The -"s" genitives of English and Swedish play an important role in grammaticalization theory, as they are often used as counterexamples to the main tenet of that theory, viz. that grammatical change is unidirectional. In this paper I look at the emergence of the -"s" genitive in Danish, hoping that it may shed some new light on the evolution of…

The size of linguistic elements (morphemes, words or word groups) varies proportionately with their frequency. Because word frequency is unstable, this balance can be disturbed. When elements become too long in relation to their frequency, they are reduced. Examples from Latin illustrate the theory. (PMJ)

Argues that the history of punctuation in the English-speaking world offers tangible evidence for the evolving interplay between speech and writing. (Author/VWL)

The study discusses the position of the protolanguage in the hierarchy formed by idiolect, dialect, and diasystem. The article emphasizes that linguistic study contains a great many diachronic events and hypothesized synchronic features that are implausible, yet possible. (30 references) (CK)

Discusses the rise of classicism in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, and demonstrates how this concept represents a basis for social discrimination. (AM)

Compares indirect "wh"-questions and independent relatives, points to the absence of a clear-cut boundary between these two types of construction, and argues for the indispensability of semantic and pragmatic analysis for syntactic theory. The article emphasizes that it is the answer to a question that supplies the determinate element…