Book contents
- Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax
- Studies in English Language
- Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Analysing English Syntax Past and Present
- Part I Approaches to Grammatical Categories and Categorial Change
- Part II Approaches to Constructions and Constructional Change
- Part III Comparative and Typological Approaches
- Chapter 11 The Role Played by Analogy in Processes of Language Change: The Case of English Have-to Compared to Spanish Tener-que
- Chapter 12 Modelling Step Change: The History of Will-Verbs in Germanic
- Chapter 13 Possessives World-Wide: Genitive Variation in Varieties of English
- Chapter 14 American English: No Written Standard before the Twentieth Century?
- References
- Index
Chapter 12 - Modelling Step Change: The History of Will-Verbs in Germanic
from Part III - Comparative and Typological Approaches
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2019
Book contents
- Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax
- Studies in English Language
- Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Analysing English Syntax Past and Present
- Part I Approaches to Grammatical Categories and Categorial Change
- Part II Approaches to Constructions and Constructional Change
- Part III Comparative and Typological Approaches
- Chapter 11 The Role Played by Analogy in Processes of Language Change: The Case of English Have-to Compared to Spanish Tener-que
- Chapter 12 Modelling Step Change: The History of Will-Verbs in Germanic
- Chapter 13 Possessives World-Wide: Genitive Variation in Varieties of English
- Chapter 14 American English: No Written Standard before the Twentieth Century?
- References
- Index
Summary
Living languages constantly change, but though we have developed an understanding of actualisation – the way in which change spreads through a language (e.g. De Smet 2012) – and propagation – the way change spreads through a population (e.g. Labov 2001), the answer to the question of why change happens in the first place has proven elusive. As McMahon (1994: 225) puts it: ‘the actuation problem, sadly, will remain as mysterious as ever’ (cf. Walkden 2017).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax , pp. 283 - 314Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019