This volume explores the idea that language change may proceed in a cyclical fashion. The chapters assume that cyclic change is pragmatically driven, and explore forms of this change in morphosyntax, the lexicon, and semantics and pragmatics - as well as the interaction between these levels - in a variety of languages.

1: Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen and Richard Waltereit: Cyclic change in grammar and discourse: An introduction Part I. Cyclic Change in Grammar 2: Johan van der Auwera and Daniel Van Olmen: Additive negation in Dutch, from synchrony to diachrony, cyclical and noncyclical 3: Chiara Fedriani and Piera Molinelli: The role of pragmatics in the cyclical renewal and reinforcement of demonstratives from Latin to Italian 4: Urd Vindenes: Conflicting mechanisms in cycles of similative demonstrative reinforcement 5: Ittamar Erb and Mira Ariel: Prototypicalization in cyclic change 6: Ljuba Veselinova and Anastasia Panova: The continuative cycle 7: Ezra la Roi: The counterfactual life cycle: Cyclicity, pragmatics, and modality 8: Yueh Hsin Kuo: Bidirectional cycles of indirectness in Mandarin 9: Haiping Long and Jian Wang: Morphological coordination in Sinitic languages as a form of cyclic change 10: Mira Ariel and Caterina Mauri: 'Or' cycles Part II: Cyclic Change in Discourse 11: Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen: A new look at grammaticalization vs pragmaticalization in the rise of pragmatic markers: A typology of linear and nonlinear forms of evolution 12: Giulio Scivoletto: A typology of cyclicity: Waves and spirals, constructions and features 13: Ruti Bardenstein: Clines and cycles of meaning change 14: Sandra Paoli: The rise and fall of Occitan be(n) and pla(n): A semantic-pragmatic cycle? 15: Luísa Ferrari: The role of reanalysis in the renewal of contrast: A cyclical evolution from simultaneity to opposition in Brazilian Portuguese 16: Adrià Pardo Llibrer: Spanish approximators en plan and rollo between two centuries: Microdiachrony of a pragmatic cycle 17: Chiara Ghezzi: Weakening of pragmatic force and socio-cultural factors: The pragmaticalization cycle of Italian grammatical deference 18: Ana Llopis Cardona: Pragmatic cycles in Spanish farewell routines

Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen has been Professor of Linguistics and Pragmatics at the University of Manchester since 2007. She received her PhD and her Higher Doctorate from the University of Copenhagen in 1996 and 2008 respectively. She is a member of the Academia Europaea and a fellow of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences. Her book The Structure of Modern French: A Student Grammar was published by OUP in 2016. Richard Waltereit has been Professor of Romance Linguistics (French) at the Humboldt-University Berlin since 2017, having previously held positions at the University of Tübingen and Newcastle University. He was awarded his PhD in 1997 from the Freie Universität Berlin and his Habilitation in 2002 from Tübingen. His many publications include Reflexive Marking in the History of French (Benjamins, 2012).

Explores types of cyclic change at different levels of the grammar and in a wide range of languages Investigates a striking pattern in diachronic change, with implications for historical linguistics as a whole Advances the debate on the key question of the regularity of language change An open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence