Competition in language change : the rise of the English dative alternation /

Competition in language change : the rise of the English dative alternation /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Zehentner, Eva, author.
Imprint:	Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter Mouton, [2019] ©2019
Description:	xx, 476 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Language:	English
Series:	Topics in English linguistics ; volume 103 Topics in English linguistics ; 103.
Subject:	English literature -- Grammar, Historical. English literature -- Verb. English literature -- Middle English, 1100-1500. English literature -- Middle English.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11967797

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ISBN:	9783110630343 3110630346 9783110633856 9783110630442
Language / Script:	Current Copyright Fee: GBP17.50 0.
Notes:	Based on the author's PhD thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 429-465) and index. Also published electronically.
Summary:	This book addresses one of the most pervasive questions in historical linguistics - why variation becomes stable rather than being eliminated - by revisiting the so far neglected history of the English dative alternation. The alternation between a nominal and a prepositional ditransitive pattern (John gave Mary a book vs. John gave a book to Mary) emerged in Middle English and is closely connected to broader changes at that time. Accordingly, the main quantitative investigation focuses on ditransitive patterns in the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English; in addition, the book employs an Evolutionary Game Theory model. The results are approached from an 'evolutionary construction grammar' perspective, combining evolutionary thinking with diachronic constructionist notions, and the alternation's emergence is interpreted as a story of constructional innovation, competition, cooperation and co-evolution. The book not only provides a thorough and detailed analysis of the history of one of the most-discussed syntactic phenomena in English, but by fusing two frameworks and employing two different methodologies also presents a highly innovative approach to a problem of relevance to historical linguistics in general.

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Call Number:	PE1101.Z44 2019
c.1	Available Loan period: standard loan Scan and Deliver Request for Pickup Need help? - Ask a Librarian