While Celtic languages are nominally VSO in basic word order, the languages of the Brythonic branch have exhibited striking synchronic and historical variations from the prototype. This volume comprises the very latest research in word order in Welsh, reton and Cornish from nine of the leading scholars in the field. The studies deal with historical, typological and descriptive issues from several approaches (including philological, functional and government and binding). The scope ranges over all the Brythonic languages, as well as the entire diachronic spectrum from the proto-language up to the most recent colloquial trends. The volume provides the expert with a collection of state-of-the-art research and the non-specialist with a comprehensive survey of the problems and debates in a language grouping fraught with intricate questions of word order and word order change.

The issue of permanence and change of word-order patterns has long been debated in both historical linguistics and structural theories. The interest in this theme has been revamped by contemporary research in typology with its emphasis on correlation or ‘harmonies’ of structures of word-order as explicative principles of both synchronic and diachronic processes. The aim of this book is to stimulate a critical reconsideration of perspectives and methods in the study of continuities and discontinuities of word-order patterns. Bringing together contributions by specialists of various theoretical backgrounds and with expertise in different language families or groups (Caucasian, Hamito-Semitic, and — among Indo-European — Hittite, Greek, Celtic, Germanic, Slavonic, Romance), the book addresses issues like the notions of stability, variation and change of word-order and their interrelations, the interplay of syntactic and pragmatic factors, and the role of internal and external factors in synchronic and diachronic dynamics of word-order. The book contains a selection of papers presented at a workshop held at the XIII International Conference on Historical Linguistics (Düsseldorf, August 1997) and additonal invited contributions.

In any course of historical and comparative linguistics there will be students of different language backgrounds, different levels of linguistic training, and different theoretical orientation. This textbook attempts to mitigate the problems raised by this heterogeneity in a number of ways. Since it is impossible to treat the language or language family of special interest to every student, the focus of this book is on English in particular and Indo-European languages in general, with Finnish and its closely related languages for contrast. The tenets of different schools of linguistics, and the controversies among them, are treated eclectically and objectively; the examination of language itself plays the leading role in our efforts to ascertain the comparative value of competing theories. This revised edition (1989) of a standard work for comparative linguists offers an added introduction dealing mainly with a semiotic basis of change, a final chapter on aspects of explanation, particularly in historical and human disciplines, and added sections on comparative syntax and on the semiotic status of the comparative method.

This book collects all the named laws of Indo-European, presents each in its original form and rationale and then provides an evaluation of all major attacks, revisions and exploitations, along with a full bibliography and index. Complete thorough exhaustive.

The concept of 'trigger' is a core concept of Chomsky's Minimalist Program. The idea that certain types of movement are triggered by some property of the target position is at least as old as the notion that the movement of noun phrases to the subject position is triggered by their need to receive nominative case. In more recent versions of syntactic theory, triggering mechanisms are thought to regulate all of movement. Furthermore, a quite narrow range of triggering mechanisms is permitted. As is to be expected, such a restrictive approach meets a variety of difficulties. Specifically, the question is whether all triggering elements required to cover displacement of all kinds in natural language can be independently motivated. Further, how can a trigger theory, which crucially relies on the idea that all movement is obligatory, deal with apparently optional movement processes? Are features an adequate means to express the triggering function in all cases? More radically, are all movement phenomena really the result of the checking of trigger features? And what about apparent triggering factors that are 'external' to syntax such as prosody - can they be captured in a rigid trigger theory? In other words, could certain aspects of triggered movement be due to interface conditions? Such is the range of questions addressed by the fourteen contributions to this book. They cover a considerable range of languages (including Afrikaans, Breton, Bulgarian, Dutch, English, French, German, Gungbe, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Kiswahili, Romanian). These papers present materials, both empirical and theoretical, that will not fail to have considerable impact on the further development of the concept of trigger in syntactic theory.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

The Celtic Languages describes in depth all the Celtic languages from historical, structural and sociolinguistic perspectives with individual chapters on Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Breton and Cornish. This second edition has been thoroughly revised to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the modern Celtic languages and their current sociolinguistic status along with complete descriptions of the historical languages. This comprehensive volume is arranged in four parts. The first part offers a description of the typological aspects of the Celtic languages followed by a scene setting historical account of the emergence of these languages. Chapters devoted to Continental Celtic, Old and Middle Irish, and Old and Middle Welsh follow. Parts two and three are devoted to linguistic descriptions of the contemporary languages. Part two has chapters on Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx, while Part three covers Welsh, Breton and Cornish. Part four is devoted to the sociolinguistic situation of the four contemporary Celtic languages and a final chapter describes the status of the two revived languages Cornish and Manx. With contributions from a variety of scholars of the highest reputation, The Celtic Languages continues to be an invaluable tool for both students and teachers of linguistics, especially those with an interest in typology, language universals and the unique sociolinguistic position which the Celtic languages occupy. Dr Martin J. Ball is Hawthorne-BoRSF Endowed Professor, and Director of the Hawthorne Research Center, at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Dr Ball has over 120 academic publications. Among his books are The Use of Welsh, Mutation in Welsh, and Welsh Phonetics. Dr Nicole Müller is Hawthorne-BoRSF Endowed Professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Among her books are Mutation in Welsh, and Agents in Early Irish and Early Welsh.

This volume and its companion one (English Historical Syntax and Morphology, CILT 223) offer a selection of papers from the Eleventh International Conference on English Historical Linguistics held at the University of Santiago de Compostela. From the rich programme (over 130 papers were given during the conference), the present thirteen papers were carefully selected to reflect the state of current research in the field of English historical linguistics. The areas represented in the volume are lexis and semantics, text-types, historical sociolinguistics and dialectology, and phonology. Many of the articles tackle questions of change and linguistic periodization through the use of methodological tools like corpora, linguistic atlases, thesauri and historical dictionaries. The theoretical frameworks adopted include, among others, multi-dimensional analysis, systemic-functional grammar, Communication Accommodation Theory, historical discourse analysis and Optimality Theory.

This comprehensive volume describes in depth all the Celtic languages from historical, structural and sociolinguistic perspectives, with individual chapters on Irish, Scottish, Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Breton and Cornish. Organized for ease of reference, The Celtic Languages is arranged in four parts. The first, Historical Aspects, covers the origin and history of the Celtic languages, their spread and retreat, present-day distribution and a sketch of the extant and recently extant languages. Parts II and III describe the structural detail of each language, including phonology, mutation, morphology, syntax, dialectology and lexis. The final part provides wide-ranging sociolinguistic detail, such as areas of usage (in government, church, media, education, business), maintenance (institutional support offered), and prospects for survival (examination of demographic changes and how they affect these languages). Special Features: * Presents the first modern, comprehensive linguistic description of this important language family * Provides a full discussion of the likely progress of Irish, Welsh and Breton * Includes the most recent research on newly discovered Continental Celtic inscriptions

First published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.