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Can language change be modelled as an evolutionary process? Can
notions like variation, selection and competition be fruitfully
applied to facts of language development? The present volume ties
together various strands of linguistic research which can bring us
towards an answer to these questions. In one of the youngest and
rapidly growing areas of linguistic research, mathematical models
and simulations of competition based developments have been applied
to instances of language change. By matching the predicted and
observed developmental trends, researchers gauge existing models to
the needs of linguistic applications and evaluate the fruitfulness
of evolutionary models in linguistics. The present volume confronts
these studies with more empirically-based studies in creolization
and historical language change which bear on key concepts of
evolutionary models. What does it mean for a linguistic
construction to survive its competitors? How do the interacting
factors in phases of creolization differ from those in ordinary
language change, and how - consequently - might Creole languages
differ structurally from older languages? Some of the authors,
finally, also address the question how different aspects of our
linguistic competence tie in with our more elementary cognitive
capacities. The volume contains contributions by Brady Clark et
al., Elly van Gelderen, Alain Kihm, Manfred Krifka, Wouter Kusters,
Robert van Rooij, Anette Rosenbach, John McWhorter, Teresa
Satterfield, Michael Tomasello and Elizabeth C. Traugott. The book
brings together contributions from two areas of research: the study
of language evolution by means of methods from artifical
intelligence/artificial life (like computer simulations and
analytic mathematical methods) on the one hand, and empirically
oriented research from historical linguistics and creolisation
studies that uses concepts from evolutionary theory as a heuristic
tool in a qualitative way. The book is thus interesting for readers
from both traditions because it supplies them with information
about relevant ongoing research and useful methods and data from
the other camp.
Atypical demonstratives have not received adequate attention in the
literature so far, or have even been completely neglected. By
providing fresh insights and discussing new facets, this volume
contributes to the better understanding of this group of words,
starting from specific empirical phenomena, and advances our
knowledge of the various properties of demonstratives, their
syntactic multi-functionality, semantic feature specifications and
pragmatic functions. In addition, some of the papers discuss
different grammaticalization processes involving demonstratives, in
particular how and from which lexical and morphosyntactic
categories they originate cross-linguistically, and which semantic
or pragmatic mechanisms play which role in their emergence. As
such, the different contributions guide the readers on an
adventurous journey into the realm of different exotic species of
demonstratives, whose peculiar properties offer new exiting
insights into the complex nature of demonstrative expressions
themselves.
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