
Diachronic Syntax
Models and Mechanisms
Herausgeber:  Pintzuk, Susan; Warner, Anthony; Tsoulas, George
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				The book's fourteen chapters exemplify work in a wide range of languages, including Germanic (Icelandic and Swedish, as well as Old and Middle English); Romance (Latin, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish); Slavonic; and Chinese. A substantial introduction provides a critical synthesis of the field and sets the following chapters in context. The book is then divided into parts dealing with theoretical frameworks, comparative change, features and categories, and movement. The single collated bibliography to the entire volume is a valuable research tool in itself. Diachronic Syntax is innovative in both theory and method and makes a substantial contribution to its subject. It will be of interest to all those concerned to understand and explain the internal dynamics of language.
Linguistic theory has undergone deep changes since the early 1990's, given the widespread impact of Chomsky's Minimalist Programme, Kayne's Antisymmetry Theory, and Kayne's Theory of Overt Movement. This work has brought into sharper focus questions concerning the architecture of linguistic theory that have a direct impact on our understanding of the process of change. Here, Pintzuk, Tsoulas, and Warner have brought together chapters which demonstrate the pivotal position of historical syntax within the larger domain of research into the nature, use, and acquisition of language. They show how current work in historical syntax is responsive to theoretical advances in linguistic theory, language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and theories of language use, as well as to less adjacent fields such as statistical techniques and evolutionary biology.