The Linguistic Cycle: Economy and Renewal in Historical Linguistics

by Elly van Gelderen

Cyclical language change is a linguistic process by which a word, phrase, or part of the grammar loses its meaning or function and is then replaced by another. This can even happen on the level of an entire language, which can experience a change in the language family it is a part of. This new text is a comprehensive introduction to this phenomenon, the mechanisms underlying it, and the relations between the different types of cycles. Elly van Gelderen reviews the subject widely and holistically, defining key terms and comprehensively presenting diverse theoretical perspectives and empirical findings. With coverage of a variety of micro cycles and the more controversial macro cycles, incorporating cutting-edge work on grammaticalization, and drawing on examples from many languages and language families, this book accessibly guides readers through the state of the art in the field. With practical methodological guidance on how to identify and investigate linguistic cycles, and an array of useful pedagogical features, the book provides a coherent framework for approaching, understanding, and furthering research in linguistic cycles. This text will be an indispensable resource for advanced students and researchers in historical and diachronic linguistics, language typology, and linguistic and grammatical theory.

272 pages, Hardcover

Published July 31, 2023

Reviews

[Ans Schapendonk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Van Gelderen wrote a wonderful book in 2011 about what she calls the linguistic cycle. What was missing was a final conclusion: sounds, syllables and words become longer at the back (adjectio) and wear down at the front (detraction), so that one language completely did replaced the other. Van Gelderen also mentioned the permutatio A in which repetition takes place, but she did not mention the permutatio B (retrogarde) in which one has to read from the back to the front. She also had no idea of the formation of spaces (delivery) nor of the fourth vertical row of W next to the existing three P, T and K. Nor did she know that there was a fourth horizontal row of the M. Because of these universal sound patterns, repetitions take place, which is why van Gelderen calls the shift cyclical, which is only partly correct. In the meantime, van Gelderen has also taken note of the rediscovery of the ‘universal soundhelix’, which led to this second book in 2023. Like so many other linguists, including the great Mr. Noam Chomsky, van Gelderen has neglected to name her actual source. And that's a bad thing. She keeps hammering on grammar and syntax, while the soundhelix is in the end only a matter of phonetics, what linguists never did realised. The fact that with the help of the sound helix we can not only reconstruct the past (and then correctly) and that we can also spell and thus predict the future with it is a discovery that the pre-Jewish midwives already made, not in Israel, but in the North of France, where they come from! From STAR > (s)TORA helix not only TUAS GLOS (bible), but also (t)ORAKEL since the Dutch language is the oldest still spoken language! After the permutatio of ORAK / KORA(n) leads to KOIRAN > KWARAN (Qua’ran) and then to (Dutch) KWINTESSENS alias QUINTESSENCE. This knowledge does not only concern students, but everyone, because helixing is a skill that can be compared to learning to read and write!