Tania Kuteva's Books

Publisher Description

Based on analysis of more than 1,000 languages, this volume reconstructs more than 500 processes of grammatical change in the languages of the world.

The languages and dialects of Europe, this book shows, are becoming increasingly alike. Furthermore this unifying process goes at least as far back as the Roman empire, is accelerating, and affects every one of Europe's 150 or so languages including those of different families such as Basque and Finnish. The changes are by no means restricted to lexical borrowing but involve every grammatical aspect of the language. They are usually so minute that neither native speakers nor trained linguists notice them. But they accumulate and give rise to new grammatical structures that lead in turn to new patterns of areal relationship. Professor Heine and Professor Kuteva look for the causes of linguistic change in cultural and economic exchanges across national and regional boundaries and in the processes that occur when speakers learn or are in close contact with another language. Testing their data and conclusions against findings from elsewhere in the world, the authors reconstruct and reveal when, how, and why common grammatical structures have evolved and continue to evolve in processes of change that will, they argue, transform the linguistic landscape of Europe. The book is written in clear, non-technical language. It will appeal to scholars and students of language change and variation in Europe and elsewhere. It will also interest everyone concerned to understand the nature of language and language change.

This pioneering study highlights the importance in linguistic communication of discourse markers, a previously neglected area of research.

Probing the nature of grammaticalisation on the basis of an in-depth study of the process of auxiliation, this book brings together the explanatory potential of recent grammaticalisation theory and insights from the latest psychological studies.

This book reconstructs what the earliest grammars might have been and shows how they could have led to the languages of modern humankind. It considers whether these languages derive from a single ancestral language; what the structure of language was when it first evolved; and how the properties associated with modern human languages first arose.

Based on analysis of more than 1,000 languages, this volume reconstructs more than 500 processes of grammatical change in the languages of the world.

This pioneering study highlights the importance in linguistic communication of discourse markers, a previously neglected area of research.

The authors describe linguistic transfer from one language to another in terms of grammatical replication, using grammaticalization theory as a framework. The linguistic domains covered in more detail are definite and indefinite articles, possession, case marking, & the relationship between questions and subordination.

Book's by Tania Kuteva

Language Contact and Grammatical Change

Language Contact and Grammatical Change

World Lexicon of Grammaticalization

World Lexicon of Grammaticalization

The Changing Languages of Europe

The Changing Languages of Europe

The Rise of Discourse Markers

The Rise of Discourse Markers

Auxiliation

Auxiliation

The Genesis of Grammar

The Genesis of Grammar

World Lexicon of Grammaticalization

World Lexicon of Grammaticalization

The Rise of Discourse Markers

The Rise of Discourse Markers

The Changing Languages of Europe

The Changing Languages of Europe

Auxiliation

Auxiliation

The Genesis of Grammar

The Genesis of Grammar

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