Ian Roberts is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Cambridge, having previously held positions in Geneva, Bangor, and Stuttgart. He has worked extensively on comparative and historical syntax within the framework of Universal Grammar, with a particular focus on the Germanic, Romance, and Celtic languages. His many books include Agreement and Head Movement (MIT Press 2010), The Wonders of Language, or How to Make Noises and Influence People (CUP 2017), and Parameter Hierarchies and Universal Grammar (OUP 2019; paperback 2021). He is the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar (OUP 2016; paperback 2018).

• Introduction


• 1: Formal comparative and historical syntax


• 2: Types of syntactic change?


• 3: Acquisition, learnability, and syntactic change


• 4: The dynamics of syntactic change


• 5: Contact, creoles, and change


• Epilogue


• Glossary


• References


• Index

This second edition of Diachronic Syntax has been fully revised and updated throughout to cover the multiple developments in the area in the last decade. Written by one of the leading scholars in the field and including a glossary and suggestions for further reading, it will be an ideal textbook for undergraduate students of historical linguistics.