Language Change: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of recent advances in empirical, theoretical, and experimental research on language change, with a focus on semantic evolution. Bridging the gap between historical linguistics, rooted in philology, and formal semantics, grounded in mathematical logic, it uncovers how insights from one discipline can illuminate the other. Delving into a wide range of linguistic phenomena, and tracking both entailed and presupposed content in historical change, the book examines semantic topics such as causation, concession, negation, reflexivity, numerals, and approximatives, alongside topics related to temporal and aspectual features of language. It also explores pragmatic concepts like topic marking and mirativity. Some papers in the volume focus on morphological and syntactic language change, discussing the rate of morphological change, patterns of subordination, periphrastic structure, and Differential Object Marking. By presenting innovative methodologies, including experimental work, the book reveals key mechanisms behind language change and its interaction with formal and non-formal factors. Designed for researchers and advanced students in linguistics and philology, this volume addresses fundamental questions about the causes, timing, and principles driving linguistic change. It also sheds light on how historical insights can deepen our understanding of synchronic phenomena, offering a fresh perspective on the dynamics of language evolution.

In memory of Remus Gergel (1974-2026), a groundbreaking linguist in the study of formal diachronic semantics, who will be missed as a scholar and as a friend.

Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal earned his PhD from Harvard University in 2009 and joined the Department of Hebrew Language at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2010, after being a lecturer in Semitics at Yale University. His research spans formal semantics, typology, historical linguistics, and the history of Semitic languages, including Hebrew, Aramaic, and Akkadian. He also explores the history of linguistic thought through methodologies from the philosophy of science. In recent years, his work has focused on reciprocal constructions, causative constructions, and negation, combining formal semantic and historical perspectives. Elitzur has been a visiting professor at leading institutions, including Harvard University, the University of Chicago, Yale University, and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris.

Nora Boneh is an Associate Professor in the Linguistic Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She took her PhD at Universite Paris 8 in 2003, before holding research and teaching positions there and at Universite Paris 7. Her research centers on the linguistic manifestation of conceptual categories like time, cause, and possession, with an empirical focus on complex verb constructions, datives and argument structure, aspect in Modern and Biblical Hebrew, and habituality. She is a co-editor of Brill's Journal of Afroasiatic
Languages and Linguistics.

Eitan Grossman (PhD 2009) joined the Department of Linguistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2012, after several years of postdoctoral research in Belgium and Israel. His research focuses on the relationship between cross-linguistic diversity, on the one hand, and language change, on the other. His recent research deals with the ways in which phonological systems vary through time and space.

Aynat Rubinstein (PhD 2012) received a PhD in linguistics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2012, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Georgetown University and a Mandel postdoctoral fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She joined the faculty of the Hebrew University in 2016 with a dual appointment in the Department of Linguistics and the Department of Hebrew Language. Her research concerns the context dependency and gradability of modals, moods, and attitude predicates across languages, with a focus on the historical development of Modern Hebrew. She is the lead developer of the first open multi-genre corpus of early 20th century Hebrew, specializing in Digital Humanities methods that enable smart digitization of historical materials for research.