Edited by András Kertész and Csilla Rákosi
[Studies in Language Companion Series 153] 2014
► pp. 71–102
The present chapter aims to discuss some properties of historical linguistics argumentation, through the analysis of examples taken from actual research practice. Relying on Kertész and Rákosi’s (2012) p-model of scientific theorizing, it compares three competing accounts of the historical development of the Catalan construction “anar ‘go’ + infinitive”, namely, those provided in Colon (1979a, b), in Detges (2004) and in Juge (2006). The simultaneous plausibility of some statements and their negations in the starting p-context formed by these three approaches leads to a p-inconsistency, which is eliminated by the extension of the starting p-context and, then, the coordination of the extended p-context. The analysis of historical research practice from a methodological point of view suggests that the development of the Catalan “anar ‘go’ + infinitive” construction finds the most satisfactory explanation under Juge’s (2006) proposal, which uses sources, research methods and argumentation techniques traditionally accepted in historical linguistics.