The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World

by Joan L. Bybee, William Pagliuca, Revere Perkins

Joan Bybee and her colleagues present a new theory of the evolution of grammar that links structure and meaning in a way that directly challenges most contemporary versions of generative grammar. This study focuses on the use and meaning of grammatical markers of tense, aspect, and modality and identifies a universal set of grammatical categories. The authors demonstrate that the semantic content of these categories evolves gradually and that this...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226086658
• ISBN13: 9780226086651
• Release Date: November 1994
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 420 Pages
• Weight: 1.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"