Reconsideration of Li and Thompson's (1976)

DOI

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • Li and Thompson (1976) の類型論的言語変化論再考
  • Typological Theory of Language Change from the History of English
  • 英語史の観点から

Abstract

Li and Thompson (1976) classified languages in the world into four types:[+Subject-prominent (+Sp), -Topic-prominent (-Tp)], [-Sp, +Tp], [+Sp, +Tp], and [-Sp, -Tp] languages. And they presented a theory of circular language change as follows:[-Sp, +Tp]>[-Sp, -Tp]>[+ Sp, -Tp]>[+Sp, +Tp]>[-Sp, +Tp]>…If, then, this theory of language change were correct, it would predict that English had passed through the [-Sp, -Tp] stage, since Proto-Indo-European was a [-Sp, +Tp] language and ModE is a typical [+Sp, -Tp] language. One can indeed admit that the process from OE to ModE was the change from the [-Sp, +Tp] stage to the [+Sp, -Tp] stage in which topicprominence decreased and subject-prominence increased gradually. But it is quite doubtful whether English has passed through the stage [-Sp, -Tp]. In this paper, by clarifying the characteristics of the four types of languages and comparing them with those of OE, I will show that English has not passed through the stage [-Sp, -Tp] as their theory predicts, but it has passed through the [+Sp, +Tp] stage.

Journal

Details 詳細情報について

  • CRID
    1390001205122481536
  • NII Article ID
    130003565553
  • DOI
    10.11435/gengo1939.1990.124
  • ISSN
    21856710
    00243914
  • Text Lang
    en
  • Data Source
    • JaLC
    • CiNii Articles
  • Abstract License Flag
    Disallowed

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