Synchrony and Diachrony. A dynamic interface.

The aim of this volume is to investigate the mutual relations between synchrony and diachrony, in order to shed light on their interface and to analyze the most adequate tools to describe and understand its manifestations. That the two dimensions of language variation are closely intertwined is nothing new, although at different stages in the history of linguistics their relation has been overlooked, if not explicitly ignored. However little effort has been made to provide a unitary account of their interface and, more importantly, little attention has been devoted to a systematic examination of the theoretical and methodological tools through which this interface can be better captured and analyzed. In this volume, we aim (i) to put together a good sample of phenomena in which the synchrony-diachrony interface is crucial both at the descriptive and at the explanatory level, (ii) to compare how different theoretical frameworks and different methodological tools may account for such interface phenomena, (iii) to identify those factors that are more frequently at play in the interface between synchrony and diachrony.