Linguistic Cycle

Elly van Gelderen is Regents’ Professor of English and Linguistics at Arizona State University, USA. Her most recent books include The Linguistic Cycle: Language Change and the Language Faculty (2011), The Diachrony of Meaning (2018), and Third Factors in Language Variation and Change (2022).

• PrefaceList of TablesList of FiguresAbbreviations1 Introduction 1 What is the linguistic cycle? 2 What kinds of cycles exist?3 How and why to study cyclical change3.1 The practical side3.2 The theoretical side4 Major questions in the study of cycles 5 Terminology6 Conclusion and outlineSuggestions for further readingReview questions and exercises2 History 1 The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries2 The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries3 The mid and late twentieth century4 Recent generative work5 Recent functionalist work6 ConclusionSuggestions for further readingReview questions3 Micro cycles: Determiner and Verbal Cycles 1 Definition of a micro cycle2 Determiner Cycles3 Copula Cycles4 Tense and Aspect Cycles4.1 The Imperfective Cycle4.2 The Perfective Cycle4.3 Imperfective and perfective renewal in Basque5 Mood Cycles6 Voice Cycles7 ConclusionSuggestions for further readingReview questions and exercises4 Micro cycles: Polarity and Discourse Cycles 1 Negative Cycles1.1 Jespersen’s Negative Cycle1.2 Givón’s Negative Cycle1.3 Croft’s Negative Cycle2 Interrogative Cycles3 Complementizer Cycles4 Pragmatic Cycles4.1 A definition4.2 Temperal adverbs as sources4.3 Emphatic Pronoun Cycles5 Interactions between micro cycles6 ConclusionsSuggestions for further readingReview questions and exercises5 Macro cycles 1 Definition of a macro cycle2 Analytic to synthetic to analytic3 Pronoun Cycles3.1 Subject Cycle3.2 Object Cycle3.3 Morpheme Order4 Case Cycles5 Interactions involving macro cycles6 ConclusionsSuggestions for further readingReview questions and exercisesAppendix6 Explanations and mechanisms 1 Clarity vs comfort2 External factors3 Construction Grammar4 Early Minimalism: structural and featural economy5 Later Minimalism: labeling and determinacy6 Attractor states7 ConclusionsSuggestions for further readingReview questions and exercises7 Conclusions and future directions 1 Insights from cycles2 Criticisms of the cycle3 Future directionsSuggested answers to the review questions and exercisesReferencesIndices