Introduction: Syntactic features and the limits of syntactic change

The chapters in this volume are concerned with syntactic features and their role in restricting syntactic change. Most of the contributions propose analyses in accordance with the Borer-Chomsky Conjecture, stating that all parameters of variation are attributable to differences in the features of particular items in the lexicon. The syntactic topics are of four types: The first three reflect different domains of the clause, while the fourth type is concerned with methodology. A great number of languages and dialects figure in the discussion, including languages that have not previously received a thorough treatment in terms of diachronic syntax such as Romeyka and Middle Low German. Other languages also discussed from a fresh theoretical perspective, e.g. Hungarian, Icelandic, Polish, English, and Austronesian languages, as well as Latin and Ancient Greek. This volume confirms the validity of the view that diachronic syntax is a scientific tool of inquiry in its own right.