Full Description
This volume is the first collection of papers that is exclusively dedicated to the concept of exaptation, a notion from evolutionary biology that was famously introduced into linguistics by Roger Lass in 1990. The past quarter-century has seen a heated debate on the properties of linguistic exaptation, its demarcation from other processes of linguistic change, and indeed the question of whether it is a useful concept in historical linguistics at all. The contributions in the present volume reflect these diverging points of view. Along with a comprehensive introduction, covering the history of the notion of exaptation from its conception in the field of biology to its adoption in linguistics, the book offers extensive discussion of the concept from various theoretical perspectives, detailed case studies as well as critical reviews of some stock examples. The book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of evolutionary linguistics, historical linguistics, and the history of linguistics.
Contents
1. Preface; 2. Exaptation: Taking stock of a controversial notion in linguistics (by Van de Velde, Freek); 3. Being exacting about exapting: An exaptation omnibus (by Joseph, Brian D.); 4. Co-opting exaptation in a theory of language change (by Gaeta, Livio); 5. Exaptation in Japanese and beyond (by Narrog, Heiko); 6. Functional changes and (meta-)linguistic evolution (by Mengden, Ferdinand von); 7. Exaptation from the perspective of construction morphology (by Norde, Muriel); 8. Exaptation and degrammaticalization within an acquisition-based model of abductive reanalysis (by Willis, David); 9. Allogenous exaptation (by Gardani, Francesco); 10. How functionless is junk and how useful is exaptation?: Probing the -I/ESC- morpheme (by Vermandere, Dieter); 11. The history of nominative -er in Danish and Swedish: A case of exaptation? (by Jensen, Eva Skafte); 12. Is the development of linking elements in German a case of exaptation? (by Szczepaniak, Renata); 13. Exploring and recycling: Topichood and the evolution of Ibero-romance articles (by Wall, Albert); 14. Exaptation and adaptation: Two historical routes to final particles in Japanese (by Izutsu, Katsunobu); 15. Language index; 16. Subject index
