Wolfgang U. Dressler – författare

Since its initiation some twenty years ago Longman Linguistics Library has established itself as a series aimed primarily at an undergraduate and postgraduate student readership. Some of its books serve as introductions to key aspects of the subject, others are more specialised: generally they assume a first year's knowledge of linguistics and lead the reader on from there. In all cases the books are self-contained; they are intended to treat important areas in general linguistics and to be of value for a number of years

This is the first volume specifically dedicated to competition in inflection and word-formation, a topic that has increasingly attracted attention. Semantic categories, such as concepts, classes, and feature bundles, can be expressed by more than one form or formal pattern. This departure from the ideal principle "one form – one meaning" is particularly frequent in morphology, where it has been treated under diverse headings, such as blocking, Elsewhere Condition, Pāṇini''s Principle, rivalry, synonymy, doublets, overabundance, suppletion and other terms. Since these research traditions, despite the heterogeneous terminology, essentially refer to the same underlying problems, this volume unites the phenomena studied in this field of linguistic morphology under the more general heading of competition.

The volume features an extensive state of the art report on the subject and 11 research papers, which represent various theoretical approaches to morphology and addressa wide range of aspects of competition, including morphophonology, lexicology, diachrony, language contact, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and language acquisition.

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 approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective.

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.

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