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This book aims to provide a better understanding of convergence and
non-convergence phenomena, such as divergence, from different
theoretical perspectives. It brings together nine case studies that
deal with contact between languages found in the Iberian Peninsula
(Castilian, Catalan, Portuguese and Basque), between Spanish or
Portuguese and another language (such as English), and between
different varieties from Europe and other continents. The volume
thus unites views from two fields that rarely interact: contact
linguistics and dialectology. It discusses the mechanisms and
consequences of language contact within the Ibero-Romance world, a
geographical space characterised by a high rate of multilingual
speakers and settings. The contributions deal with various
combinations of convergence and divergence, for example between
different varieties of the same language, language stability
despite contact, as well as less studied aspects, such as the
relation between language contact and second language acquisition,
the linguistic landscape perspective of language contact, and
divergence in linguistic identity construction.
This volume explores the multiple aspects of cyclical syntactic
change from a wide range of empirical perspectives. The notion of
'linguistic cycle' has long been recognized as being relevant to
the description of many processes of language change. In
grammaticalization, a given linguistic form loses its lexical
meaning - and sometimes some of its phonological content - and then
gradually weakens until it ultimately vanishes. This change becomes
cyclical when the grammaticalized form is replaced by an innovative
item, which can then develop along exactly the same pathway. But
cyclical changes have also been observed in language change outside
of grammaticalization proper. The chapters in this book reflect the
growing interest in the phenomenon of grammaticalization and
cyclicity in generative syntax, with topics including the diachrony
of negation, the syntax of determiners and pronominal clitics, the
internal structure of wh-words and logical operators, cyclical
changes in argument structure, and the relationship between
morphology and syntax. The contributions draw on data from multiple
language families, such as Indo-European, Semitic, Japonic, and
Athabascan. The volume combines empirical descriptions of novel
comparative data with detailed theoretical analysis, and will
appeal to historical linguists working in formal and usage-based
frameworks, as well as to typologists and scholars interested in
language variation and change more broadly.
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