Subject: books on historical linguistics

john benjamins publishing would like to call your attention to the following new title in the field of historical linguistics : tense and aspect in indo-european languages theory , typology and diachrony john hewson & vit bubenik 1997 xii , 403 pp . current issues in linguistic theory , 145 us / canada : cloth : 1 55619 860 4 price : $ 89 . 00 rest of the world : cloth : 90 272 3649 6 price : hfl . 178 , - - john benjamins publishing web site : http : / / www . benjamins . com for further information via e-mail : service @ benjamins . com this monograph presents a general picture of the evolution of ie verbal systems within a coherent cognitive framework . the work encompasses all the language families of the ie phylum , from prehistory to present day languages . inspired by the ideas of roman jakobson and gustave guillaume the authors relate tense and aspect to underlying cognitive processes , and show that verbal systems have a staged development of time representations ( chronogenesis ) . they view linguistic change as systemic and trace the evolution of the earliest tense systems by ( a ) aspectual split and ( b ) aspectual merger from the original aspectual contrasts of pie , the evidence for such systemic change showing clearly in the paradigmatic morphology of the daughter languages . the nineteen chapters cover first the ancient documentation , then those families whose historical data are from a more recent date . the last chapters deal with the systemic evolution of languages that are descended from ancient forbearers such as sanskrit , greek , and latin , and are completed by a chapter on the practical and theoretical conclusions of the work . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - bernadette martinez - keck tel : ( 215 ) 836-1200 publicity / marketing fax : ( 215 ) 836-1204 john benjamins north america e-mail : bernie @ benjamins . com po box 27519 philadelphia pa 19118-0519 check out the john benjamins web site : http : / / www . benjamins . com
