- Volume
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: hbk ISBN 9780631179139
Description
Combining studies of living communities with examinations of historical records of completed changes, this book traces the general principles of chain shifting within and across vowel systems, as well as the principles that govern mergers and splits. Labov uses evidence from sociolinguistics and dialect geography to provide responses to the controversies initiated by the neo-grammarians. Though lexical diffusion can be located in changes of membership in abstract categories such as "long" and "short", the main agent of linguistic change, Labov argues, is regular sound change that proceeds without regard to the preservation of meaning. Change in sound can lead to confusion and the disruption of dialect systems. The findings presented here on the asymmetry of production and perception explain the historical continuity of word classes when the semantic function of contrast is suspended.
Table of Contents
- Introduction and methods
- constraints of change - chain shifting
- constraints of change - mergers and splits
- the mechanism of change - the regularity hypothesis
- the functional hypothesis.
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780631179146
Description
This book develops the general principles of linguistic change that form the foundations of historical linguistics, dialectology and sociolinguistics.
Demonstrates the social as well as cognitive relevance of linguistic research
Shows that rapid linguistic change is in progress in the cities of America and England so that urban dialects are becoming more and more differentiated
Discusses factors that govern the internal development of linguistic structures: the mechanisms of change, the constraints on change, and the ways in which change is embedded in the larger linguistic system
Table of Contents
Editor's Preface. Notational Conventions.
Acknowledgements.
Introduction: The Plan of the Work as a Whole.
Part I: Introduction and Methodology:.
1. The Use of the Present to Explain the Past.
2. An Overview of the Issues.
3. The Study of Change in Progress: Observations in Apparent Time.
4. The Study of Change in Progress: Observations in Real Time.
Part II: Chain Shifting:.
5. General Principles of Vowel Shifting.
6. Chain Shifts in Progress.
7. Resolution of the Paradoxes.
8. Reduction of the Rules and Principles.
9. Chain Shifts across Subsystems.
Part III: Mergers and Splits:.
10. Some Impossible Unmergings.
11. The General Properties of Mergers and Splits.
12. Near-Mergers.
13. The Explanation of Unmergings.
14. The Suspension of Phonemic Contrast.
Part IV: The Regularity Controversy:.
15. Evidence for Lexical Diffusion.
16. Expanding the Neogrammarian Viewpoint.
17. Regular Sound Change in English Dialect Geography.
18. A Proposed Resolution of the Regularity Question.
Part V: The Functional Character of Change:.
19. The Overestimation of Functionalism.
20. The Maintenance of Meaning.
21. The Principles Reviewed.
References.
Index.
by "Nielsen BookData"