1st Edition
The Linguistic Cycle Economy and Renewal in Historical Linguistics
Preface
List of Tables
List of Figures
Abbreviations
1 Introduction
1 What is the linguistic cycle?
2 What kinds of cycles exist?
3 How and why to study cyclical change
3.1 The practical side
3.2 The theoretical side
4 Major questions in the study of cycles
5 Terminology
6 Conclusion and outline
Suggestions for further reading
Review questions and exercises
2 History
1 The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
2 The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
3 The mid and late twentieth century
4 Recent generative work
5 Recent functionalist work
6 Conclusion
Suggestions for further reading
Review questions
3 Micro cycles: Determiner and Verbal Cycles
1 Definition of a micro cycle
2 Determiner Cycles
3 Copula Cycles
4 Tense and Aspect Cycles
4.1 The Imperfective Cycle
4.2 The Perfective Cycle
4.3 Imperfective and perfective renewal in Basque
5 Mood Cycles
6 Voice Cycles
7 Conclusion
Suggestions for further reading
Review questions and exercises
4 Micro cycles: Polarity and Discourse Cycles
1 Negative Cycles
1.1 Jespersen’s Negative Cycle
1.2 Givón’s Negative Cycle
1.3 Croft’s Negative Cycle
2 Interrogative Cycles
3 Complementizer Cycles
4 Pragmatic Cycles
4.1 A definition
4.2 Temperal adverbs as sources
4.3 Emphatic Pronoun Cycles
5 Interactions between micro cycles
6 Conclusions
Suggestions for further reading
Review questions and exercises
5 Macro cycles
1 Definition of a macro cycle
2 Analytic to synthetic to analytic
3 Pronoun Cycles
3.1 Subject Cycle
3.2 Object Cycle
3.3 Morpheme Order
4 Case Cycles
5 Interactions involving macro cycles
6 Conclusions
Suggestions for further reading
Review questions and exercises
Appendix
6 Explanations and mechanisms
1 Clarity vs comfort
2 External factors
3 Construction Grammar
4 Early Minimalism: structural and featural economy
5 Later Minimalism: labeling and determinacy
6 Attractor states
7 Conclusions
Suggestions for further reading
Review questions and exercises
7 Conclusions and future directions
1 Insights from cycles
2 Criticisms of the cycle
3 Future directions
Suggested answers to the review questions and exercises
References
Indices
Biography
Elly van Gelderen is Regents’ Professor of English and Linguistics at Arizona State University, USA. Her most recent books include The Linguistic Cycle: Language Change and the Language Faculty (2011), The Diachrony of Meaning (2018), and Third Factors in Language Variation and Change (2022).
