This thesis examines the mechanisms of linguistic change involved in the actuation and
subsequent development of pragmatic markers (PMs). Using the variationist method, I test …

This study describes a change in which relative clause extraposition is in the process of
being lost in English, Icelandic, French, and Portuguese. This current change in progress …

The Icelandic case marking system has for decades proved an important testing ground for
theories on case and productivity. This is in part because Icelandic has the rare property of …

This article presents an empirical case study in the diachronic specialization of
morphosyntactic forms for different syntactic contexts, and uses it to develop a theory of …

Using comparative sociolinguistic methods, we probe the underlying mechanisms governing
the variation between possessive determiners, my bike, and the definite article, the bike, in …

The last three decades have witnessed increasing interest in discourse-pragmatic markers
(DPMs), both with regards to their high frequency in spoken discourse and their …

This volume demonstrates that the field of discourse-pragmatic variation and change
research is coming into its own. After a slow and protracted start, there has been a steady …

Variation is described as two or more variants competing for finite resources. In this model,
two outcomes are possible: language change or specialization. Specialization can be …