Language change, variation, and universals

This volume explores how human languages become what they are, why they differ from one another in certain ways but not in others, and why they change in the ways that they do. Peter Culicover proposes that language change and variation are responses to the pressure to find efficient grammatical solutions to the task of expressing human thought.

This edition also issued in print: 2021.

Cover -- Language Change, Variation, and Universals: A Constructional Approach -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- List of Abbreviations -- Part I: Foundations -- 1: Overview -- 1.1 The problem -- 1.2 Constructions -- 1.2.1 Basics -- 1.2.2 Constructions are not derivations -- 1.3 Antecedents -- 2: Constructions -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 What a grammar is for -- 2.3 A framework for constructions -- 2.3.1 Representing constructions -- 2.3.2 Licensing -- 2.3.3 Linear order -- 2.4 Appendix: Formalizing constructions -- 2.4.1 Representations on tiers

2.4.2 Connections between tiers -- 2.4.3 Licensing via instantiation -- 3: Universals -- 3.1 Classical Universal Grammar -- 3.1.1 Core grammar -- 3.1.2 Parameters -- 3.1.3 UG and emerging grammars -- 3.2 Another conception of universals -- 3.3 On the notion 'possible human language' -- 3.3.1 Possible constructions -- 3.3.2 An example: Negation -- 3.3.3 Another example: The imperative -- 3.4 Against uniformity -- 4: Learning, complexity, and competition -- 4.1 Acquiring constructions -- 4.2 Constructional innovation -- 4.3 Constructions in competition

4.3.1 Multiple grammars vs. multiple constructions -- 4.3.2 Defin…