Der Sammelband vereint verschiedene Beiträge zu Grammatikalisierungsphänomenen und ist das Resultat einer studentischen Tagung am Institut für Germanistik der Universität Leipzig. Behandelt werden neben allgemeineren Tendenzen des Sprachwandels u.a. Wechselwirkungen von Metonymie und Metapher oder spezifische Eigenheiten bei Grammatikalisierungsprozessen von Modalverben.

M.A. / The time between the rhyming of the Psalms in 1936 and the subsequent rhyming thereof in 2001 is approximately 70 years. From 1936 to 2001 society has undergone drastic change. Such societal change normally influences language use and structure and brings about incremental and subtle changes in the language, resulting in new meaning being given to words and phrases in the new societal context. Such changes are mostly found in the lexicon of the relevant language. The lexicon is the medium of transmitting meaning, and if the meaning of the lexical item has changed in subsequent generations to the extent that the speakers of one generation do not understand the previous generation, it has become indicative of extensive modification of the language. The singing of the Psalms is historically associated with the accuracy of meaning transmitted by the Scripture by means of user-friendly language usage. Standardised use of language is always linked to aging and closely linked to the progress of time. The renewing of an aging language is important for subsequent generations to facilitate meaningful interpretative singing of the Psalms. However, the renewal of the religious register of the Psalms should always meet the rigorous test of accuracy to the Scripture as Calvin laid it down as a primary prerequisite during the Reformation. Because of the aging of language, as is the case with Afrikaans, the 1936 rhyming of the Psalms was done to facilitate the changes in the normal use of the language and to bring it closer to the la nguage then in use. In this way the standardisation of the language used in the rhyming of the Psalms was established, in accordance with the normal use of standard Afrikaans. During the past 70 odd years the religious register of Afrikaans aged again and resulted in the need for a new rhyming of the Psalms in accordance with the changed register of the language. This resulted in the 2001 rhyming of the Psalms and other Scripture-related hymns, attempting to bridge the gap between the register of formal religion and contemporary language. Using the DE-method, the psalmographer eliminated lexical items with a low frequency of use from the religious register as understanding of and access to these items by the user of the Psalm have become limited. Lexical items with a high frequency of use were selected and these words have moved into the current religious register. Changes in a language are subject to social forces and tensions. The forces of the changing modern society have led to the need to establish a new rhyme to the Psalms. Thus the formal reformative religious register was removed from the Psalms and replaced by the 2001 rhyme, which is representative of current language usage. The use of the new register is successful in the effective transfer of meaning as the essence of the Scripture was retained. Notwithstanding the loss of the archaic expressions of the 1936 rhyme in the 2001 version, the presence and expansion of meaning of core information is very much evident in the 2001 rhyme. By elimination of the great amount of archaic lexical expressions from the 1936 rhyme from the 2001 version, a clear movement in the reformative religious register of Afrikaans was executed. The social influence of the unsatisfactory acquisition of lexical items by the younger generation, pushing out the older form from the register, is very much evident in the register of the Psalms. The 2001 rhyme accelerates the process of elimination of such archaic und inaccessible lexical items from the register. The empirical study indicates the fact that many such archaic forms are already passive in especially the older generation and that active use of such archaic items has disappeared. The study furthermore indicates that Afrikaans contains enough synonyms to facilitate an effective transfer of meaning in such a new rhyme. These synonyms are established and standardised lexical items functioning as common language since the new translation of the Bible in Afrikaans (1983). The changes in language are subject to linguistic forces. Simplification is the most prominent linguistic force that manifests itself in the 2001 rhyme of the Psalms. Simplification makes it easier to understand the core content of the psalms and makes it accessible to all speakers of Afrikaans. Simplification is not only the decrease of lexical items in the language but includes adding difficult or expanded forms that bring balance to the process of change in the language. This adds value to the lexicon, as the items chosen for the rhyme are taken from the language register in its current form. The process is also in a sense held back by the fact that some items from the 1936 rhyme are still used in the 2001 version, putting a constraint on the development of the relevant lexicon. The modification of a language through simplification is mainly the result of reduction and expansion. The skills of the psalmographer resulted in both expansion and reduction as linguistic elements being present in the 2001 rhyme. The empirical study has shown tha t the psalmographer has not used the available synonyms. Instead, the psalmographer has used a total new approach by using a selection of techniques in the 2001 rhyme. These techniques focus on a tight use of specific rhyme patterns evident in the Psalms and its concomitant language usage resulting in extending the understanding of the psalms by the reader. This has also led to the effective communication by means of the reformative religious register. The psalmographer succeeded in creating a unique psa lm register and treasure. By virtue of their imbedded sacral element religious registers are strongly preservative factors preventing the acceptance and change of common language. Acceptance of the 2001 rhyme has already taken place as the rhyme is based on sound Scriptural principles, convincing the reformist reader of the Psalms of its truthfulness and credibility. The use of the accepted common language as already manifested in the new translation of the Bible (1983) also contributes to the acceptance of the 2001 rhyme. This is further reinforced by the appearance of common language usage in authoritative dictionaries presenting such lexicon items as standardised Afrikaans in a rapidly changing society. Intense language transformation is present in the Afrikaans lexicon. Observing the presence of intense change in the most conservative register of a language, that of religion emphasises the intensity of the social and linguistic powers at work in Afrikaans.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:22:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-08-12Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:07:41Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 felicio_cp_me_sjrp.pdf: 1650362 bytes, checksum: 586c6cd19a45ef5c84ad2dbf2f73e9a3 (MD5) / A Gramaticalização (GR) é um processo histórico e unidirecional de mudança lingüística, em que itens com conteúdo lexical ou menos gramatical passam ao longo do tempo a se comportar como itens gramaticais, tendo seu significado abstratizado e fortalecido quanto à expressividade do falante. Mecanismos cognitivos, como a metáfora e a metonímia, atuam nesse processo de mudança, visto que por esses mecanismos há abstratização do significado e recategorização sintática induzida pelo contexto lingüístico. Além disso, de acordo com Traugott (1999), há dois mecanismos envolvidos na mudança semântica que acompanha a GR, a subjetivização e intersubjetivização. Por esses dois mecanismos, significados se tornam mais centrados na crença/atitude do falante em relação ao ouvinte. Sob essa ótica, este trabalho, baseado em dados sincrônicos e diacrônicos do português, tem como principal objetivo investigar o processo de mudança responsável pelas alterações sintáticas e semânticas (pragmatização de significado) da conjunção concessiva embora, partícula que teve sua origem na locução adverbial temporal em boa hora, utilizada para desejar bom augúrio, no século XV. Por essa investigação, foi possível reconstruir os usos diacrônicos de embora ao longo da história do português, apreender o(s) contexto(s) que foi(ram) responsável(is) pelas mudanças sofridas pelo item e encontrar razões históricas para o uso na sincronia atual. Além do mais, foram checadas algumas hipóteses no que diz respeito à unidirecionalidade e às fontes para o surgimento de concessivas. Para alcançar esse objetivo maior, o trabalho também examinou os diferentes usos sincrônicos de embora no português, falado e escrito, com a finalidade de encontrar pistas do funcionamento atual que auxiliem na descrição histórica. / Grammaticalization (GR) is a unidirectional historical process of changes in linguistics in which items with lexical or less grammatical content start acting as grammatical items throughout time, abstractizing and strengthening its meaning as for the speaker’s expressiveness. Cognitive mechanisms such as metaphor and metonymy act in this process of change, whereas they cause meaning abstractization and syntactic recategorization induced by the linguistic context. Besides, according to Traugott (1999), there are two mechanisms involved in the semantic change that keeps up with the GR which are subjectivization and intersubjectivization. Meanings become more focused on the speaker’s belief/attitude in relation to the listener through both mechanisms. Considering this vision and based on synchronic and diachronic data from Portuguese, the present work aims at researching the process of change responsible for syntactic and semantic alterations (pragmatizing meaning) of the concessive conjunction embora, which is a particle originated from the adverbial clause of time em boa hora, used to wish good luck in the XV Century. By means of this research it was possible to reconstruct diachronic usages of embora throughout Portuguese history, to learn about the context(s) that was(were) responsible for changes suffered by the item, and to find historical explanations for the usage in the current synchrony. Beyond that, some hypothesis related to unidirectionality and the origins of concessive conjunctions were also checked. In order to reach this aim, the present work also verified the different synchronic usages of embora in spoken and written Portuguese to find tips about the current behavior that can help in historical description.

In addition to individual learning mechanisms, the thesis further explores the effects of cultural transmission, social and semantic structures on language evolution. First, it simulates some major forms of cultural transmission, and discusses the role of conventionalization during horizontal transmission in language evolution. Second, it traces the emergence and maintenance of language in some stable social structures, and explores the role of popular agents in language evolution, the relationship between mutual understanding and social hierarchy, and the effect of exoteric communications on the convergence of communal languages. Finally, it studies language maintenance given different semantic spaces, and illustrates that the semantic structure may cause bias in the constituent word order, which can help to predict the word order bias in human languages. These explorations examine the role of self-organization in language evolution, provide some reconsideration on the bottleneck effect during cultural transmission, and shed light on the study of the social structure effects on language evolution. / The thesis presents a multi-agent computational model to explore a key question in language emergence, i.e., whether syntactic abilities result from innate, species-specific competences, or they evolve from domain-general abilities through gradual adaptations. The model simulates a process of coevolutionary emergence of two linguistic universals (compositionality, in the form of lexical items; and regularity, in the form of constitute word orders) in human language, i.e., the acquisition and conventionalization of these features coevolve during the transition from a holistic signaling system to a compositional language. It also traces a "bottom-up" process of syntactic development, i.e., agents, by reiterating local orders between two lexical items, can gradually form global order(s) to regulate multiple lexical items in sentences. These results suggest that compositionality, regularity, and correlated linguistic abilities could have emerged as a result of some domain-general abilities, such as pattern extraction and sequential learning. / Gong, Tao. / "May 2007." / Adviser: William S-Y. Wang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-01, Section: A, page: 0200. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 317-346). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

In this dissertation I explore the impact that language-migration has on Self-Identity. The thesis consists of two parts: a memoir The Strangeness of Freedom, and an exegesis. Each is intended to stand alone, but also to complement the other. In the memoir I draw on my personal recollections of my family's migrations across five countries (Czechoslovakia, West Germany, USA and Australia) and into three languages (Czech, German and English) in order to convey my particular experience of language migration. In the exegesis I analyse several memoirs written by other language migrants and examine what impact they believe migrating into a new language and culture had on their own Self-identity. I draw on postmodern and psychoanalytic theory to explore the nature of Self-Identity formation and why migrants, as well as non-migrants might experience a change in their Self-identity during the course of their lives. I attempt to tease out to what extent the change in Self-identity is a universal experience that results from living across time and moving from a known past into an unknown future, regardless of whether one physically migrates or not. I found that while language-migrants tend to describe a more intense disruption of their Self-Identity, non-migrants also experience such a disruption in their sense of Self, simply by living in a rapidly changing world. I propose that while changing locations and languages clearly disrupts the continuity we presume life entails, it is in fact the passage of time that distances us from our known past, including our familiar Self, even if we never physically or linguistically migrate.

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

No description available.

Amendments pasted on front end paper. / Bibliography: leaves 333-355. / viii, 355 leaves : ill., maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Studies the changes in the language of commercial press advertising found before 1979 (the year of the Islamic Revolution in Iran) and after 1990. Investigating their varying effects on sociolinguistic norms, and to relate the changes to external factors in the ideology and social history of Iran. Also addresses the wider issue of the relation between language and ideology in different kinds of societies, in particular islamic societies. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of European Studies, 1998?

Amendments pasted on front end paper. / Bibliography: leaves 333-355. / viii, 355 leaves : ill., maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Studies the changes in the language of commercial press advertising found before 1979 (the year of the Islamic Revolution in Iran) and after 1990. Investigating their varying effects on sociolinguistic norms, and to relate the changes to external factors in the ideology and social history of Iran. Also addresses the wider issue of the relation between language and ideology in different kinds of societies, in particular islamic societies. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of European Studies, 1998?

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Linguistics, 1997? / Errata pasted on front end paper. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-210).