Language change and complex adaptive system-A study based on the historical data from English

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I examined mechanisms of lexical diffusion in phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and lexicon in the history of English from a global perspective of complex adaptive system. Interesting principles have been proposed in an attempt to provide an underlying, unified theory of complex adaptive system. These include, selection, self-organization, scaling of parameters, robustness and networks of connections. I discussed that lexical diffusion is the fundamental mechanism of language evolution from the following perspectives : (1)dynamic dialectology and complex adaptive system,(2)small-world networks of the lexicon,(3)S-curve progress, snowball effectand word frequency and(4)ambiguity and robustness. I will publish a book Language Evolution and Complex Adaptive System from Peter Lang in 2011.