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Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches

Clive Holes (ed.)

This book, by a group of leading international scholars, outlines the history of the spoken dialects of Arabic from the Arab conquests of the seventh century up to the present day. It specifically ... More

This book, by a group of leading international scholars, outlines the history of the spoken dialects of Arabic from the Arab conquests of the seventh century up to the present day. It specifically investigates the evolution of Arabic as a spoken language, in contrast to the many existing studies that focus on written Classical or Modern Standard Arabic. The volume begins with a discursive introduction that deals with important issues in the general scholarly context, including the indigenous myth and probable reality of the history of Arabic; Arabic dialect geography and typology; types of internally and externally motivated linguistic change; social indexicalization; and pidginization and creolization in Arabic-speaking communities. Most chapters then focus on developments in a specific region—Mauritania, the Maghreb, Egypt, the Levant, the Northern Fertile Crescent, the Gulf, and South Arabia—with one exploring Judaeo-Arabic, a group of varieties historically spread over a wider area. The remaining two chapters in the volume examine individual linguistic features of particular historical interest and controversy, specifically the origin and evolution of the b- verbal prefix, and the adnominal linker –an/–in. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students of the linguistic and social history of Arabic as well as to comparative linguists interested in topics such as linguistic typology and language change.Less

Arabic Indefinites, Interrogatives, and Negators: A Linguistic History of Western Dialects

David Wilmsen

That some dialects of Arabic negate with a pre-posed mā alone, some with what is called ‘bipartite’ negation mā … š, and some with post-positive -š alone has invited comparisons with a similar ... More

That some dialects of Arabic negate with a pre-posed mā alone, some with what is called ‘bipartite’ negation mā … š, and some with post-positive -š alone has invited comparisons with a similar process, called Jespersen’s Cycle, said to have occurred in French, whereby the pre-posed negator ne became associated with an emphatic post-positive particle pas ‘step’—and, in some French vernaculars, with a post-positive pas alone. Yet the similarity between Arabic and French is purely superficial, lacking supporting linguistic evidence. Forcing the facts of Arabic into preconceived theoretical constructs, both formal and functional, engenders erroneous conclusions. The source of the Arabic negator -š is polar interrogation, for which evidence does indeed exist in various Arabic dialects, including Andalusi, Egyptian, Levantine, Maltese, Tunisian, and Yemeni. The polar interrogative šī, itself derived from an existential particle, ultimately arose from the Proto-Semitic presentative ša and 3rd person pronouns šū, šī, and šunu. Supporting evidence for this comes from the West Semitic Modern South Arabian languages, which possess an existential particle, an indefinite determiner, and inchoate interrogative śi analogous in form and function to that of the Arabic šī. With this, it becomes possible to propose the operation of a different cycle in Arabic: the negative-existential (or Croft’s) cycle. Such comparative evidence from Arabic dialects and sister languages, along with historical records of an Arab presence in the Fertile Crescent centuries before the arrival of Arabic speaking Muslims in the 7th century AD, provides convincing evidence for the antiquity of the Arabic dialects.Less

The Bishop's Grammar: Robert Lowth and the Rise of Prescriptivism

Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade

This book examines the life, language and grammar of Robert Lowth (1710–1787), founder of prescriptivism. Drawing on private documents, it maps his social networks and compares his own language to ... More

This book examines the life, language and grammar of Robert Lowth (1710–1787), founder of prescriptivism. Drawing on private documents, it maps his social networks and compares his own language to the grammar's model of correctness. By analysing his role in the establishment of the prescriptive canon, it portrays Lowth as a precursor to usage guides like Fowler's Modern English Usage.Less

Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English

Philip Durkin

This book traces the history of loanwords in English from earliest times to the present day. The first two chapters outline the research methodology and framework, and introduce several key datasets ... More

This book traces the history of loanwords in English from earliest times to the present day. The first two chapters outline the research methodology and framework, and introduce several key datasets that are referred to throughout the book: the full wordlist of the Oxford English Dictionary; the 1,000 most frequent words in a corpus of contemporary English; and the English words that provide the closest fit with a large list of basic meanings. The next three chapters look at the historical and cultural background up to the Norman Conquest, the methodology of comparative linguistics and the identification of families of related languages, the ways in which loanwords from the remote past are identified, and, finally, why there are relatively few English loanwords from the Celtic languages of the British Isles. The following three groups of chapters form the heart of the historical discussion in the book, looking in detail at loanwords from Latin found in Old English; loanwords resulting from Scandinavian contact and settlement; and loanwords that reflect multilingual contacts between French, Latin, and English in later medieval England. The final part of the book looks in detail at loanwords from Latin and French from 1500 to the present, including the role of loanwords in the history of written English and in the formation of specialist technical and scientific vocabularies; the contribution from other major donor languages, both within Europe and beyond (including Arabic, Hebrew, languages of South Asia, Malay, Chinese, Maori, and Japanese); and, finally, it assesses the deep transformations in all layers of the vocabulary of English that have resulted from the integration of loanwords from different sources.Less

The Boundaries of Pure Morphology: Diachronic and Synchronic Perspectives

Silvio Cruschina, Martin Maiden, and John Charles Smith (eds)

This book considers whether in some languages there are phenomena which are unique to morphology, determined neither by phonology or syntax. Central to these phenomena is the notion of the ... More

This book considers whether in some languages there are phenomena which are unique to morphology, determined neither by phonology or syntax. Central to these phenomena is the notion of the ‘morphome’, conceived by Mark Aronoff in 1994 as a function, itself lacking form and meaning but which serves systematically to relate them. The classic examples of morphomes are determined neither phonologically or morphosyntactically, and appear to be an autonomous property of the synchronic organization of morphological paradigms. The nature of the morphome is a problematic and much debated issue at the centre of current research in morphology, partly because it is defined negatively as what remains after all attempts to assign putatively morphomic phenomena to phonological or morphosyntactic conditioning have been exhausted. However, morphomic phenomena generally originate in some kind of morphosyntactic or phonological conditioning which has been lost while their effects have endured. Quite often, vestiges of the original conditioning environment persist, and the boundary between the morphomic and extramorphological conditioning may become problematic. In a series of pioneering explorations of the diachrony of morphomes this book throws important new light on the nature of the morphome and the boundary—seen from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives—between what is and is not genuinely autonomous in morphology.Less

A Brief History of the Verb To Be

Andrea Moro

Beginning with the early works of Aristotle, the interpretation of the verb to be runs through Western linguistic thought like Ariadne's thread. As it unravels, it becomes intertwined with ... More

Beginning with the early works of Aristotle, the interpretation of the verb to be runs through Western linguistic thought like Ariadne's thread. As it unravels, it becomes intertwined with philosophy, metaphysics, logic, and even with mathematics—so much so that Bertrand Russell showed no hesitation in proclaiming that the verb to be was a disgrace to the human race. With the conviction that this verb penetrates modern linguistic thinking, creating scandal in its wake and, like a Trojan horse of linguistics, introducing disruptive elements that lead us to rethink radically the most basic structure of human language—the sentence—this book reconstructs this history. From classical Greece to the dueling masters of medieval logic through the revolutionary geniuses from the seventeenth century to the Enlightenment, and finally to the twentieth century—when linguistics became a driving force and model for neuroscience—the plot unfolds like a detective story, culminating in the discovery of a formula that solves the problem even as it raises new questions—about language, evolution, and the nature and structure of the human mind. The book isn't burdened with inaccessible formulas and always refers to the broader picture of mind and language. In this way it serves as an engaging introduction to a new field of cutting-edge research.Less

Case in Semitic: Roles, Relations, and Reconstruction

Rebecca Hasselbach

This book investigates the case system and the marking of grammatical roles and relations in Semitic languages. It further attempts to provide an explanation for “unusual” usages of cases, especially ... More

This book investigates the case system and the marking of grammatical roles and relations in Semitic languages. It further attempts to provide an explanation for “unusual” usages of cases, especially the accusative, that seem to violate the traditional interpretation of Semitic as exhibiting nominative/accusative alignment from a diachronic perspective. The basic methodologies applied for the diachronic reconstruction are those of historical and comparative linguistics. These methodologies, however, face severe limitations based on the lack of sufficient data for the earliest historically attested periods of Semitic (~ 2500–1800 BC). It is argued that these limitations can be mitigated by employing linguistic typology, which is a linguistic discipline that has not found wide reception among scholars working on Semitic languages so far. Based on both the comparative method and typological principles, the book investigates the alignment and marking of grammatical roles, basic word order patterns connected to the marking of roles, head- and dependent-marking patterns, and the function of the individual cases across Semitic. It concludes that although the alignment of historically attested Semitic languages is nominative/accusative, both morphologically and syntactically, they exhibit vestiges of a more archaic system that reflects a marked-nominative system. In this archaic system, the accusative functioned as the unmarked and default form of the noun that was used as citation form, for nominal predicates, the vocative, and for direct objects of transitive verbs. The nominative on the other hand, was the morphologically and syntactically marked form that solely functioned to mark nominal subjects.Less

Categoriality in Language Change: The Case of the English Gerund

Lauren Fonteyn

This study presents the first elaborate attempt to set out a functional-semantic definition of diachronic transcategorial shift between the major classes “noun”/“nominal” and “verb”/“clause.” In ... More

This study presents the first elaborate attempt to set out a functional-semantic definition of diachronic transcategorial shift between the major classes “noun”/“nominal” and “verb”/“clause.” In English, speakers have different options to refer to an event by using “deverbal nominalization” strategies (e.g., Him guessing her size/His guessing of her size (was incredibly lucky)). Interestingly, not only do these strategies each resemble “prototypical” nominals to varying extents, it also has been observed that some of these strategies increasingly resemble clauses and decreasingly resemble prototypical nominals over time, as if they are gradually shifting categories. Thus far, the literature on such cases of diachronic categorial shift has mainly described the processes by focusing on form, leaving the reader with a clear picture of what and how changes have occurred. Yet, the question of why these formal changes have occurred is still shrouded in mystery. This study tackles this mystery by showing that the diachronic processes of nominalization and verbalization can also involve functional-semantic changes. The aim of this study is both theoretical and descriptive. The theoretical aim is to present a model that allows one to study diachronic nominalization and verbalization as not just formal or morpho-syntactic but also functional-semantic processes. The descriptive aim is to offer “workable” definitions of the abstract functional-semantic properties of nominals and verbs/clauses, and subsequently apply them to one of the most intriguing deverbal nominalization systems in the history of English: the English gerund.Less

Clause Structure and Word Order in the History of German

Agnes Jäger, Gisella Ferraresi, and Helmut Weiß (eds)

Over roughly the last decade, there has been a notable rise in new research on historical German syntax in a generative perspective. This volume presents a state-of-the-art survey of this thriving ... More

Over roughly the last decade, there has been a notable rise in new research on historical German syntax in a generative perspective. This volume presents a state-of-the-art survey of this thriving new line of research by leading scholars in the field, combining it with new insights into the syntax of historical German. It is the first comprehensive and concise generative historical syntax of German covering numerous central aspects of clause structure and word order, tracing them throughout various historical stages. Each chapter combines a solid empirical basis and valid descriptive generalizations with reference also to the more traditional topological model of the German clause with a detailed discussion of theoretical analyses couched in the generative framework. The volume is divided into three parts according to the main parts of the clause: the left periphery dealing with verbal placement and the filling of the prefield (verb second, verb first, verb third orders) as well as adverbial connectives; the middle field including discussion of pronominal syntax, order of full NPs and the history of negation; and the right periphery with chapters on basic word order (OV/VO), prosodic and information-structural factors, and the verbal complex including the development of periphrastic verb forms and the phenomena of IPP (infinitivus pro participio) and ACI (accusativus cum infinitivo). This book thus provides a convenient overview of current research on the major issues concerning historical German clause structure both for scholars interested in more traditional description and for those interested in formal accounts of diachronic syntax.Less

Computational Phenotypes: Towards an Evolutionary Developmental Biolinguistics

Sergio Balari and Guillermo Lorenzo

This is a book about language as a species-typical trait of humans. Linguists customarily describe it as an extremely exceptional capacity, even when compared with the biological endowment of closely ... More

This is a book about language as a species-typical trait of humans. Linguists customarily describe it as an extremely exceptional capacity, even when compared with the biological endowment of closely related species, and this is the source of the many quarrels that exist around the aim of explaining its evolutionary origins. This book argues that language is not so exceptional after all, as according to the text it is just the human version of a rather common and conservative organic system that they refer to as the Central Computational Complex. The book argues that inter-specific variation of this organ is restricted to (i) accessible memory resources, and (ii) patterns of external connectivity, both being the result of perturbations in the system underlying its development. The book thus offers a fresh perspective on language as a naturally evolved phenomenon.Less

Concepts, Syntax, and Their Interface: The Theta System

Tanya Reinhart

Martin Everaert and Marijana Marelj (eds)

The present book introduces one of Tanya Reinhart's major contributions to linguistic theory, namely the Theta System, a theory of the interface between the system of concepts and the linguistic ... More

The present book introduces one of Tanya Reinhart's major contributions to linguistic theory, namely the Theta System, a theory of the interface between the system of concepts and the linguistic computational system. The core of the book – part Ia – is her seminal paper The Theta System: Syntactic Realization of Verbal Concepts, pre-published as Reinhart (2000). It is enriched with extensive annotations relating it to subsequent developments, and a summary of the approach based on Reinhart (2002). In part Ib Marijana Marelj's contribution provides an in-depth analysis of the role of accusative Case in the system. Chapter II by Julia Horvath and Tal Siloni evaluates the role of the lexicon versus the syntax in building the ‘thematic’ (vP) phase. They challenge syntacticocentric approaches to argument structure; develop an alternative, active-lexicon approach and diagnostics demonstrating that (certain) valence-changing operations apply before syntactic structure is available. Part III, by Marijana Marelj and Eric Reuland, addresses the nature of the Lexicon-Syntax parameter (Reinhart and Siloni 2005), which distinguishes two broad classes of languages. They show that this parameter can be reduced to whether or not a language has syntactic clitics, and to how valence reduction of a verb affects its Case properties.Less

Constructionalization and Constructional Changes

Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Graeme Trousdale

A constructionalist approach to language change is proposed, with focus on the development of signs in a usage-based model. The book's explore the interconnections between grammatical and lexical ... More

A constructionalist approach to language change is proposed, with focus on the development of signs in a usage-based model. The book's explore the interconnections between grammatical and lexical constructions in the language network, and the way in which language use affects the representation of constructions and schemas over time. Language change is shown to proceed by micro-steps that involve closely related changes in syntax, morphology, phonology, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse functions. Examples are drawn from electronic corpora representing the one thousand five hundred year history of English from earliest times to the present. The book is organized in six chapters. The first outlines the authors’ approach and the questions they address. The second reviews usage-based models of language change. The third considers the relation between grammatical constructionalization and grammaticalization. The fourth considers the relation between lexical constructionalization and lexicalization, and proposes that lexical constructionalization includes word formation. Chapter 5 focuses on the role of context. The final chapter draws the book’s arguments together in a series of conclusions and outlines prospects for further research. The book rethinks key issues in historical linguistics research (including grammaticalization, lexicalization, reanalysis, analogy and unidirectionality) by adopting a constructional approach to the architecture of language.Less

Constructions and Environments: Copular, Passive, and Related Constructions in Old and Middle English

Peter Petré

This monograph presents the first comprehensive diachronic account of copular and passive verb constructions in Old and Middle English. Loss of the high-frequency verb weorðan ‘become’ is explained ... More

This monograph presents the first comprehensive diachronic account of copular and passive verb constructions in Old and Middle English. Loss of the high-frequency verb weorðan ‘become’ is explained as a result of changing word order in narrative during Middle English. The merger of is ‘is’ and bið ‘shall be, is generally’ into a single suppletive verb is related to the development of a general analytic future shall benally, the co-occurrence of multiple changes led to become and wax crossing a threshold of similarity with existing copulas, from which they analogically adopted full productivity. In explaining each change, the study goes beyond the level of the verb and its complements, drawing attention to analogical networks and the importance of a verb’s embeddedness in clausal and textual environments. In its radically usage-based approach, treating syntax as emerging from changing frequencies, the study draws attention to some general principles of constructional change, including grammaticalization and lexicalization, by proposing novel parallelisms between linguistic and ecological evolution. Going beyond the view of language change as propagating only in social interaction, each individual’s mental grammar is described as a dynamic ecosystem with hierarchical environments (clausal niches, textual habitats), in which seemingly unrelated constructions may be connected. This interconnectedness of seemingly unrelated changes, itself resulting from cognitive economy principles, is arguably more decisive in lexical change than is functional competition.Less

Continuity and Variation in Germanic and Romance

Sam Wolfe and Christine Meklenborg (eds)

This volume offers a range of synchronic and diachronic case studies in comparative Germanic and Romance morphosyntax. These two language families, spoken by over a billion people today, have been of ... More

This volume offers a range of synchronic and diachronic case studies in comparative Germanic and Romance morphosyntax. These two language families, spoken by over a billion people today, have been of central importance throughout the development linguistics, yet many significant questions about the relationship between the two families remain. Following an introduction that sets out the methodological, empirical, and theoretical background to the book, the volume is divided into three parts which deal with the morphosyntax of subjects and the inflectional layer inversion, discourse pragmatics, and the left periphery, and continuity and variation beyond the clause. The approaches used by the authors of individual chapters are diverse, making use of the latest digitized corpora and presenting a mixture of well-known and understudied data from standard and non-standard Germanic and Romance languages. Many of the chapters challenge received wisdom about the relationship between these two important language families. This volume will be an indispensable tool to researchers and students in Germanic and Romance linguistics, historical linguistics, grammatical theory, and language relationships.Less

Cycles in Language Change

Miriam Bouzouita, Anne Breitbarth, Lieven Danckaert, and Elisabeth Witzenhausen (eds)

The notion of ‘linguistic cycle’ has long been recognized as being relevant to the descriptions of many processes of language change. In a process known as grammaticalization, a given linguistic form ... More

The notion of ‘linguistic cycle’ has long been recognized as being relevant to the descriptions of many processes of language change. In a process known as grammaticalization, a given linguistic form loses its lexical meaning as well as some of its phonological content, and then gradually weakens, until it ultimately vanishes. This process of change becomes cyclic when the grammaticalized form is replaced by an innovative item, which can develop along exactly the same pathway. This volume unites thirteen chapters which address aspects of cyclical change from a wide variety of empirical perspectives. Couched in the generative framework, the contributions to this book bear witness to the rapidly growing interest among Chomskyan syntacticians in the phenomenon of grammaticalization. Topics touched upon include, but are not limited to, the diachrony of negation (in the context of, but also beyond, Jespersen’s Cycle), the syntax of determiners and pronominal clitics, the internal structure of wh-words and logical operators, cyclical changes in argument structure, and the relationship between morphology and syntax. One conclusion that transpires is that the correlation between cyclical change and grammaticalization—though undeniable—is perhaps less strong than sometimes assumed. Given its emphasis on empirical data description and theoretical analysis, Cycles in Language Change will be of interest to historical linguists working in formal and usage-based frameworks, and more broadly to scholars interested in language variation and change.Less

Dative External Possessors in Early English

Cynthia L. Allen

This book presents the results of a corpus-based case study of diachronic English syntax. Present Day English is in a minority of European languages in not having a productive dative external ... More

This book presents the results of a corpus-based case study of diachronic English syntax. Present Day English is in a minority of European languages in not having a productive dative external possessor construction. This construction, in which the possessor is in the dative case and behaves like an element of the sentence rather than part of the possessive phrase, was in variation with internal possessors in the genitive case in Old English, especially in expressions of inalienable possession. In Middle English, internal possessors became the only productive possibility. Previous studies of this development are not systematic enough to provide an empirical base for the hypotheses that have been put forward to explain the loss of external possessors in English, and these earlier studies do not make a crucial distinction among possessa in different grammatical relations. This book traces the use of dative external possessors in the texts of the Old and Early Middle English periods and explores how well the facts fit the major proposed explanations. A key finding is that the decline of the dative construction is visible within the Old English period and seems to have begun even before we have written records. Explanations that rely completely on developments in the Early Middle English period, such as the loss of case-marking distinctions, cannot account for this early decline. It does not appear that Celtic learners of Old English failed to learn the external possessor construction, but they may have precipitated the decrease in frequency in its use.Less

Degrammaticalization

Muriel Norde

This is a book about degrammaticalization, a rare type of linguistic change whereby grams become ‘less grammatical’, typical examples being shifts from affix to clitic, or from function word to ... More

This is a book about degrammaticalization, a rare type of linguistic change whereby grams become ‘less grammatical’, typical examples being shifts from affix to clitic, or from function word to lexical item. It discusses the alleged unidirectionality of semantic and morphosyntactic change, showing that change is in fact reversible on all levels. It also aims to classify degrammaticalization by examining primitive changes on several levels: semantics, pragmatics, morphology, syntax, and phonology. It is argued that there exist three separate types of degrammaticalization: degrammation, whereby a function word develops into a lexical item; deinflectionalization, whereby an inflectional affix becomes either derivational or enclitic, while gaining additional functions; and debonding, whereby a bound morpheme becomes a free morpheme, often without change on the semantic-functional level.Less

The Development of Latin Clause Structure: A Study of the Extended Verb Phrase

Lieven Danckaert

The focus of this book is Latin word order, and in particular the relative ordering of direct objects and lexical verbs (OV vs. VO), and auxiliaries and non-finite verbs (VAux vs. AuxV). One aim of ... More

The focus of this book is Latin word order, and in particular the relative ordering of direct objects and lexical verbs (OV vs. VO), and auxiliaries and non-finite verbs (VAux vs. AuxV). One aim of the book is to offer a first detailed, corpus-based description of these two word order alternations, with special emphasis on their diachronic development in the period from ca. 200 BC until 600 AD. The corpus data reveal that some received wisdom needs to be reconsidered. For one thing, there is no evidence for any major increase in productivity of the order VO during the eight centuries under investigation. In addition, the order AuxV only becomes more frequent in clauses with a modal verb and an infinitive, not in clauses with a BE-auxiliary and a past participle. A second goal is to answer a more fundamental question about Latin syntax, namely whether or not the language is ‘configurational’, in the sense that a phrase structure grammar (with ‘higher-order constituents’ such as verb phrases) is needed to describe and analyse facts of Latin word order. Four pieces of evidence are presented which suggest that Latin is indeed a fully configurational language, despite its high degree of word order flexibility. Specifically, it is shown that there is ample evidence for the existence of a verb phrase constituent. The book thus contributes to the ongoing debate whether configurationality (phrase structure) is a language universal or not.Less

The Development of Old English

Don Ringe and Ann Taylor

This volume traces the development of English phonology and morphology from Proto-Germanic to Old English of about the year 900 and describes Old English syntax in a modern framework from a ... More

This volume traces the development of English phonology and morphology from Proto-Germanic to Old English of about the year 900 and describes Old English syntax in a modern framework from a historical perspective. An introduction describing the linguistic state of early Old English in general terms is followed by two chapters detailing the changes that can be shown to have occurred from Proto-Germanic to Proto-Northwest Germanic and from the latter to Proto-West Germanic. The fourth chapter is a grammatical sketch of Proto-West Germanic. There follows a chapter on developments that occurred in the northern part of the West Germanic speech area. Chapter 6 describes the phonological changes that occurred in the separate development of Old English, with special attention to the recoverable relative chronology of the changes; Chapter 7 does the same for morphological changes. Finally, Chapter 8 is a comprehensive description of Old English syntax in a modern theoretical framework, with notes on changes that occurred during the attested Old English period and on what little can be recovered of the syntactic prehistory of the language. The discussion throughout is technical; it is meant to be accessible especially to linguists who do not specialize in Old English nor in historical linguistics, but it will also be of use to students who already have some background in linguistics.Less

Diachrony and Dialects: Grammatical Change in the Dialects of Italy

Paola Benincà, Adam Ledgeway, and Nigel Vincent (eds)

Italy constitutes a fertile terrain for research into language change, both because of the richness of the dialectal variation and because of the length of the period of textual attestation. Such ... More

Italy constitutes a fertile terrain for research into language change, both because of the richness of the dialectal variation and because of the length of the period of textual attestation. Such diversity has long been the staple of research in general and Romance historical phonology, morphology, and lexis, but much less attention has been devoted to the same issues within the domain of grammar. In this book therefore, a team of leading international scholars addresses a range of topics designed to exploit and explore the interaction of the geographical and historical dimensions of morphosyntactic change. The opening chapter establishes the conceptual and empirical background. There follow a series of case studies investigating the morphosyntax of verbal and nominal constructions and the organization of the clause. Exemplification is drawn from the full range of Romance dialects spoken within the borders of modern Italy, from Sicily and Sardinia through to Piedmont and Friulia. Some of the studies narrow the focus to a particular construction within a particular dialect; others broaden out to compare different patterns of evolution within different dialects. There is also diversity in the theoretical frameworks adopted by the various contributors. Our aim is both to take stock of the current state of the field and to set out new results and new questions to help move forward the frontiers of that research. The results are of relevance not only to those who specialize in the study of Italo‐Romance, but also to other Romanists and to those whose interest lies in the understanding of the mechanisms of linguistic change, whatever their languages of specializationLess