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Document Details : Title: Topics in Contact Linguistics Author(s): VAN COETSEM, Frans †. Journal: Leuvense Bijdragen - Leuven Contributions in Linguistics and Philology Volume: 92 Issue: 1-2 Date: 2003 Pages: 27-100 DOI: 10.2143/LB.92.1.542034 Abstract : When Frans van Coetsem died, on February 11, 2002, he left two unpublished papers. One, in Dutch, dealt with convergence of language evolution in adjacent languages, especially in Dutch and French. This paper was ready for publication, except that the author had expressed his desire for a final stylistic check. This was done, and the paper was published by the undersigned in Leuvense Bijdragen 2002. The second, Topics in Contact Linguistics, is a summary of the innovative ideas that the author developed in a number of recent publications on various aspects of language contact; in addition, it often brings new viewpoints on old problems. This paper, the author wrote, was not quite finished, and he indicated a few places which required further checking and completing. Even so, when his children let us have a diskette with his work in progress, we decided that the scholarly reputation of Frans van Coetsem would in no way be harmed if it was published, unfinished as it was. But it could not be published as it was. Our main editorial decision has been to cut the last dozen or so pages of the original manuscript. They contain three topics, all very brief, and all dealing with various aspects of accentuation. Most of it is to be found, in much greater detail, in van Coetsem (1996). From the topics that we publish here, we have also cut some passages that seemed redundant or repetitive. These are indicated by suspension points between square brackets. In principle we have left the text unchanged, except for insignificant minor alterations, mainly stylistic ones. Wherever we have changed the text in a way that we were not absolutely sure would leave the author’s intention unaffected, we have given the original in a footnote marked by an asterisk. (The author’s original footnotes are numbered.) Asterisked footnotes also introduce our rare editorial comments. |
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