Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Preface and acknowledgements -- Table of Contents -- 1 Language change at the syntax-semantics interface. Perspectives and challenges -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Historical linguistics and the syntax-semantics interface -- 2.1 Grammaticalization -- 2.2 Systematicity in language change -- 2.3 The textual base: electronic corpora and philological issues -- 3 Diachronic questions concerning the syntax-semantics interface -- 3.1 Syntactic and semantic change: triggers and actuation -- 3.2 Syntactic and semantic change: comparable mechanisms? -- 4 Systematicity in change at the syntax-semantics interface -- 4.1 Variation and change -- 4.2 Markedness and economy -- 4.3 Models of the interface -- 4.4 Bleaching and strengthening -- 4.5 Concluding remarks -- 5 The contributions in this volume -- Cited Corpora -- References -- 2 Semantic and formal features: Feature economy in language change -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Minimalist features -- 3 Feature Change -- 3.1 Subject Agreement -- 3.2 Demonstrative, preposition, and verb reanalyzed as copula -- 3.3 Demonstrative to article and complementizer -- 4 The status of features -- 4.1 Features: Third Factor or Universal Grammar -- 4.2 Practical problems with features -- 4.3 Where do the features come from and how are they ordered? -- 5 Conclusion -- Sources -- References -- 3 Linking syntax and semantics of adnominal possession in the history of German -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Possession and the range of expressive strategies -- 3 Syntactic strategies for expressing adnominal possession in the diachrony of German -- 3.1 Expressive strategies for adnominal possession in Old High German -- 3.2 Expressive strategies for adnominal possession in Middle High German and Early New High German.

3.3 Expressive strategies for adnominal possession in contemporary non-standard German varieties -- 3.4 Expressive strategies for adnominal possession in contemporary Standard German -- 4 Syntactic changes in the German noun phrase: an RRG perspective -- 5 A tentative unification of syntactic and semanticchanges in German adnominal possession -- 6 Conclusion -- Sources -- References -- 4 Most historically -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Approaching the issues of most descriptively -- 3 Syntactic options for most and partitive constructions -- 3.1 Foundations, exploring first possibilities for the quantifier most -- 3.2 Partitive constructions: tightening beyond the functional-lexical line? -- 4 Semantic options in change and increased functionalization -- 5 Summary and discussion -- Sources -- References -- 5 The "indefinite article" from cardinal to operator to expletive -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Old English singular indefinites: a database -- 2.1 Collecting the samples -- 2.2 Sorting out the samples -- 3 The grammar(s) of an in Old English -- 4 A formal characterization of an -- 4.1 The syntactic position of a(n) -- 4.2 The interpretive content of an -- 5 A diachronic scenario -- 5.1 Phonological reduction -- 5.2 Semantic bleaching -- 6 Conclusions and further issues -- Appendix: materials -- Sources -- References -- 6 The Greek Septuagint and language change at the syntax-semantics interface: from null to "pleonastic" object pronouns -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Background on null objects and the Greek Septuagint -- 2.1 Null objects -- 2.2 The Greek Septuagint -- 2.3 Transfer in L2 grammars -- 3 The data: "pleonastic" pronouns in the Septuagint -- 4 Mechanisms of language change vs. mechanisms of L2/L1 attrition grammars as evidenced in the Septuagint -- 5 Conclusions -- Sources -- References.

7 The agreement of collective nouns in the history of Ancient Greek and German -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Corpus Study -- 2.1 The Greek Data -- 2.1.1 Controllers -- 2.1.2 The Greek corpus -- 2.1.3 The Agreement Hierarchy -- 2.1.4 The verb -- 2.1.5 The copredicate -- 2.2 The German data -- 2.2.1 Controllers -- 2.2.2 The corpus -- 2.2.3 The Agreement Hierarchy -- 2.2.4 The verb -- 2.2.5 Pronominal agreement -- 3 Comparison -- 3.1 Verbal mismatches and affixal status -- 3.2 Perspectives on Bible syntax -- 4 Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- Sources -- References -- 8 Vedic local particles at the syntax-semantics interface -- 1 Introduction -- 2 From adverb towards adposition -- 2.1 No desemanticization, but the LP is (mostly) obligatory: accusative of path (accpath) -- 2.2 Desemanticization -- 2.2.1 Ablative of separation/distance -- 2.2.2 Instrumental of separation -- 3 From adverb towards preverb -- 3.1 Metaphors and figurative use -- 3.2 Increase of valency and telicity -- 3.3 Changes in the event structure or actionality -- 3.4 Change of syntactic structure -- 3.5 Antonyms -- 3.6 Results -- 4 LPs functioning as preverbs and adpositions simultaneously -- 5 Conclusions -- References -- 9 Aspect shifts in Indo-Aryan and trajectories of semantic change -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Indo-Aryan Stages -- 2.1 The -ta form -- 2.2 -ta and the broader tense-aspect system -- 2.3 Early Vedic: Stage I -- 2.3.1 Plain stative and result-stative readings of -ta -- 2.3.2 -ta as the resultative operator -- 2.4 Late Vedic: Stage II -- 2.5 Middle Indo-Aryan: Stage III -- 3 Analysis -- 3.1 Preliminaries -- 3.2 -ta: Lexical stativizer and resultative perfect -- 3.3 From resultative perfect to perfect -- 3.4 From perfect to perfective -- 4 Semantic generalization: Implications -- 4.1 Semantic generalization vs. invited inferences -- 4.2 Motivating semantic generalization.

5 Conclusion -- Sources -- References -- 10 The development of conditional should in English -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Terminology -- 3 Corpus Study -- 3.1 Early Modern English -- 3.2 Modern British English -- 3.3 Present-Day British English -- 4 Conditional clauses and should -- 5 The grammaticalization of conditional should -- 5.1 Grammaticalization of modal verbs: semantic changes are syntactic changes -- 5.2 The upwards reanalysis of conditional should -- 5.3 The semantic development of conditional should and itssyntactic analysis -- 6 Conclusion -- Sources -- References -- 11 The Greek Jespersen's cycle: Renewal, stability and structural microelevation -- 1 Introduction -- 2 The Greek Jespersen's cycle and the transformations of NEG1 -- 2.1 Jespersen's cycle traditionally and the atypicality of Greek: no doubling stage -- 2.3 Other negator renewal pathways: no doubling stage and tripling stage strategies -- 2.4 A broader definition for Jespersen's cycle -- 3 The Greek NEG2: Stability and change -- 3.1 NEG2 as a negative polarity item -- 3.2 NEG2 developments by Late Medieval Greek -- 3.2.1 Loss of True Negative Imperatives -- 3.2.2 The phrasal status of the Attic Greek NEG2 -- 3.3 The ban of NEG2 from the conditional antecedent -- 3.3.1 An explanation: upward reanalysis of NEG2 on Cinque's (1999) hierarchy -- 4 Summary -- Sources -- References -- Subject index.