The impact of the ecclesiastical languages Greek, Latin and Church Slavonic on the Slavic standard languages still lacks a systematic analysis in the theoretical framework of contact linguistics. Based on corpus data, this volume offers an account in the light of “literacy language contact”, i.e. contact between varieties that are used only in a written variant and only in formal registers. Latin was used as literary language in medieval Slavia Romana; Greek was the source language for Church Slavonic, which, in turn, was the literary language for many Slavonic speaking communities and thus had an enormous impact on the development of the modern Slavonic standard languages. The book offers in-depth analyses of the impact of Latin on pre-Standard Slavonic varieties, the influence of Greek on (Old) Church Slavonic and the role of Church Slavonic as a source language for Old and Modern Russian. The contributions discuss (morpho)syntactic phenomena such as non-finite clauses, relative clauses, word order, the use and function of case and tense forms. The volume addresses Slavists, General linguists and scholars of Classical Philology interested in language contact and syntactic issues.

This text reflects developing trends in linguistic research, specifically the study of syntax and its pivotal position in current theories of language acquisition.

This book combines several strands of my work, both individually and in collaboration with various people, over the last couple of years. To a very large extent, I have been inspired by the many talks, classes, appointments and other interactions that took place in the exciting intellectual environ ment that grew up among the linguists working in Geneva in the period 1989-90. It is impossible to mention by name everyone who influenced the devel opment of this material, but I'd particularly like to thank the students in my class 'linguistique diachronique' during that period, who had to suffer through preliminary versions of much of this book, and often seemed to understand what I was getting at better than I did. Luigi Rizzi did more than anyone else to create the unique atmosphere here in the last couple of years, and so he deserves our gratitude for that; he was also my collaborator on the synchronic work on French inversion that inspired much of this book; he also read the whole manuscript in draft form and gave detailed comments; he is also, as anyone working in current comparative syntax knows, a wellspring of knowledge, ideas and inspiration. Maria-Teresa Guasti also read the entire manuscript and gave me invaluable comments. Sten Vikner was a great help, for much more than just Danish data. Special thanks also to Adriana Belletti, Anna Cardinaletti, Liliane Haegeman and Cecilia Poletto.

This book brings together for the first time a series of previously published papers featuring Ian Roberts’ pioneering work on diachronic and comparative syntax over the last thirty years in one comprehensive volume. Divided into two parts, the volume engages in recent key topics in empirical studies of syntactic theory, with the eight papers on diachronic syntax addressing major changes in the history of English as well as broader aspects of syntactic change, including the introduction to the formal approach to grammaticalisation, and the eight papers on comparative syntax exploring head-movement, the nature and distribution of clitics, and the nature of parametric variation and change. This comprehensive collection of the author’s body of research on diachronic and comparative syntax is an essential resource for scholars and researchers in theoretical, comparative, and historical linguistics.

Construction Grammar as a framework offers a new perspective on traditional historical questions in diachronic linguistics and language change: how do new constructions arise, how should competition in diachronic variation be accounted for, how do constructions fall into disuse, and how do constructions change in general, formally and/or semantically, and with what implications for the language system as a whole? This volume offers a broad introduction to the confluence of Construction Grammar and historical syntax, and also detailed case studies of various instances of syntactic change modeled within Construction Grammar. The volume demonstrates that Construction Grammar as a theory is particularly well suited for modeling historical changes in morphosyntax, and it also documents challenging new phenomena that require a theoretical account within any competing framework of syntactic change.