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Informationen zum Autor Joan Bybee is Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Linguistics at the University of New Mexico. Her previous publications include Phonology and Language Use (Cambridge, 2001) and Frequency of Use and the Organization of Language (2007). Klappentext Outlines a theory of language use and language change, focusing on the processes that give languages their structure and variance. Zusammenfassung Language demonstrates structure while also showing variation at all levels. This book focuses on the dynamic processes that create languages and give them their structure and variance. It outlines a theory of language use and language change which has implications for cognitive processing and language evolution. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1. A usage-based perspective on language; 2. Rich memory for language: exemplar representation; 3. Chunking and degrees of autonomy; 4. Analogy and similarity; 5. Categorization and the distribution of constructions in corpora; 6. Where do constructions come from? Synchrony and diachrony in a usage-based theory; 7. Grammatical change: reanalysis or the gradual creation of new constructions?; 8. Gradient constituency and gradual reanalysis; 9. Conventionalization and the local vs. the general: modern English can; 10. Exemplars and grammatical meaning: the specific and the general; 11. Language as a complex adaptive system: the interaction of cognition, culture and use.