GENGO KENKYU (Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan)
Online ISSN : 2185-6710
Print ISSN : 0024-3914
Reconsideration of Li and Thompson's (1976)
Typological Theory of Language Change from the History of English
Kiyoshi TAKAHASHI
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JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

1990 Volume 1990 Issue 97 Pages 124-153

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Abstract
Li and Thompson (1976) classified languages in the world into four types:[+Subject-prominent (+Sp), -Topic-prominent (-Tp)], [-Sp, +Tp], [+Sp, +Tp], and [-Sp, -Tp] languages. And they presented a theory of circular language change as follows:[-Sp, +Tp]>[-Sp, -Tp]>[+ Sp, -Tp]>[+Sp, +Tp]>[-Sp, +Tp]>…If, then, this theory of language change were correct, it would predict that English had passed through the [-Sp, -Tp] stage, since Proto-Indo-European was a [-Sp, +Tp] language and ModE is a typical [+Sp, -Tp] language. One can indeed admit that the process from OE to ModE was the change from the [-Sp, +Tp] stage to the [+Sp, -Tp] stage in which topicprominence decreased and subject-prominence increased gradually. But it is quite doubtful whether English has passed through the stage [-Sp, -Tp]. In this paper, by clarifying the characteristics of the four types of languages and comparing them with those of OE, I will show that English has not passed through the stage [-Sp, -Tp] as their theory predicts, but it has passed through the [+Sp, +Tp] stage.
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