Language change : progress or decay?
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Language change : progress or decay?
（Cambridge approaches to linguistics）
Cambridge University Press, 1991
2nd ed
- : hard
- : pbk
Available at / 99 libraries
-
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Library
: hardK/810/692イ0000142714,
: pbkK/810/692ア0000162799 -
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Note
Bibliography: p. 237-251
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Why do people sometimes leave off the ends of words when they speak? Is it sloppiness, progress, or inevitable erosion? This book attempts to answer such questions by giving a lucid and up-to-date overview of language change. It discusses where our evidence about language change comes from, how and why changes happen, and how and why languages begin and end. It considers not only changes which occurred many years ago, but also those currently in progress. It does this within the framework of one central question - is language change a symptom of progress or decay? It concludes that language is neither progressing nor decaying, but that an understanding of the factors causing change is essential for anyone involved with language alteration. For this substantially revised and enlarged second edition Jean Aitchison has included details of recent research on a number of key topics, and also discusses data from a wider variety of languages: but the work remains non-technical in style and accessible to the reader with no previous knowledge of linguistics.
Table of Contents
- Part I. Preliminaries: 1. The ever-whirling wheel
- 2. Collecting up clues
- 3. Charting the changes
- Part II. Transition: 4. Spreading the word
- 5. Conflicting loyalties
- 6. Catching on and taking off
- 7. Caught in the web
- Part III. Causation: 8. The reason why
- 9. Doing what comes naturally
- 10. Repairing the patterns
- 11. The Mad Hatter's Tea-Party
- Part IV. Beginnings and Endings: 12. Development and breakdown
- 13. Language birth
- 14. Language death
- 15. Progress or decay?
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