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Syntactic Effects of Morphological Change

David W. Lightfoot

Abstract

This book explores a central aspect of language change: the nature and degree to which changes in morphology (inflectional word endings, for example) cause changes in syntax (for example, in word order). The twenty-two contributors consider such phenomena within the context of Chomsky's minimalist revision of his principles (of universal grammar) and parameters (of individual languages) theory. They also address some of the main unanswered problems associated with the book's hypothesis — that all grammatical change is driven by the way in which children acquire language. These questions are di ... More

Keywords: language change, morphology, inflectional word endings, changes in syntax, word order, Chomsky, universal grammar, parameters theory, children

Bibliographic Information

Print publication date: 2002 Print ISBN-13: 9780199250691
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010 DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250691.001.0001

Authors

Affiliations are at time of print publication.

David W. Lightfoot, editor
Dean of the Graduate School of Georgetown University
Author Webpage

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Contents

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Front Matter

Title Pages

Notes on Contributors

Foreword

1 Introduction

David W. Lightfoot

Part 1 Morphologically Driven Changes

2 The History of the Future

Ian Roberts, and ANNA ROUSSOU

3 Case and Middle English Genitive Noun Phrases

Cynthia. L Allen

4 Split Constituents within NP in the History of English: Commentary on Allen

Željko Bošković

5 Inflectional Morphology and the Loss of Verb-Second In English

Eric Haeberli

6 The Rise of the To−Dative in Middle English

Thomas McFadden

7 Double Object and Morphological Triggers for Syntactic Case

Chiara Polo

8 Cue-Based Change: Inflection and Subjects in the History of Portuguese Infinitives

Acrisio Pires

9 Morphology and Null Subjects in Brazilian Portuguese

Cilene Rodrigues

10 Loss of Overt Wh-Movement in Old Japanese

Akira Watanabe

11 Changes in Subject Case-Marking in Icelandic

Thórhallur Eythórsson

PART II Indirect Links between Morphology and Syntax

12 A Reinterpretation of the Loss of Verb-Second in Welsh

Dirk Bury

13 The Loss of IP-Scrambling in Portugese: Clause Structure, Word-Order Variation and Change

Ana Maria Martins

Part III Independent Changes in Movement Operations

14 Residual V-to-I

Dianne Jonas

15 Syntax and Morphology are Different: Commentary on Jonas

Stephen R. Anderson

16 Verb–Obiect Order In Old English: Variation as Grammatical Competition

Susan Pintzuk

17 VO or OV? That’s the Underlying Question: Commentary on Pintzuk

Jairo Nunes

18 Movement, Morphology, and Learnability

Susana Bejar

19 Object Shift and Holmberg’s Generalization in the History of Norwegian

John D. Sundquist

Part IV Computer Simulations

20 The Computational Study of Diachronic Linguistics

Partha Niyogi

21 Grammar Competition and Language Change

Charles D. Yang

End Matter

References

Index