Hidden Bibliographic Details
| Varying Form of Title: | Martin Elsig and Esther Rinke : a morphosyntactic perspective
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| ISBN: | 9780748677993
0748677992
9780748678013
0748678018
9781306150279
1306150272
0748642250
9780748642250
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| Notes: | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Print version record.
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| Summary: | Historical linguistics commonly invokes the child as the principal agent of change. Using this as a starting point, the authors address diachronic language change against a background of insights gained from extensive research into mono- and bilingual language acquisition. The evidence shows that children are remarkably successful in reconstructing the grammars of their ambient languages so the authors reconsider a number of commonly held explanatory models of language change, including language contact and structural ambiguity in the input. Based on a variety of case studies, this innovative take on the subject argues that morphosyntactic change in core areas of grammar typically happens in settings involving second language acquisition. Here, the children acting as causal agents of restructuring are either second language learners or are continuously exposed to the speech of second language speakers. The authors answer questions about the circumstances surrounding grammatical change in terms of a restructuring of speakers' internal grammatical knowledge constructing a general theory of diachronic change consistent with insights from language acquisition.
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| Other form: | Print version: Meisel, Jürgen M. Language acquisition and change. Meisel, Martin Elsig and Esther Rinke 0748642250
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