Reconstructing syntax

"During several decades, syntactic reconstruction has been more or less regarded as a bootless and an unsuccessful venture, not least due to the heavy criticism in the 1970s from scholars like Watkins, Jeffers, Lightfoot, etc. This fallacious view culminated in Lightfoot's (2002: 625) conc...

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Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Jóhanna Barðdal (Editor), Gildea, Spike (Editor), Luján, Eugenio R. (Editor)
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Leiden Brill 2020, 2020
Series:Brill's studies in historical linguistics
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: JSTOR Open Access Books - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:"During several decades, syntactic reconstruction has been more or less regarded as a bootless and an unsuccessful venture, not least due to the heavy criticism in the 1970s from scholars like Watkins, Jeffers, Lightfoot, etc. This fallacious view culminated in Lightfoot's (2002: 625) conclusion: "[i]f somebody thinks that they can reconstruct grammars more successfully and in more widespread fashion, let them tell us their methods and show us their results. Then we'll eat the pudding." This volume provides methods for the identification of i) cognates in syntax, and ii) the directionality of syntactic change, showcasing the results in the introduction and eight articles. These examples are offered as both tastier and also more nourishing than the pudding Lightfoot had in mind when discarding the viability of reconstructing syntax"--
Item Description:Includes index
Physical Description:1 online resource
ISBN:9004392009
9789004391994