new textbook is designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate
students of historical linguistics and language change. It looks at such
questions as: how and why do language changes begin; how and why do
they spread; and how can they ultimately be explained? In the first
half of the book Dr McMahon analyses changes from every area of
grammar: phonetics and phonology; morphology; syntax; semantics;
and vocabulary. In the second she addresses recent developments in
socio-historical linguistics, and looks at such topics as language contact,
linguistic variation, pidgins and Creoles, and language death. Throughout
the discussion is illustrated by a wealth of examples from English and
other languages.
Understanding language change gives an exceptionally clear and
accessible account of both the internal and external motivation for
language change. It will be welcomed as a follow-up to such introductory
books as Jean Aitchison's Language change: progress or decay?, also
published by Cambridge University Press.

Understanding language change

Understanding language change
April M. S. McMahon
University Lecturer in Linguistics, University of
Cambridge, and Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521441193
© Cambridge University Press 1994
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1994
Reprinted 1995, 1996, 1999
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
McMahon, April M. S.
Understanding language change /April M. S. McMahon.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 521 44119 6 (hardback) ISBN 0 521 44665 1 (paperback)
1. Linguistic change I. Title.
P142.M38 1994
417'.7-dc20 93-8121 CIP
ISBN 978-0-521-44119-3 hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-44665-5 paperback
Transferred to digital printing 2009
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
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To Rob
At the still point of the turning world ...
... at the still point, there the dance is
(T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton)

Contents
Preface and acknowledgements page xi
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Linguistic similarities and relationships 1
1.2 Language change and linguistic reconstruction 6
1.3 Synchrony and diachrony 9
1.4 The organisation of this book 11
2 Three views of sound change 14
2.1 Introduction: types of sound change 14
2.2 The Neogrammarians 17
2.3 The Structuralists 24
2.4 The Generativists 32
2.5 The question of explanation 44
3 Sound change 2: the implementation problem 47
3.1 Introduction 47
3.2 Lexical diffusion 47
3.3 Lexical Phonology and sound change 56
4 Morphological change 69
4.1 Introduction 69
4.2 Analogy 70
4.3 Natural Morphology 97
5 Syntactic change 1: the Transparency Principle 107
5.1 Introduction 107
5.2 Earlier work on syntactic change 107
5.3 Lightfoot's (1979a) theory of syntactic change 116
5.4 Reactions and criticisms 123
5.5 Lightfoot and the principles and parameters model 129
6 Word order change and grammaticalisation: language
change and general laws 138
6.1 Introduction 138
6.2 Typology and consistency in word order 139
6.3 Grammaticalisation 160
IX