The Evolution of Grammar

Joan Bybee, R. P., & Pagliuca, W. (1994). The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. University of Chicago Press.

Type

Book

Intellectual base

Review or monograph

Year

1994

Link

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo3683926.html

Cited by

2 citations across 2 artifacts.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Primes

• Emergent Formalization (Language)
  • The mechanism differs sharply from ad-hoc formalization in organizations (standards bodies) or technology (API codification) — this one is unconscious, collective, and played out over centuries, not years or decades.

    This sourceCross-linguistic survey (76 languages) showing token-frequency-driven, unidirectional lexical-to-grammatical change — supports the frequency-effect-mechanism and one-way-process claims.

Domain-specific

• Unidirectionality Hypothesis
  • Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca's survey of seventy-six languages in twenty-five phyla found recurrent semantic paths in tense, aspect, and modality and reported movement along them in one direction, supplying a major cross-linguistic evidential base.

Verification

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