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The Understanding Language series provides approachable, yet authoritative, introductions to all the major topics in linguistics. Ideal for students with little or no prior knowledge of linguistics, each book carefully explains the basics, emphasising understanding of the essential notions rather than arguing for a particular theoretical position. Understanding Language Change offers a complete introduction to historical linguistics and language change. The book takes a step-by-step approach, first by introducing concepts through English examples and building on this with illustrations from other languages. Key features of this introductory text include: * up to date and recent case studies at the end of each chapter * chapter summaries and exercises that feature a wide range of languages * coverage of application of historical linguistics in each chapter * glossary of terms This book is essential reading for any students studying Historical Linguistics for the first time.

Linguistic change --- Historical linguistics

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Informed by detailed analysis of data from large-scale diachronic corpora, this book is a comprehensive account of changes to the expression of negation in English. Its methodological approach brings together up-to-date techniques from corpus linguistics and minimalist syntactic analysis to identify and characterise a series of interrelated changes affecting negation during the period 800-1700. Phillip Wallage uses cutting-edge statistical techniques and large-scale corpora to model changes in English negation over a period of nine hundred years. These models provide crucial empirical evidence which reveals the specific processes of syntactic and functional change affecting early English negation, and identifies diachronic relationships between these processes.

English language --- Linguistic change. --- Historical grammar. --- Change, Linguistic --- Language change --- Historical linguistics --- Language and languages --- Negatives. --- Grammar. --- Variation. --- Dialects --- Germanic languages --- Linguistic change --- Historical grammar --- Negatives --- Grammar --- Variation

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Language-contact phenomena in Mesoamerica and adjacent regions present an exciting field for research that has the potential to significantly contribute to our understanding of language contact and the role that it plays in language change. This volume presents and analyzes fresh empirical data from living and/or extinct Mesoamerican languages (from the Mayan, Uto-Aztecan, Totonac-Tepehuan and Otomanguean groups), neighboring non-Mesoamerican languages (Apachean, Arawakan, Andean languages), as well as Spanish. Language-contact effects in these diverse languages and language groups are typically analyzed by different subfields of linguistics that do not necessarily interact with one another. It is hoped that this volume, which contains works from different scholarly traditions that represent a variety of approaches to the study of language contact, will contribute to the lessening of this compartmentalization. The volume is relevant to researchers of language contact and contact-induced change and to anyone interested both in the historical development and present features of indigenous languages of the Americas and Latin American Spanish.

Languages in contact --- Linguistic change --- Indians of Central America --- Languages. --- Central America

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The papers collected in this volume explore the major mechanisms, that is derivations and constraints, claimed to be responsible for various aspects of the linguistic systems, their syntax, phonology and morphology. The contributors approach these issues through a detailed analysis of selected phenomena of Modern English, Old English, Polish, Russian, Hungarian and Icelandic, offering novel theoretical and descriptive insights into the working of human language.

Linguistic change --- Language and languages --- Grammar, Comparative and general --- Variation --- Syntax --- Morphology --- Phonology

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Creole dialects, French --- Creole dialects, French --- Linguistic change. --- Historical linguistics. --- Grammar. --- Social aspects.