Diachronic change in the ordering of kinship binomials
- 17 September 2021
- book chapter
- Published by John Benjamins Publishing Company
Abstract
One of the specific characteristics of binomials is the ordering of their elements and the degree of their reversibility. A diachronic perspective suggests it is particularly the kinship binomials that show a strong unfreezing trend away from the male-first ordering. This study explores, diachronically and from an English-Czech contrastive perspective, kinship binomials in children’s literature. It confirms earlier findings of a gradual diachronic reversal of term ordering in kinship binomials that extends across languages. However, at the same time, binomial sequencing seems to be a complex interplay of linguistic, cognitive and real-world influences. The diachronic reversal of preference in the ordering is limited to particular binomials and may be linked to a more general change in the discourse, namely the shift towards greater informality.Keywords
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