Roots: Linguistics in Search of its Evidential Base

The renewed focus on the evidential base of linguistics in general, but particularly on syntax, is in to a large degree dependent on technological developments: computers, electronic storage and transmission. These factors have enabled a revolution in the accessibility of digitally stored language, both in sampled and organized corpora and in its raw unsampled form on the internet. But this technology has also allowed a step-change in experimental methods readily available to linguists. The new arrival of such enormous quantities of data in greatly increased detail has made information accessible which could previously not even have been dreamed of. This volume is a selection of research reports from linguists who are making use of this new information and trying to integrate the new insights into their analyses and theoretical assumptions.