Typological hierarchies in synchrony and diachrony / edited by Sonia Cristofaro, Fernando Zuniga.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Intro; Typological Hierarchies in Synchrony and Diachrony; Editorial page; Title page; LCC data; Table of contents; Synchronic vs. diachronic approaches to typological hierarchies; 1. Introduction; 2. Typological hierarchies: Some traditional explanations and open issues; 3. Synchronic distributional patterns and their diachronic sources; 4. Multiple diachronic origins; 5. Accounting for exceptions; 6. Concluding remarks: Diachronic vs. synchronic explanations of typological hierarchies; References; Evolutionary Phonology and the life cycle of voiceless consonants; 1. Introduction.

2. Voiceless sonorants as contrastive segment types3. Historical sources of voiceless sonorants; 3.1 Voiceless sonorants via RH, HR coarticulation; 3.2 Voiceless sonorants via phrase-final devoicing; 4. Structural factors in the maintenance of voiceless vowels; 4.1 The role of analogy; 4.2 The role of /h/; 4.3 Phonotactics and morphotactics; 4.4 Lexical competition; 5. Concluding remarks; Acknowledgments; References; The Obligatory Coding Principle in diachronic perspective; 1. Introduction; 2. Some terminological clarifications; 2.1 Transitivity.

2.2 Variation in the construction of transitive verbs and basic transitive coding2.3 Core arguments vs. obliques; 2.4 Alignment; 2.5 Zero case; 2.6 Ergative case, ergative alignment, ergative languages; 3. The Obligatory Coding Principle; 4. Markedness reversals between the transitive construction and its variants; 4.1 Introductory remarks; 4.2 Shift from obligatory A coding to obligatory P coding resulting from the reanalysis of a passive construction as the basic transitive construction.

4.3 Shift from obligatory P coding to obligatory A coding resulting from the reanalysis of an antipassive construction as the basic transitive construction5. The grammaticalization of TAM and the Obligatory Coding Principle; 5.1 Introductory remarks; 5.2 Reanalysis of a resultative construction as a perfect and split-alignment; 5.3 Split-alignment resulting from the grammaticalization of a new perfect form: Problems in reconstructing the scenario; 5.4 Progressive periphrases and split alignment; 5.5 Uncommon split alignment patterns, and the TAM periphrases of Basque; 5.6 Concluding remarks.

6. Conventionalization of argument ellipsis and the Obligatory Coding Principle6.1 Introductory remarks; 6.2 Conventionalization of P ellipsis in obligatory P coding languages: An illustration from Akhvakh; 6.3 Conventionalization of A ellipsis in obligatory A coding languages: Illustrations from Amharic and Russian; 7. Univerbation of light verb compounds and the Obligatory Coding Principle; 8. Conclusion; Acknowledgments; References; Deconstruction teleology; 1. The hierarchies; 2. Number; 2.1 Number developments in Iroquoian; 2.2 Stimulus; 3. Head marking; 4. Alignment splits.

Typological hierarchies are widely perceived as one of the most important results of research on language universals and linguistic diversity. Explanations for typological hierarchies, however, are usually based on the synchronic properties of the patterns described by individual hierarchies, not the actual diachronic processes that give rise to these patterns cross-linguistically. This book aims to explore in what ways the investigation of such processes can further our understanding of typological hierarchies. To this end, diachronic evidence about the origins of several phenomena described by typological hierarchies is discussed for several languages by a number of leading scholars in typology, historical linguistics, and language documentation. This evidence suggests a rethinking of possible explanations for typological hierarchies, as well as the very notion of typological universals in general. For this reason, the book will be of interest not only to the broad typological community, but also historical linguists, cognitive linguists, and psycholinguists.

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