Reflexive Marking in the History of French: 127

This monograph by a rising star of grammaticalization studies is a significant contribution to the understanding of the relations between grammar and pragmatics. Providing a wealth of data from the historical to the contemporary, from the literary to the conversational, and taking great care to situate itself with respect to both formal and functional perspectives, the work offers an elegant approach to complex facts and debates. It will no doubt reach the large audience of researchers concerned with the problem of language change and its causes. — Pierre Larrivée, Université de Caen Basse-Normandie

The volume, which comes complete with a brief concluding chapter largely summarising the results, a bibliography, an appendix with tables detailing statistics of anaphoric soi/lui in individual contexts, and a brief index, offers a focused and often penetrating study of an intricate area of French syntax. The author is to be thanked for a valuable contribution to the field. — Rodney Sampson, University of Bristol, in Journal of French Language Studies 24(2): 315-316, 2014

This contribution to diachronic research demonstrates the importance of the dynamics of language use, by which a marked form over time becomes the unmarked option. Presenting an impressive range of contemporary and historical data, the study makes a very strong case for the significance of pragmatics in grammar change. — Richard P. Ingham, Birmingham City University