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Linguistic Universals and Syntactic Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Brian Joseph
Brian Joseph*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Abstract

A crucial problem facing historical linguists is how to account for the direction of certain changes. The direction of change taken by two constructions, Object Raising and Object Deletion, between Medieval and Modern Greek, is documented here, and is shown to be explainable by reference to substantive universal constraints holding on the form these constructions can take in natural language, as evidenced by data from a variety of languages. We conclude that universals guided the direction of these Greek syntactic changes, and in general can rule out certain conceivable changes as impossible. Universals thus lead to a more restrictive, and hence stronger, theory of syntactic change.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , June 1980, pp. 345 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 by Linguistic Society of America

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