Contents -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1 Earlier Studies of Word Order -- 1.1.1 The Erosion Hypothesis -- 1.1.2 Erosion as the Cause of the Shift from SOV to SVO -- 1.1.3 The Emergence of Fixed Word Order and the Loss of Cases -- 1.2 Attempts at a Broader Approach -- 1.3 The Historical Value of Latin -- 1.4 The Advantages of an Analysis in Terms of Branching and the Definition of Head -- 1.5 The Nature of the Change and Its Explanation -- 1.6 Outline of the Present Work -- 2. The Definition of Head -- 2.1 Linguistic Typology -- 2.1.1 Typological Dichotomy -- 2.1.2 Typological Correlations -- 2.1.3 The Problem of Terminology -- 2.2 Typology and Diachronic Linguistics -- 2.2.1 An Attempt at a Definition -- 2.2.2 A New Attempt: The Notion of Branching -- 2.3 The Definition of Head -- 2.3.1 X-Bar Theory -- 2.3.2 The Identification of Head: Attempts Within the Framework of X-Bar Theory -- 2.3.3 The Definition of Elements According to X-Bar Theory -- 2.4 The Analysis in Terms of Branching -- 3. Diachronic Analysis: The Noun Phrase -- 3.1 The Genitive -- 3.1.1 The Place of the Genitive in PIE -- 3.1.2 The Genitive in Two Other Italic Languages: Oscan and Umbrian -- 3.1.3 Old Latin -- 3.1.4 From Old to Classical Latin -- 3.1.5 From Classical Latin to Vulgar Latin and Late Latin -- 3.1.6 Old French -- 3.1.7 Overview of the Development of the Genitive -- 3.2 The Adjective -- 3.2.1 PIE, Oscan, Umbrian, and Old Latin -- 3.2.2 From Old Latin Onward -- 3.2.3 Vulgar Latin and Late Latin -- 3.2.4 Old French -- 3.2.5 The End of the Middle Ages and Later -- 3.3 Determiners -- 3.3.1 Modern French Versus Early Indo-European Dialects -- 3.3.2 Latin: An Intermediary Stage? -- 3.3.3 Evidence from Turkish and Japanese -- 3.4 The Place of the Determiner, the Adjective, and the Genetive -- 4. Diachronic Analysis: The Verb Phrase.

4.1 The Ummarked Place of the Verb and its Development -- 4.1.1 PIE -- 4.1.2 The Verb in Oscan, Umbrian, and Old Latin -- 4.1.3 From Old Latin Onward -- 4.2 The Marked Position of the Verb: The Initial Verb -- 4.2.1 Stylistic Motivation -- 4.2.2 Syntactic Motivation -- 4.2.3 The Use of the Initial Verb: Conclusion -- 4.3 The Medial Position of the Verb -- 4.3.1 The Elements that Follow the Medial Verb -- 4.3.2 Vulgar Latin and Late Latin -- 4.3.3 The Position of the Verb in Latin: Provisional Conclusion -- 4.4 The Copula -- 4.4.1 The Position of the Copula -- 4.4.2 The Emergence of the Preposed Auxiliary -- 4.5 The Position of the Verb in Old and Middle French -- 4.5.1 The Position of the Subject -- 4.5.2 SVO Order -- 4.5.3. SOV Order -- 4.5.4 VSO and OVS Orders -- 4.5.5 Interrogative Clauses -- 4.5.6 The Subject Pronoun -- 4.6 The Adverb -- 4.6.1 The Morphology of the Latin Adverb -- 4.6.2 The Position of the Adverb -- 4.7 Provisional Conclusion: The Verbal and Nominal Phrase -- 5. Diachronic Analysis: Early Right-Branching Structures -- 5.1 The Prepositional Phrase -- 5.1.1 The Creation of a Hierarchical Structure -- 5.1.2 The Shift Toward Right Branching -- 5.1.3 The Italic Languages: Residues of Former Postposing -- 5.1.4 Extension of the RB Prepositional Phrase -- 5.1.5 Conclusion -- 5.2 The Comparative Construction -- 5.2.1 The Morphology of the Comparative -- 5.2.2 The Term of Reference and Its Evolution -- 5.2.3 Conclusion -- 5.3 The Relative -- 5.3.1 The Original Structure: Correlation -- 5.3.2 The Creation of Right Branching -- 5.4 Conclusion -- 6. The Acquisition of Branching -- 6.1 Language Acquisition -- 6.2 The Acquisition of Basic Word Order -- 6.2.1 Japanese, an LB Language -- 6.2.2 Turkish, an LB Language -- 6.2.3 The Acquisition of Basic Word Order in Russian and Polish.

6.2.4 The Acquisition of Basic Word Order in English and German -- 6.2.5 The Acquisition of the Strict RB Basic Word Order of French -- 6.2.6 The Acquisition of Basic Word Order: Conclusion -- 6.3 The Acquisition of LB Morphological Structures -- 6.3.1 The Acquisition of Inflection in Russian, Polish, and Latvian -- 6.3.2 Prepositional Phrases -- 6.3.3 The Acquisition of Inflection: Conclusion -- 6.3.4 The Acquisition of Turkish and Hungarian Agglutination, and Japanese Case Particles -- 6.3.5 Prepositional Phrases Versus Postpositions -- 6.4 Acquisition of Complex Structures -- 6.4.1 Typological Characteristics of the Relative -- 6.4.2 The Acquisition of RB Relative Clauses in English, French, German, and Polish -- 6.4.3 LB Complex Structures: Relative Clauses in Japanese, Korean, and Turkish -- 6.4.4 Data on the Acquisition of Relative Clauses: Synthesis -- 6.5 Conclusion: The Advantage of Right Branching -- 7. Conclusion -- 7.1 Diachronic Change and Language Acquisition -- 7.2 Left Branching and the Linguistic System -- 7.3 The Broader Perspective -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y.