The Determinants of Diachronic Stability

While Much Of The Literature Has Focused On Explaining Diachronic Variation And Change, The Fact That Sometimes Change Does Not Seem To Happen Has Received Much Less Attention. The Current Volume Unites Ten Contributions That Look For The Determinants Of Diachronic Stability, Mainly In The Areas Of Morphology And (morpho)syntax. The Relevant Question Is Approached From Different Angles, Both Empirical And Theoretical. Empirically, The Contributions Deal With The Absence Of Change Where One May Expect It, Uncover Underlying Stability Where Traditionally Diachronic Change Was Postulated, And, Inversely, Superficial Stability That Disguises Underlying Change. Determining Factors Ranging From Internal Causes To Language Contact Are Explored. Theoretically, The Questions Of Whether Stable Variation Is Possible, And How It Can Be Modeled Are Addressed. The Volume Will Be Of Interest To Linguists Working On The Causes Of Language Change, And To Scholars Working On The History Of Germanic, Romance, And Sinitic Languages. 1. The Determinants Of Diachronic Stability / Anne Breitbarth, Miriam Bouzouita, Lieven Danckaert And Melissa Farasyn -- 2. Gender Stability, Gender Loss: What Didn't Happen To German / Sheila Watts -- 3. Apparent Competing Agreement Patterns In Middle Low German Non-restrictive Relative Clauses With A First Or Second Person Head / Melissa Farasyn -- 4. Stability And Change In Icelandic Weather Verbs: Syntax, Semantics And Argument Structure / Sigrøður Smuunn Sigurðardóttir And Thórhallur Eythórsson -- 5. Disharmony In Harmony With Diachronic Stability: The Case Of Chinese / Redouane Djamouri And Waltraud Paul -- 6. Against V2 In Old Spanish / Ioanna Sitaridou -- 7. V1 Clauses In Old Catalan / Afra Pujol I Campeny -- 8. Competition, Stability And Change In The Emergence Of Brazilian Portuguese / Charlotte Galves -- 9. What Is A Diachronically Stable System In A Language-contact Situation? The Case Of The English Recipient Passive / Achim Stein, Richard Ingham And Carola Trips -- 10. A Variational Theory Of Specialization In Acquisition And Diachrony / Joel C. Wallenberg -- 11. Stable Variation In Multidimensional Competition / Henri Kauhanen -- Index. Edited By Anne Breitbarth, Miriam Bouzouita, Lieven Danckaert, Melissa Farasyn. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.