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

Joan Bybee (Author), Revere Perkins (Author), William Pagliuca (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0226086658 | ISBN-13: 978-0226086651 | Edition: 1

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 process of evolution is strikingly similar across unrelated languages.

Through a survey of seventy-six languages in twenty-five different phyla, the authors show that the same paths of change occur universally and that movement along these paths is in one direction only. This analysis reveals that lexical substance evolves into grammatical substance through various mechanisms of change, such as metaphorical extension and the conventionalization of implicature. Grammaticization is always accompanied by an increase in frequency of the grammatical marker, providing clear evidence that language use is a major factor in the evolution of synchronic language states.

The Evolution of Grammar has important implications for the development of language and for the study of cognitive processes in general.

Product Details

• Paperback: 420 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (November 15, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226086658
• ISBN-13: 978-0226086651
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,085,903 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My books report on my research in the academic discipline of Linguistics. I've been particularly interested in the cognitive processes that apply when people use language and how these processes create change in language over long periods of time. One of my interests has been to investigate the way the frequency of use of particular words or phrases impacts the representation of these words or phrases in memory. An important finding is that frequent words and phrases are easily retrieved from memory and also tend to be shortened when we use them.

My earlier books concern the sound systems of language, the structure of words, and the way grammatical categories such as tense and mood are created over time through language use. My latest book deals with how words are put together to form constructions and how these constructions change over time because of processes that occur in communication.

I taught Linguistics for sixteen years at the University at Buffalo (in New York state), and twenty-one years at the University of New Mexico. I am now retired, but still writing books on linguistics. In addition, I have a ranch in central New Mexico that I operate on sustainable principles, producing grassfed beef.

(Photo courtesy of Dr. Renqiang Wang, Professor at Sichuan International Studies University, China)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the World's Languages, May 11, 2008

By 

Julie Wilson "linguist" (Ann Arbor, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World (Paperback)

The Evolution of Grammar focuses on two issues: first, is it possible to discover diachronic relationships between various meanings of verbal morphology; and second, is there a relationship between the type of expression (auxiliary, particle, affix, or internal stem change)and the age of the grammatical morpheme(gram)? The answer appears to be yes in both cases. The authors use a large and diverse typological study, and a number of similarities occur. Completive and Resultative morphemes are frequently the source of Anteriors, Perfectives, and Pasts. New paraphrastic progressives take over a portion of the semantic space once occupied by an older present tense. Agent oriented modalities expand into the territory of speaker oriented and epistemic modalities and eventually are used in a subjunctive manner. Verbs of desire, volition, and movement become sources of future tense markers.
This book is an interesting journey for historical linguists, typologists, semanticists who would like more depth of analysis, and syntaticians who are struggling with the nature of little "v" and differences in complementizers.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Historical Syntax, August 1, 2005

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TMS (Eugene, OR) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World (Paperback)

This text, along with Harris & Campbell's Historical syntax in cross-linguistic perspective and Hopper and Traugott's Grammaticalization, is central to the Typological-Functional research documentation into diachronic language change. Broadly cross-linguistic and solid in its empirical grounding, this text will be of great utility to any researcher in the field.

5.0 out of 5 stars Bybee et al., The evolution of grammar, May 3, 2010

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Joseph R. Bauman - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World (Paperback)

This is an excellent reference resource for anyone interested in the evolution of tense, modality, and aspect.