Whitney Tabor: Grammaticalization and Self-Organization
Wann |
25.04.2012 von 10:00 bis 12:00 |
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Wo | Institut für Informatik und Gesellschaft, Friedrichstraße 50, 2.OG (Raum 02009) |
Name | Dr. Gesa von Essen |
Teilnehmer |
universitätsoffen |
Termin übernehmen |
vCal iCal |
There is a kind of language-internal evolutive change that is described by terms such as “grammaticalization”, “lexicalization”, and “constructionalization”, among others. I suggest that the theory of dynamical systems, and in particular, the phenomenon of self-organization, offers some particularly helpful insights into these phenomena. Some key claims according to this view are: quantitative changes (like frequency changes and subtle semantic shifts) are actually fine-grained structural changes; there is an important role for feedback in the development of grammatical forms (social forces, among others, play a pivotal role); there are relationships of similarity that cross currently recognized structural boundaries, and play a central role in the flexibility of the language system. I suggest, in fact, that the study of grammaticalization and related language change phenomena may help us understand the interplay between stability and flexibility in complex systems generally.