Social Networks and Historical Sociolinguistics: Studies in Morphosyntactic Variation in the Paston Letters (1421-1503)

Product Description The author analyzes, from a historical sociolinguistic point of view, selected domains of morphosyntactic variation in a 250,000 word collection of the Middle English Paston Letters (1421-1503). In three case studies, two nominal and one verbal variable are described and discussed in detail: the replacement of Old English pronouns by borrowed pronouns, the introduction and spread of >wh-relativizers, and the spread and routinization of light verb constructions (take, make, give, have, do plus deverbal noun). While the author aims at a balanced integration of different approaches in sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, typology, and language change, the main focus is on social network theory and the role of the linguistic individual in the formation and change of linguistic structures. Review "Any researcher interested in these variables should read this book, because they are discussed from a wide variety of theoretical and analytical perspectives and, importantly, discrepancies between the results of this work and the results obtained from these earlier studies should now be taken into account. In addition, the methodological and theoretical contexts of the analyses are put together in what might almost be called a hidden agenda of the book, which seems to be an effort to question our techniques and refine our understanding of the processes involved in language change...Margaret Sonmez in: Linguistlist 2005 About the Author Alexander T. Bergs is Assistant Professor at the Department of English Language and Linguistics at Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany.