The evolution of language has developed into a large research field. Two questions are particularly relevant for this strand of research: firstly, how did the human capacity for language emerge? And ...secondly, which processes of cultural evolution are involved both in the evolution of human language from non-linguistic communication and in the continued evolution of human languages? Much research on language evolution that addresses these two questions is highly compatible with the usage-based approach to language pursued in cognitive linguistics. Focusing on key topics such as comparing human language and animal communication, experimental approaches to language evolution, and evolutionary dynamics in language, this Element gives an overview of the current state-of-the-art of language evolution research and discusses how cognitive linguistics and research on the evolution of language can cross-fertilise each other. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This study aims to gain further insight into processes of recent language change, both at the level of the speech community and the individual one (i.e. in terms of age grading), by combining the ...Real-Time Construct and the Apparent-Time Construct. It focuses on intensifiers, which are of a particular interest due to their versatility and rapid change. The data are collected in a corpus of Madrilenian present-day Spanish (CORMA), and provide an overview of synthetic intensifying constructions, including suffixation (e.g. golazo ‘nice goal’) and prefixation (e.g. superguay ‘very cool’) of the base, and several analytic constructions, that is lexical intensifiers that modify a base word (e.g. mazo de humilde ‘really humble’). In concrete, the productive paradigm of intensifying strategies is empirically monitored across different generations. This analysis leads to a deeper understanding of the distribution and motives behind age-based preference, and unveils whether the Apparent-Time Construct is able to equally detect recent language change for different linguistic features.
•Intensification is a productive and expressive phenomenon in present-day Madrilenian Spanish.•The frequency and type of intensifiers depends on the age of the speaker.•The younger the speaker, the more intensifiers (s)he incorporates in his/her speech.•Recent language change can best be studied by combining Real-Time and Apparent-Time Analyses.•Applicability of the Apparent-Time Construct might depend on nature of item.
In the following article, we construct an interaction model of general language change. This contributes in particular to quantitative studies on reversible language change initiated by G. Altmann by ...adding explanatory character in tracing global features of general language change back to the individual interaction of speakers. Although the corresponding coupled differential equations are (presumably) non-integrable, we use methods from the theory of dynamical systems to deduce the long-term behaviour (depending on four interaction parameters) of the model for any given initial constellation of speakers. Subsequent numerical analysis of real data on language change is used to justify the relevance of the constructed model for the practicing quantitative linguist. We show how data-fitting methods can be used to determine the four interaction parameters and predict from them the long-term behaviour of the system, i.e. if complete language change or reversible language change will take place.
Abstract
The term grammaticalization originally denoted a particular outcome of language change (lexis > morphology), then got expanded to practically all studies involving language change, the ...processes that create such changes, and a theory modeling these. These expansions have been challenged in the literature as conceptually flawed. A usage-based analysis of the evolution of the concept culminates in the use of the term grammaticalization as a “flag” of a particular approach to linguistics. However, the theoretical premises of grammaticalization studies are entirely compatible with the premises of Diachronic Construction Grammar (DCxG). All studies within the “expanded” concept of grammaticalization can be explicitly modeled within DCxG, which provides formalism of sufficient detail to map the gradual nature of language change in cases of grammaticalization and beyond. Consequently, the most vigorous attacks on grammaticalization lose power when grammaticalization is seen as part of a larger, more complete theory of language and language change.
The United States is currently in the midst of a long, historic cultural transformation—redefining our collective representation to be inclusive of diverse sexual and gender identities. A core logic ...advancing this inclusion is to discursively recognize an expanded set of discrete, deconstructed identities—gay and lesbian expands to LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQIA+, and so on. But a newer logic stipulates that inclusion arises through using constructive identities that encompass many fluid experiences under a single term (e.g., “queer”). To understand inclusive change, the authors leverage a unique mesolevel site of cultural (re)production: service and advocacy nonprofit organizations. Using event history models, the authors investigate inclusive language change by 735 organizations from 1998 to 2016. They supplement analyses of administrative data with semistructured interviews with 13 nonprofit leaders, providing converging evidence. Findings showcase how bottom-up, horizontal, and top-down pressures explain both the inclusion of discrete identity labels and the shift to constructive logics.
Los encapsuladores anafóricos son expresiones referenciales que, en la medida en que comprimen segmentos textuales de naturaleza predicativa, es esperable que presenten unos patrones de procesamiento ...diferentes y más complejos que los de las expresiones correferenciales, pues, para su interpretación, se hace necesario recuperar una explicatura. No obstante, son escasas aún las referencias al procesamiento de la encapsulación y apenas existen estudios experimentales que ofrezcan datos al respecto. En este artículo se analizan los resultados de un experimento de eye-tracking en el que se comparan los esfuerzos de procesamiento de dos tipos de encapsuladores no (re)categorizantes (pronombre demostrativo neutro y nominalización homolexemática) con los mecanismos correferenciales análogos (pronombre demostrativo correferencial y repetición léxica correferencial). Los resultados demuestran que los esfuerzos de procesamiento de los enunciados que contienen encapsuladores no son mayores que los que contienen expresiones correferenciales, pero que el perfil de procesamiento de la encapsulación es cualitativamente diferente del de la correferencia. Además, se muestra que, en el caso de los encapsuladores, los pronombres demostrativos neutros no reducen los esfuerzos de procesamiento en comparación con las nominalizaciones homolexemáticas.
This article argues that language play is intimately related to linguistic variation and change. Using two corpora of online present-day English, we investigate playful conversion of adjectives into ...abstract nouns (e.g. made of awesome∅), uncovering consistent rule-governed patterning in the grammatical constraints in spite of this option stemming from deliberate subversion of standard overt suffixation. Building on Haspelmath's (1999) notion of 'extravagance' as one of the keys to language change, we account for the systematic patterning of deliberate linguistic subversion by appealing to tension between the need to stand out and the need to remain intelligible. While we do not claim that language play is the only cause of linguistic change, our findings position language play as a constant source of new linguistic variants in very large numbers, a small proportion of which endure as changes. Our conclusion is that language play goes a long way toward accounting for linguistic innovations-with respect to where they come from and why languages change at all.
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