The Rise and Fall of Languages

by R.M.W. Dixon

Book Overview

This book puts forward a different approach to language change, the punctuated equilibrium model. This is based on the premise that during most of the 100,000 or more years that humans have had language, states of equilibrium have existed during which linguistic features diffused across the languages in a given area so that they gradually converged on a common prototype. From time to time, the state of equilibrium would be punctuated, with expansion...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521626544
• ISBN13: 9780521626545
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.1" x 7.8"