Fourteen articles on the mechanisms of syntactic change.

《缅彝语音韵学》讨论的是我国古西羌南迁居民及其后裔的语言。作者认为古西羌南迁居民及其后裔的语言是从原始藏缅语分出的一个支派，经过羌戎语和羌缅语两个历史阶段，分出了缅彝语这一声调祖语。调类特征体现了缅彝语诸语言的亲缘关系，可以此与非本语支语言划界，具有语言谱系分类学上的意义。《缅彝语音韵学》构拟了古有110个声类、71个韵类，《缅彝语音韵学》构拟的古音字汇含1500多个单字（包括同义字），为建构缅彝语声类、韵类和调类提供了一个新的方案。

The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics provides a survey of the field covering the methods which underpin current work; models of language change; and the importance of historical linguistics for other subfields of linguistics and other disciplines.
Divided into five sections, the volume encompass a wide range of approaches and addresses issues in the following areas:
historical perspectives
methods and models
language change
interfaces
regional summaries
Each of the thirty-two chapters is written by a specialist in the field and provides: a introduction to the subject; an analysis of the relationship between the diachronic and synchronic study of the topic; an overview of the main current and critical trends; and examples from primary data. The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics is essential reading for researchers and postgraduate students working in this area.
'...this volume represents a great introduction for anyone interested in historical linguistics, as well as in other connected disciplines such as history, archaeology, and molecular anthropology. Also, it represents a good starting point for research and an impressive testimony to the progress achieved in historical linguistics.' - Monica Vasileanu, Romanian Academy, Institute of Linguistics, The LINGUIST List

Grammaticalization is a well-attested process of linguistic change in which a lexical item becomes a function word, which may be further reduced to a clitic or affix. Proponents of the universality of grammaticalization have usually argued that it is unidirectional and have thus found it a useful tool in linguistic reconstruction. In this book Prof Norde shows that change is reversible on all levels: semantic, morphological, syntactic, and phonological. As a consequence, the alleged unidirectionality of grammaticalization is not a reliable reconstructional tool, even if degrammaticalization is a rare phenomenon. Degrammaticalization, she argues, is essentially different from grammaticalization: it usually comprises a single change, examples being shifts from affix to clitic, or from function word to lexical item. And where grammaticalization can be seen as a process, degrammaticalization is often the by-product of other changes. Nevertheless, she shows that it can be described, like grammaticalization, in a principled way, in order to establish whether a change in a word has been from more to less grammatical or vice versa, and the stages by which it has become so. Using data from different languages she constructs a typology of degrammaticalization changes. She explains why degrammaticalization is so rare and why some linguists have such strongly negative feelings about the possibility of its existence. She adds to the understanding of grammaticalization and makes a significant contribution to methods of linguistic reconstruction and the study of language change. She writes clearly, aiming to be understood by advanced undergraduate students as well as appealing to scholars and graduate researchers in historical linguistics.

The Handbook of Language Variation and Change , written by a distinguished international roster of contributors, reflects the vitality and growth of the discipline in its multifaceted pursuits. It is a convenient, hand-held repository of the essential knowledge about the study of language variation and change.
Written by internationally recognized experts in the field.
Reflects the vitality and growth of the discipline.
Discusses the ideas that drive the field and is illustrated with empirical studies.
Includes explanatory introductions which set out the boundaries of the field and place each of the chapters into perspective.

There are some 6,500 different languages in the world, belonging to around 250 distinct families and conforming to numerous grammatical types. This book explains why. Given that the biological mechanisms underlying language are the same in all normal human beings, would we not be a more successful species if we spoke one language? Daniel Nettle considers how this extraordinary and rich diversity arose, how it relates to the nature of language, cognition, and culture, and how it is linked with the main patterns of human geography and history. Human languages and language families are not distributed evenly: there are relatively few in Eurasia compared to the profusion found in Australasia, the Pacific, and the Americas. There is also a marked correlation between biodiversity and linguistic diversity. The author explains the processes by which this distribution evolved and changes still. To do so he returns to the earliest origins of language, reconstructing the processes of linguistic variation and diffusion that occurred when humans first filled the continents and, thousands of years later, turned to agriculture. He ends by examining the causes of linguistic mortality, and why the number of the world's languages may halve before 2100. Linguistic Diversity draws on work in anthropology, linguistics, geography, archaeology, and evolutionary science to provide a comprehensive account of the patterns of linguistic diversity. It is written in a clear, lively and accessible style, and will appeal broadly across the natural and human sciences, as well as to the informed general reader.

《赣语声母的历史层次研究》是就一个大方言区进行这种研究的一次成功的实践。方言语音的历史层次研究必须从共时的内外比较人手，归纳区内的各种类型，再和周边方言比较其异同，然后在汉语语音吏方面分析其历史层次。因此，方言语音的历史层次研究实际上就是方言语音的纵横两向的比较研究。虽然讨论的只是声母的历史层次，其实在许多方面已涉及韵母和声调的特征。因为声母的分合和演变常常是以韵母、声调为制约条件的。不仅如此，讨论声母的历史层次势必还会牵连到词汇的特征，关系到方言形成和发展的历史背景。常用词和非常用词、方言固有词和通语用词、口语用字和书面语用字等等，也常常成了不同语音历史层次的取决条件，而方言历史背景对于理解方言语音的历史层次来说，有时，是不可缺少的。《赣语声母的历史层次研究》关于赣语声母历史层次的研究方法是遵循内外比较、历史分析、关照系统(声母、韵母和声调的语音系统和语音、词汇的系统)，并且联系了语言与历史文化背景的外部关系，因此，所做的分析是有说服力的，也可以使人们得到关于赣方言的整体特征的认识。可见，研究方法对头了，分析问题就会有新的突破，理论上也可以得到升华。
除了方法科学，《赣语声母的历史层次研究》的成功还在于作者下足了功力。在讨论每个声母现象的时候，《赣语声母的历史层次研究》都能尽量不遗漏地罗列已有的赣语调查材料，努力进行类型归纳，做到言之有据。同时也尽量不遗漏地查检历来学者们的有关分析结论，认真加以比较、权衡和评价。在材料方面，作者从1987年攻读硕士学位时开始就一点一点地调查赣方言，后来参加我们所主持的《客赣方言调查报告》这个研究项目，赣方言点大多是他参与'或独力到实地调查的。从那时到本．书成书，真可谓是十年磨_剑，其中甘苦不言而喻。所以，《赣语声母的历史层次研究》的成功首先得益于作者这十几年的积累。在理论方面，作者对于前人的研究成果也努力做到不论巨细，一一检验。对于初学者的研究成果并不忽略，对于大专家的结论也敢于提出质疑，在真理面前人人平等。没有发掘材料和检验理论这两方面的功力，要寻求突破是艰难的。
《赣语声母的历史层次研究》对于赣语声母的历史层次的研究上有哪些突破，当然还有待于各方面的专家们审核。无需在这一篇序文里一一提出。但是，由于我们始终都参与并关注这项研究，还是有不少感触的，希望专家和读者能仔细披阅，多加发掘。这里只就若干较为重要的课题提个头，供大家思考。

本书是梁银峰先生的博士论文，全书共分七章，内容包括绪论、泛动补结构形态——先秦(含秦)、动补结构的酝酿期——两汉、动补结构的萌芽期——魏晋南北朝、动补结构的普遍运用期——隋至宋金、动补结构的成熟期——元明清等。

Most societies in today's world are multilingual. "Language contact" occurs when speakers of different languages interact and their languages influence each other. This book is an introduction to the subject, covering individual and societal multilingualism, the acquisition of two or more languages from birth, second-language acquisition in adulthood, language change, linguistic typology, language processing, and the structure of language faculty. It explains the effects of multilingualism on society and language policy, as well as the consequences that long-term bilingualism within communities can have for the structure of languages. Drawing on the author's own first-hand observations of child and adult bilingualism, the book provides a clear analysis of such phenomena as language convergence, grammatical borrowing, and mixed languages.
● An integrated approach - covers both individual and societal bilingualism
● Includes authentic, first-hand examples of child and adult bilingualism
● Includes a detailed survey by category of structural borrowing

The phenomenon of language contact, and how it affects the structure of languages, has been of great interest to linguists. This study looks at how grammatical forms and structures evolve when speakers of two languages come into contact, and offers an interesting insight into the mechanism that induces people to transfer grammatical structures from one language to another. Drawing on findings from languages all over the world, Language Contact and Grammatical Change shows that the transfer of linguistic material across languages is quite regular and follows universal patterns of grammaticalization - contrary to previous claims that it is a fairly irregular process - and argues that internal and external explanations of language structure and change are in no way mutually exclusive. Engaging and informative, this book will be of great interest to sociolinguists, linguistic anthropologists, and all those working on grammaticalization, language contact, and language change.

This book presents a critical comparison of the two leading theories of linguistic change. After introducing the aims and methods of historical linguistics, Olga Fischer provides an exposition of the main theories used to describe morphosyntactic change and a full account of the causes and mechanisms by which their leading exponents seek to explain it. She measures the effectiveness of rival theories and methods in different contexts and in the process throws fresh light on the balance of factors influencing linguistic change. Professor Fischer emphazises the unity of form and meaning in the linguistic sign and examines the role played by analogy. She looks at how changes in discourse, lexicon, semantics, pragmatics, and sound interact with changes in morphosyntax, and explores the relationship between external and internal causes of change. She considers whether morphosyntactic change is gradual or abrupt and discusses how far rates of change reflect the degree to which grammar is innate or learned. She uses detailed case studies to illustrate different types of morphosyntactic change, and to show how each theory fares when put into practice. The author's clear style and her balanced approach to this fascinating and complex subject combine to make this a book that will be of central interest and value to scholars and students of linguistic change, at graduate level and above.

本书共分三编，内容包括：第一编阿卡德语楔形文字入门；第二编赫梯语法初探；第三编古代乌旮瑞特塞姆语楔形字母文字语法研究

How are relationships established between the world's languages? This is one of the most topical and most controversial questions in contemporary linguistics. The central aims of this 2008 book are to answer this question, to cut through the controversies, and to contribute to research in distant genetic relationships. In doing this the authors aim to: (1) show how the methods have been employed; (2) reveal which methods, techniques, and strategies have proven successful and which ones have proven ineffective; (3) determine how particular language families were established; (4) evaluate several of the most prominent and more controversial proposals of distant genetic relationship (such as Amerind, Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Proto-World, and others); and (5) make recommendations for practice in future research. This book will contribute significantly to understanding language classification in general.

Language has no counterpart in the animal world. Unique to Homo sapiens, it appears inseparable from human nature. But how, when and why did it emerge? The contributors to this volume - linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists, and others - adopt a modern Darwinian perspective which offers a bold synthesis of the human and natural sciences. As a feature of human social intelligence, language evolution is driven by biologically anomalous levels of social cooperation. Phonetic competence correspondingly reflects social pressures for vocal imitation, learning, and other forms of social transmission. Distinctively human social and cultural strategies gave rise to the complex syntactical structure of speech. This book, presenting language as a remarkable social adaptation, testifies to the growing influence of evolutionary thinking in contemporary linguistics. It will be welcomed by all those interested in human evolution, evolutionary psychology, linguistic anthropology, and general linguistics.