Projektdatenbank (ab 2004)

Projektnummer

0065217

Zusammenfassung

The consensus view in linguistics is that sensible predictions about future linguistic developments are not possible to make. This project questions this position by suggesting that we can predict language change just as we can predict economic, political or meteorological change, if we have the relevant data and use the appropriate tools. The common perception that language change is unpredictable stems from a confusion of two senses of the term "prediction", and students of language change are already making predictions about the future of language, even if they do not realize it. Mo...