Grammaticalization (Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics) 9780198748540, 9780198747857, 019874854X
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Table of contents :
Cover
Grammaticalization
Copyright
Contents
Preface
List of figures and tables
Abbreviations
1: Introduction
1.1 What is grammaticalization?
1.2 Primary vs. secondary grammaticalization
1.3 Unidirectionality
1.4 Direction of semantic change in grammaticalization and expansion of scope
1.5 Grammaticalization as explanation
1.6 How to study grammaticalization
1.6.1 Diachronic grammaticalization studies
1.6.2 Grammaticalization as a synchronic concept
1.6.3 Reconstruction
1.7 Overview of the remainder of the book
2: Criteria, parameters, and other variables
2.1 An overview
2.2 Discussion
2.3 Conclusions
3: Four parameters of grammaticalization
3.1 Context extension
3.1.1 The context extension model
3.1.2 Discussion
3.1.3 On the differential behavior of stages
3.2 Desemanticization
3.3 Decategorialization
3.4 Erosion
3.5 Conclusions
4: Directionality of semantic change in grammaticalization
4.1 Bleaching, generalization, abstraction
4.2 Discourse orientation
4.2.1 Increase in speaker orientation
4.2.2 Increase in hearer orientation
4.2.3 Increase in textual orientation
4.2.4 Discourse orientation in grammaticalization
4.2.5 Counterexamples to (inter)subjectification and their status in discourse orientation
4.2.6 Conclusion
5: Steps and phases of grammaticalization
5.1 Gradualness
5.2 Stages
5.3 Grammaticalization chains
5.4 Grammaticalization in semantic maps
5.5 Polysemy, transcategoriality, and heterosemy
5.6 Cycles
5.6.1 Renewal and innovation
5.6.2 The morphological cycle
6: What drives grammaticalization?
6.1 Mechanisms: reanalysis and analogy
6.1.1 Reanalysis
6.1.2 Analogy/extension
6.1.3 Summary
6.2 The language system
6.3 Communicative needs or goals of the speaker
6.4 Inferences and contexts
6.5 Cognition and conceptualization
6.6 Frequency of use and language processing
6.7 Discourse
6.7.1 Grammaticalization from discourse structures
6.7.2 Discourse as the arbiter
6.8 Conclusion
7: Grammaticalization in language contact
7.1 Grammaticalization vs. polysemy copying
7.2 A case study: Basque
7.3 Identifying contact-induced grammaticalization
7.3.1 Evidence for contact-induced grammaticalization
7.3.2 Diagnostics for determining the direction of transfer
7.4 Pidgins and creoles
7.5 Conclusions
8: Grammaticalization and language typology
8.1 Typological features guiding grammaticalization
8.2 Grammaticalization as a possible explanation for typological features of languages
8.2.1 Grammaticalization and word order
8.2.2 Grammaticalization, the suffixing preference, and morpheme order
8.2.3 Grammaticalization and expression types of grammatical categories
8.2.4 Grammaticalization and the cycle of synthetic vs. analytic expression of categories
8.3 Conclusion
9: Theory-specific approaches
9.1 Generative grammar
9.2 Functional Discourse Grammar
9.3 Variationist Theory (sociolinguistics)
9.4 Cognitive Grammar
9.5 Construction Grammar
10: Beyond grammaticalization
10.1 Lexicalization
10.2 Degrammaticalization (anti-grammaticalization)
10.3 Exaptation/regrammaticalization
10.4 Other -izations
10.5 Conclusion
11: Discourse markers
11.1 What are discourse markers?
11.2 Problematic features of discourse markers
11.2.1 Do discourse markers belong to grammar?
11.2.2 From syntactic constituent of the sentence to syntactically unattached status
11.2.3 From prosodically integrated to non-integrated or less integrated status
11.2.4 From meaning as part of a sentence to meaning outside the sentence
11.2.5 From sentence function to metatextual function
11.2.6 From positionally constrained to largely unconstrained placement
11.2.7 Conclusions
11.3 Hypotheses on the development of discourse markers
11.3.1 The grammaticalization hypothesis
11.3.2 The pragmaticalization hypothesis
11.3.3 The lexicalization hypothesis
11.3.4 The cooptation hypothesis
11.4 Conclusions
12: Summary and conclusion
Glossary
References
Author index
Language index
Subject index
Citation preview
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 25/1/2021, SPi
Grammaticalization
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 25/1/2021, SPi
O X F OR D T E X T B O O K S IN L I N G UI S T I C S
PUBLISHED
The Grammar of Words An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology by Geert Booij
Compositional Semantics An Introduction to the Syntax/Semantics Interface by Pauline Jacobson
A Practical Introduction to Phonetics by J. C. Catford
The History of Languages An Introduction by Tore Janson
An Introduction to Multilingualism Language in a Changing World by Florian Coulmas
The Lexicon An Introduction by Elisabetta Ježek
Meaning in Use An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics by Alan Cruse
A Functional Discourse Grammar for English by Evelien Keizer Grammaticalization by Heiko Narrog and Bernd Heine
Natural Language Syntax by Peter W. Culicover
Diachronic Syntax by Ian Roberts
Principles and Parameters An Introduction to Syntactic Theory by Peter W. Culicover
Speech Acts and Clause Types English in a Cross-Linguistic Context by Peter Siemund
A Semantic Approach to English Grammar by R. M. W. Dixon
Linguistic Typology by Jae Jung Song
Semantic Analysis A Practical Introduction by Cliff Goddard
Cognitive Grammar An Introduction by John R. Taylor
Pragmatics by Yan Huang
Linguistic Categorization by John R. Taylor IN PREPARATION
Codeswitching by Jeff MacSwan Diachronic Syntax by Ian Roberts An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology by Nathan Sanders
Cognitive Grammar An Introduction by John R. Taylor
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Grammaticalization HEIKO NARROG AND BERND HEINE
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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, , United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Heiko Narrog and Bernd Heine The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in Impression: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press Madison Avenue, New York, NY , United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN –––– (pbk.) ISBN –––– (hbk.) Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
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Contents xi xiii xv
Preface List of figures and tables Abbreviations
1.
2.
3.
Introduction
1.1 What is grammaticalization?
1.2 Primary vs. secondary grammaticalization
1.3 Unidirectionality
1.4 Direction of semantic change in grammaticalization and expansion of scope
1.5 Grammaticalization as explanation
1.6 How to study grammaticalization 1.6.1 Diachronic grammaticalization studies 1.6.2 Grammaticalization as a synchronic concept 1.6.3 Reconstruction
1.7 Overview of the remainder of the book
Discussion points
Criteria, parameters, and other variables
2.1 An overview
2.2 Discussion
2.3 Conclusions
Discussion points
Four parameters of grammaticalization
3.1 Context extension 3.1.1 The context extension model 3.1.2 Discussion 3.1.3 On the differential behavior of stages
3.2 Desemanticization
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CONTENTS
4.
5.
6.
3.3 Decategorialization
3.4 Erosion
3.5 Conclusions
Discussion points
Directionality of semantic change in grammaticalization
4.1 Bleaching, generalization, abstraction
4.2 Discourse orientation 4.2.1 Increase in speaker orientation 4.2.2 Increase in hearer orientation 4.2.3 Increase in textual orientation 4.2.4 Discourse orientation in grammaticalization 4.2.5 Counterexamples to (inter)subjectification and their status in discourse orientation 4.2.6 Conclusion
Discussion points
Steps and phases of grammaticalization
5.1 Gradualness
5.2 Stages
5.3 Grammaticalization chains
5.4 Grammaticalization in semantic maps
5.5 Polysemy, transcategoriality, and heterosemy
5.6 Cycles 5.6.1 Renewal and innovation 5.6.2 The morphological cycle
Discussion points
What drives grammaticalization? Mechanisms and motivations
6.1 Mechanisms: reanalysis and analogy 6.1.1 Reanalysis 6.1.2 Analogy/extension 6.1.3 Summary
6.2 The language system
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CONTENTS
7.
8.
6.3 Communicative needs or goals of the speaker
6.4 Inferences and contexts
6.5 Cognition and conceptualization
6.6 Frequency of use and language processing
6.7 Discourse 6.7.1 Grammaticalization from discourse structures 6.7.2 Discourse as the arbiter
6.8 Conclusion
Discussion points
Grammaticalization in language contact
7.1 Grammaticalization vs. polysemy copying
7.2 A case study: Basque
7.3 Identifying contact-induced grammaticalization 7.3.1 Evidence for contact-induced grammaticalization 7.3.2 Diagnostics for determining the direction of transfer
7.4 Pidgins and creoles
7.5 Conclusions
Discussion points
Grammaticalization and language typology
8.1 Typological features guiding grammaticalization
8.2 Grammaticalization as a possible explanation for typological features of languages 8.2.1 Grammaticalization and word order 8.2.2 Grammaticalization, the suffixing preference, and morpheme order 8.2.3 Grammaticalization and expression types of grammatical categories 8.2.4 Grammaticalization and the cycle of synthetic vs. analytic expression of categories
8.3 Conclusion
Discussion points
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CONTENTS
9.
10.
11.
Theory-specific approaches
9.1 Generative grammar
9.2 Functional Discourse Grammar
9.3 Variationist Theory (sociolinguistics)
9.4 Cognitive Grammar
9.5 Construction Grammar
Discussion points
Beyond grammaticalization
10.1 Lexicalization
10.2 Degrammaticalization (anti-grammaticalization)
10.3 Exaptation/regrammaticalization
10.4 Other ‐izations
10.5 Conclusion
Discussion points
Discourse markers
11.1 What are discourse markers?
11.2 Problematic features of discourse markers 11.2.1 Do discourse markers belong to grammar? 11.2.2 From syntactic constituent of the sentence to syntactically unattached status 11.2.3 From prosodically integrated to non-integrated or less integrated status 11.2.4 From meaning as part of a sentence to meaning outside the sentence 11.2.5 From sentence function to metatextual function 11.2.6 From positionally constrained to largely unconstrained placement 11.2.7 Conclusions
viii
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12.
11.3 Hypotheses on the development of discourse markers 11.3.1 The grammaticalization hypothesis 11.3.2 The pragmaticalization hypothesis 11.3.3 The lexicalization hypothesis 11.3.4 The cooptation hypothesis
11.4 Conclusions
Discussion points
Summary and conclusion
Glossary References Author index Language index Subject index
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Preface The study of grammaticalization has been a particularly vibrant field of linguistics in the past couple of decades. The words “grammaticalization” and “grammaticalized” can be found in literature ranging from historical linguistics to language description, as well as in theoretical studies of all color. Nevertheless, to our knowledge only one introduction to the topic written in English has been available so far, and we felt that now is a good time to offer a new introduction and textbook that is not only updated but also offers an alternative view of the topic. Many people have contributed to this book in one manner or the other. In a sense, this book is supported by the whole field of study and the scholars working in it, and the copious publications which have informed this book and its authors. We wish to particularly thank Alexandra Aikhenvald, Walter Bisang, Laurel Brinton, Hilary Chappell, Kristin Davidse, Olga Fischer, T. Givón, Martin Haspelmath, Kees Hengeveld, Yūho Kitazaki, Tania Kuteva, Haiping Long, Andrej Malchukov, Toshio Ohori, Seongha Rhee, and Elizabeth Traugott for their input over the years. Proceeding with the book project, we received great feedback and support from Oxford University Press. We thank our editors Julia Steer and Vicki Sunter for all their understanding and support, and Abirami Sinduja for overseeing the production. It goes without saying that all remaining errors are our own. Heiko Narrog also wishes to thank for the support received from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science through grant number H. Finally, we hope that our book can serve as a useful point of orientation both for students who are just learning about the field and scholars who are already working in it. The concept of grammaticalization offers practically infinite possibilities for application, and we hope to see many more of them in the future. Heiko Narrog and Bernd Heine Sendai and Köln, August
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List of figures and tables Figures . Navajo verb template (according to Young and Morgan : –) . A sequence of semantic changes in grammaticalization . Grammaticalization chain of ‘give’ in Kabba (Moser : ) . Semantic map of ‘breathe’ (François : ) . Semantic map of the instrument/companion domain (Narrog and Ito ) . Semantic map of the instrument/companion domain with directionality of meaning extension (Narrog a: ) . Two mechanisms leading to renewal . Inflection outside of derivation (Mithun : ) . Paths for the development of future morphemes (Bybee : ) . Grammaticalization of be going to in Cognitive Grammar (Langacker : ) . Lexicalization, degrammaticalization, and exaptation vis-à-vis grammaticalization
Tables . Rise in normalized frequency of the English progressive by register, – (excerpt from Kranich a: ) . Rise in normalized frequency of the English progressive by use, – (excerpt from Kranich a: ) . ‘Threaten’-constructions in some European languages (Heine and Miyashita : ) xiii
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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
. The parameters of grammaticalization (Lehmann []: ) . The context extension model (Heine ) . Features of speaker orientation . Verbal correspondences between two Romance model languages and varieties of Basque (based on Jendraschek : ) . Portuguese expressions grammaticalized by Tariana speakers on the model of evidential categories in Tariana (Aikhenvald : –, –; Heine and Kuteva , Table .) . Prefixing versus suffixing in inflectional morphology (Dryer : ) . Features of lexicalization vs. grammaticalization (Brinton and Traugott : )
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Abbreviations Grammatical categories , . . .
ablative absolutive accusative adnominal adverb, adverbial applicative article aspect causal noun class , . . . classifier complementizer concessive comitative copula dative demonstrative determiner directional enunciative epistemic modality ergative essive evidential focus
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future genitive gerund honorific indefinite identity marker illocutionary modifier imperative inessive infinitive instrument indirect object imperfective locative narrative negation neuter non-future nominalizer nominative non-past tense object partitive participle perfective perfect progressive
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ABBREVIATIONS
present proximative possessive past purpose interrogative quotative relative (clause marker) reflexive relator subject subjunctive specific subordinator switch-reference marker of tag questions term of address topic transitive transnumeral
Person-gender-number portmanteau labels Building elements ()() dual ()() feminine ()() masculine ()() neuter ()() non-feminine () non-masculine () non-neuter ()() plural ()() singular
first person (combined with number) second person (combined with number) third person (combined with number) -digit portmanteau combinations (examples) first person singular second person plural first person feminine singular third person masculine singular feminine singular Parts of speech and morphological categories
adjective adverb article discourse marker modal particle noun noun phrase particle verb verbal adjunct verb phrase
Word order xvi
subject-object-verb order subject-verb-object order
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ABBREVIATIONS
verb-object order verb-subject-object order
Symbols = ? * ()
clitic boundary morpheme of unknown meaning reconstructed item/ ungrammatical tentative interlinear glosses by the present authors
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1 Introduction
1.1 What is grammaticalization?
1.2 Primary vs. secondary grammaticalization
1.3 Unidirectionality
1.4 Direction of semantic change in grammaticalization and expansion of scope
1.5 Grammaticalization as explanation
1.6 How to study grammaticalization
1.7 Overview of the remainder of the book
Discussion points
1.1 What is grammaticalization? We define ‘grammaticalization’ as the topic of this book as follows: ()
Grammaticalization is the development from lexical to grammatical forms and once the grammatical form has evolved, the development of further grammatical forms. Since the development of grammatical forms takes place in specific contexts and constructions, the study of grammaticalization is also concerned with constructions and context, including even larger discourse segments.
This definition refers to change in both contents and form, as linguistic expressions have a semantic and a formal component, including the constructions of which they are a part. Thus, it differs from some other definitions that are restricted to a change in meaning (or function),
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INTRODUCTION
such as that by Hopper and Traugott () in (), or to discourse prominence, such as that by Boye and Harder () in (). () [Grammaticalization is] a term referring to the change whereby lexical items and constructions come in certain linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions and, once grammaticalized, continue to develop new grammatical functions. (Hopper and Traugott : )¹ () Grammaticalization is the diachronic change that gives rise to linguistic expressions that are by convention ancillary and as such discursively secondary. (Boye and Harder : ) The definition presupposes that we know what is ‘grammatical’ and what is ‘lexical.’ But this is not always the case. First of all, the term ‘grammatical’ is associated with a number of uses. On the one hand, it may refer to the fact that a linguistic expression conforms to the rules of grammar. On the other hand, it refers to linguistic forms and structures that complement lexical items (contents words) as the building blocks of constructions and sentences. In this use, a term like ‘grammatical category,’ also called ‘functional category,’ stands in direct contrast with ‘lexical category.’ In this book, the latter sense is meant. Whenever there is a possible misunderstanding between the two conventions we will use the term ‘functional (category)’ instead of ‘grammatical (category)’ to contrast with ‘lexical (category).’ Secondly, the answer to the question what is grammatical depends on a variety of factors, especially on the specific framework or theory of grammar within which it is asked. There are certain prototypical grammatical categories like ‘past tense’ or ‘indefinite article’ that will be treated as ‘grammatical’ in any grammar, and words like procrastinate or committee that will be treated as a lexical entry in any lexicon. And there are categories such as complex prepositions, for example on behalf of, in the light of, so-called semi-modals, such as have to and seem, or so-called light verbs like do, that occupy a transitory zone between the lexicon and grammar. Here, classifications may differ from grammar to grammar, and from description to description. In general, grammatical forms constitute closed classes of items with shared
¹ Note that () covers essentially only one of the four main parameters that will be used in this book to describe grammaticalization, namely context extension (Chapter .).
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.
WHAT IS GRAMMATICALIZATION?
morphological and syntactic properties, in contrast to nouns and verbs, which are open-ended classes. That is, the latter have a potentially open-ended number of members. Grammatical meanings are typically abstract, procedural, and non-autonomous, that is, they gain their significance only in conjunction with words that carry specific content, and often serve to organize speech or relate words to each other. For example, the concept of past tense is an abstraction relying on our processing of time instead of on concrete visual or auditory or tactile perception. A past tense as such is meaningless without a predicate that can designate an event or state that took place in the past. One of the most attractive proposals with respect to the distinction between the grammatical and the lexical comes from Boye and Harder () in their framework of discourse prominence. Using a number of analytic tests, such as on addressability and focalization, they classify linguistic items into discursively primary and discursively secondary ones. In the view of these authors, demonstratives such as English this and that qualify as lexical, that is, non-grammatical expressions: Like lexical items, they can be both addressed and focalized (e.g. Look at that.—What?); hence, they are classified as discursively primary rather than secondary (Boye and Harder : ). In whichever way the distiniction is made, lexical forms become grammatical and from there on may develop even further grammatical functions. The development from lexical to grammatical is often called ‘primary grammaticalization,’ and the development of further functions from there on ‘secondary grammaticalization’ (Givón ; Breban and Kranich ; see Section .). These further grammatical functions have sometimes been labeled as ‘more grammatical,’ for example, in the frequently quoted definition of grammaticalization by the Polish scholar Kuryɬowicz: ()
Grammaticalization consists in the increase of the range of a morpheme advancing from a lexical to a grammatical or from a less grammatical to a more grammatical status, e.g. from a derivative formant to an inflectional one. (Kuryɬowicz : )
The problem is then how ‘more grammatical’ can be defined. There are basically only two options. The first is with a circular definition: “what comes later in grammaticalization is more grammatical”. This is clearly not desirable. But one could go one step further and create a
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INTRODUCTION
grammatical model based on grammaticalization, in which what is more grammatical is defined by stage of grammaticalization. The second option is with reference to a specific model of grammar that has an independent criterion for degree of grammaticality. Indeed, there are such models within which it is possible to clearly define what is ‘more’ grammatical (cf. Chapter ). The common denominator in these models is that further grammaticalized categories have wider scope, that is, the linguistic units whose interpretation they influence (e.g. verb vs. verb phrase vs. clause) belong to an increasingly higher level of grammar. In this book we also assume that continuous grammaticalization is characterized by widening (or at least not narrowing) of scope. We will return to the issue of ‘scope’ in Section .. The evolution of the verb go (to) to future marking in specific constructions is a paradigm example of continuing grammaticalization. It has been cited many times, but we will still repeat it here, because it is cross-linguistically so common. Instead of English go/going to, we take a look at the corresponding expression in Mexican Spanish. This also serves to illustrate that in grammaticalization the same kind of development is often found in many languages, even across language families and linguistic areas. According to Dávalos (), the construction ir a + infinitive ‘go to’ originally had a motion meaning, as in example (). () Mexican Spanish (CORDE, fiction, ) (Dávalos : ) E es asy como el que va a pescar peces and is so like the who go. to fish. fishes al monte o el que va a buscar to-the mountain or the who go. to seek. liebres al mar. hares to-the sea ‘And it is like the one who goes to the mountain to fish or the one who goes to the sea to catch hares.’ In the fifteenth century it then developed an aspectual reading as prospective aspect, that is, prediction of some immediate occurrence based on a present state. Examples open to an aspectual rather than motion reading were first available with human subjects, based on the overall interpretation of the situation in its non-linguistic context. With non-human subjects that do not move based on their own volition, as in example (), the aspectual reading became even more preferred.
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WHAT IS GRAMMATICALIZATION?
Note that in example (), there is a remnant of the meaning ‘go’ because motion is involved, and the main verb is an activity that would be, in principle, plausible as the end point of a motion event. However, because of the nature of the subject, it is clear that no intentional motion can be involved. ()
Mexican Spanish (CORDE, history, ) (Dávalos : ) [Description of an indigenous show with a stick which is being kicked like a football; the writer is amazed by the elegance of the player] Y muchas veces parece que le va a and many times seem. that him go. to dar en la cabeza, y cuando menos catamos give. on the head and when least look. acude con el un pie y lo recoge . . . come. with him a foot and it get. ‘And many times it seems that the stick is going to hit him on his head, and when we least expect it he comes with his foot and gets it . . . ’
This aspectual reading became dominant in the nineteenth century. Furthermore, at a third stage, in the late nineteenth and the twentieth century, an ‘immediate future’ use emerged that was characterized by the coocurrence with temporal adverbs such as en lo sucesivo ‘from now on’ in (). Also note the ‘be’-verb in the complement, which is incompatible with a ‘go’ reading. ()
Mexican Spanish (CREA, fiction, ‒) (Dávalos : ) [ . . . ] porque uste, en lo sucesivo, va because you in the following go..formal a ser mi secretario. to be. my secretary ‘[Yes, sir—he answered—go have a break. And you know: from this evening onward you stay with me. Right now I have the office prepared that belonged to Luisito,] because from now on you are going to be my secretary.’
Lastly, in contemporary language, a ‘remote future’ reading, as in (), with adverbial expressions that support the temporal remoteness, such as para el próximo siglo ‘for the next century,’ has emerged.
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INTRODUCTION
() Mexican Spanish (CREA, oral, n.d.; Dávalos : ) [ . . . ] van a ser para el próximo siglo aquellos go. to be. for the next century those que va a condenar esta historia. whom go. to condemn. this history ‘[However, history, the new history is writing itself, today you are the winners,] but in the next century you are going to be the ones that are going to be condemned by this history.’ Thus, the verb ir ‘go’ in a construction with the preposition a and a following infinitive came to be grammaticalized as a marker of aspect and then of tense. The step from motion verb to aspect marker can be labeled as ‘primary grammaticalization,’ and the further step to tense as ‘secondary grammaticalization.’ As mentioned above, this is a development that, apart from details that vary from language to language, has taken place in many languages, and in some languages it has even gone further. English be going to, for example, has additionally acquired an epistemic modal use, as illustrated in (). () I think that there’s going to be incompetence in every profession (ICE-GB) (Collins : ) Be going to in () arguably does not express a prediction about a future event but the speaker’s inference about a present general state of affairs. That is, it is not temporal, but ‘epistemic.’ The next step, from future to epistemic modality is in fact quite common. The English modal will has taken it as well, as have the French synthetic future form, for example, and the Spanish synthetic future. Beyond the Indo-European languages, Bybee et al. () found future markers derived from motion verbs in seventeen unrelated languages in a sample of ninety-four languages. They range from Africa to South America, China, and Papua New Guinea. This strongly suggests that grammaticalizations are based on cognitive mechanisms that do not depend on specific language structures. Recurrent developments such as the one of a movement verb to future have prompted scholars to suggest that it is diachronic mechanisms leading to grammatical structures that are universal, rather than the synchronic structures themselves (Bybee : ). On the other hand, many languages cited among those seventeen unrelated languages from Africa, South America, and so on, do not
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WHAT IS GRAMMATICALIZATION?
have a long written history. In fact, in the vast majority of the languages of the world there is no tradition of writing. And for more than percent of all languages there are no appropriate written records for reconstructing their history. This raises the question whether grammaticalization is a valid approach for only a very small number of languages. To address this important question, reconstruction is a central issue of this book. The approach sketched here rests on the extrapolation from known to unknown data. It is contingent upon the knowledge of findings that were made on the basis of evidence from written languages. The underlying idea is that when ‘hard’ proof from written documents is not available, we can still take the path of accumulating evidence until a plausible hypothesis which is superior to alternative hypotheses that exist can be formulated. Givón () succinctly formulated the usefulness of reconstruction of earlier language states for linguistics as follows: Quite legitimately, then, one may wish to study diachrony not for its own sake, but rather to gain better understanding of seemingly-synchronic universals that govern the range of possible grammatical typological diversity. (Givón : )
The main goal of the study of grammaticalization, including reconstruction, in our view, is to contribute to explanations of why grammar is structured the way it is. We will further explore this idea in Section .. Further reading For a substantial list of definitions that have been proposed for grammaticalization, see Campbell and Janda (). The history of grammaticalization has been dealt with extensively in previous monographs, especially in Lehmann ( []: –), and Heine et al. (: –). General overviews and introductions into the study of grammaticalization are provided by Heine et al. (), Hopper and Traugott (), and Lehmann ( []). Wiemer () discusses the concept of discursively primary and secondary in detail. Budts and Petré () is an excellent corpus study on (part of) the development of be going to as a future marker, which was given as an example here. Relatedly, besides the more established qualitative notions of what is more grammatical, more recently there have been attempts to develop quantitative techniques for measuring relative degrees of grammaticalization both in diachrony and synchrony (Saavedra ; Bisang et al. ).
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1.2 Primary vs. secondary grammaticalization Definitions of grammaticalization usually refer not only to the development of elements of grammar out of lexical words, but also to the development of further grammatical functions in already grammaticalized items. While the latter is covered by our definition in () of Section ., it is not ‘grammaticalization’ in a strict sense of a development of something grammatical out of something lexical. Therefore, it has often been distinguished from so-called ‘primary’ grammaticalization, or grammaticalization proper, being called ‘secondary’ grammaticalization. The term was coined by Givón (: ), who defined secondary grammaticalization as a process where “earlier-grammaticalized morpho-syntax can give rise . . . to other morpho-syntactic patterns.” When introducing the term, Givón () was referring to the development of relative clauses, adverbial clauses, and complement clauses out of nominal clauses in Hebrew. Givón’s () definition has largely remained in place. However, some scholars argue that secondary grammaticalization is likely to have other properties than primary grammaticalization (cf. Breban ; Breban and Kranich ; Kranich ; Narrog ). Most prominently, the type of meaning change found in secondary grammaticalization may be different from the one involved in primary grammaticalization: while primary grammaticalization usually involves subjectification, secondary grammaticalization usually does not (cf. Section .). There have also been proposals to further distinguish different types of secondary grammaticalization, for example, secondary grammaticalization involving structural change vs. mere semantic/ functional extension (Breban ). Lastly, it has also been suggested that secondary grammaticalization should not be included in the study of grammaticalization (e.g. von Mengden ). In this book, we take the more common stance of a simple distinction between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ grammaticalization. In doing so, we try to elucidate in which respect ‘secondary’ grammaticalization may indeed be different from ‘primary’ grammaticalization when it comes to issues relevant to the distinction.
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UNIDIRECTIONALITY
1.3 Unidirectionality If grammaticalization is “the development from lexical to grammatical forms and once the grammatical form has evolved, the development of further grammatical functions,” (see () above) ‘unidirectionality’ of grammaticalization means that the reverse process is not found, or else is not covered by the term grammaticalization. That is, expressions of grammatical functions do not develop back into more basic grammatical functions, and eventually become lexical items again. This tenet of grammaticalization theory is also known under the label of ‘irreversibility.’ It is in the first place an empirical observation, and has been a more or less explicit part of the modern concept of grammaticalization from its beginnings in the s, so that it is difficult to identify a first proponent.² Recall some of the examples of grammaticalization from the previous sections. A verb with the meaning ‘go’ in a construction with a preposition of direction and infinitival complement becomes a marker of aspect and then future tense (Section .). In a rigorously chosen sample of ninety-four languages of the world (Bybee et al. ), the type of change from motion verb to future marker was found in nineteen languages. How likely is it that in even one of those languages, a future marker became an aspect marker and then further became a lexical verb with the meaning ‘go’? We do not know of any such case and clearly it is not very likely. Or, think of an indefinite article that has become a marker of non-specificity which reverts and becomes a presentative marker and eventually the numeral ‘one’ (Section .). How likely would that be? Beyond being a generalization over empirical observances, the principle of unidirectionality also has some theoretical significance. If grammaticalization were easily reversible, it would be a rather random change among many, and it would not be very useful for the purposes of generalization and reconstruction. On the other hand, the existence of this principle and its importance has also challenged scholars to find counterexamples. Counterexamples ² Possibly, Vincent (: ) was the first: “Chains of grarnmaticalization are unidirectional or unilateral—i.e., put at its most general, lexical items may be grammaticalized, but grammatical items do not become lexicalized.”
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have been presented under labels such as ‘degrammaticalization,’ ‘degrammation,’ ‘antigrammaticalization,’ and the like, but the question is, in which sense, and to what extent they exist. A more detailed discussion of this matter will be found in Section .. To give just one example here, think of the formation of the noun ism as an abstraction over a lot of nouns that end in the suffix -ism (e.g. bilateralism, socialism, fascism, etc.). This is indeed the development of a lexical entry from a suffix, but not as a reversal of the process of grammaticalization, but as an intentional and spontaneous formation rather than a gradual process (see Börjars and Vincent : ; Haspelmath ). Furthermore, typically for many proposed cases of ‘degrammaticalization,’ it is primarily the morphological direction of change that is reversed, and not the semantic/functional one. It seems that the semantic/functional aspect of grammaticalization is its core and not the formal one, especially not the degree of morphological dependence. What we do find, though, is a small number of category pairings in which neither of the categories seems to be further grammaticalized than the other and for which change in both directions, that is bidirectionality, is attested. These pairings include necessity and possibility in the domain of modality (cf. Narrog a; Section .), causal and concessive subordination (cf. Narrog ), and marker of attributive possession and recipient (cf. Kuteva et al. : , ). Overall, even after three decades of discussion of potential counterexamples, for most scholars in the field the unidirectionality hypothesis still holds up, either as an absolute, or at least as a probabilistic generalization on grammatical change. The interesting thing is that it holds up for scholars from a large range of theoretical backgrounds. The remainder of this section is devoted to presenting some of the reasoning why grammaticalization is unidirectional. From a functional perspective, two hypotheses are of particular interest. On the one hand, it has been argued that the goal of speakers and hearers to communicate successfully underlies grammaticalization. To this end, Heine et al. () draw on what Werner and Kaplan (: ) call the ‘principle of the exploitation of old means for novel functions’ to explain major lines of directionality in grammatical change: By means of this principle, concrete concepts are employed in order to understand, explain, or describe less concrete phenomena. In this way, clearly delineated and/or clearly structured entities are recruited to conceptualize less clearly delineated or
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UNIDIRECTIONALITY
structured entities, and nonphysical experience is understood in terms of physical experience, time in terms of space, cause in terms of time, or abstract relations in terms of physical processes or spatial relations. (Heine et al. : )
On the other hand, Haspelmath (, ) argues that grammaticalization emanates from a number of principles of communication and behavior to which degrammaticalization would not conform. Without going into every detail here, Haspelmath suggests that the basic principle of verbal behavior is to “talk in a manner that you are successful in society.” Some derived more concrete principles are to (a) talk with clarity, (b) talk economically, (c) conform with others, and (d) be ‘extravagant,’ that is, talk in a way that you stand out. (c) and (d) may seem contradictory at first sight, but the idea is that successful communication is only possible by basically using the same lexicon and grammar as the other speakers of the language. Sometimes interspersing an ‘extravagant’ expression gives the speaker more attention. Now, incipient grammaticalization fulfills the need of ‘extravagance,’ because by using a novel expression for some grammatical category the speaker stands out. By doing so, the principle of ‘clarity’ is also fulfilled, since lexical expressions are as a rule semantically richer and more specific, and therefore clearer than grammatical ones. In the course of grammaticalization, ‘economy’ takes over: expressions that are habitually used in a specific environment tend to get phonetically de-emphasized and shortened. Degrammaticalization would run against these priniciples, with the exception of ‘extravagance.’ In principle, one can also speak in a manner that stands out by using a grammatical form where a lexical item would have been expected. But the creative use of grammatical expressions is much less likely than that of lexical expressions since grammatical expressions are usually processed automatically and unconsciously and not chosen in the way words are. It therefore takes some extra mental effort for this to happen. With the item ism, apparently an individual made this conscious creative effort, but it is a different type of process than the gradual extension of the verb ‘go’ across linguistic context to acquire new grammatical meanings. From a language processing perspective, Bybee () suggests that grammaticalization is unidirectional because if the frequency of a certain word or construction increases in grammaticalization, meaning and structure and phonetic shape are reduced, or even deleted, but if frequency remains unchanged or decreases, the opposite mechanism
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does not take place. That is, a grammatical morpheme that for some reason becomes obsolete, as has happened with the person endings on the English verb (with exception of the third person -s), does not become longer or gain in morphological complexity. Quite the opposite, in many cases it is reduced to zero. In Relevance Theory, one of the two major theoretical paradigms of linguistic pragmatics, grammaticalization means the acquisition of procedural meaning in addition to, or in place of conceptual meaning. Now, as Nicolle (: ) argues, when meaning fades away it can only be the conceptual meaning but not procedural meaning, because procedural meaning optimizes the relevance of an utterance. Therefore grammaticalization is unidirectional. The idea that grammaticalization constitutes a type of optimization can also be found in formal grammar. For Kiparsky (), grammaticalization is a case of grammar optimization, and this optimization is constrained by universal principles. There is only one thing that can go counter to this universal change, and that is exemplar-driven analogy. In generative grammar (see Chapter for details), grammaticalization means a change from movement to a higher category to late merge, that is a development towards more economy, or ‘structural simplification’ (cf. Roberts and Rousseau ; van Gelderen ). The opposite direction of change would run counter to both economy and the fundamentals of hierarchical clause structure. More recently, grammaticalization has also been framed in terms of ‘feature economy’: Since it is more economical for an item to have uninterpretable features, items develop towards having uninterpretable features (that is being basegenerated higher up in the tree) (see van Gelderen a). In these cases, the reasons for unidirectionality of grammaticalization are practically in-built into the grammatical systems of any language. Lastly, Maslova () has brought forward the interesting idea that the expansive change that is a central feature of grammaticalization (cf. Section . on ‘context extension’) has a strong perceptive advantage over reductive change in contexts when it comes to speakers selecting a change: speakers can perceive an extension of context, that is, when a verb like ‘go,’ developing into a future marker, is used with new types of subjects and verbs, because these contexts are novel, but it is very difficult to notice a reduction in contexts of use. Note that the ‘unidirectionality’ of grammaticalization is not defined in a sense that all changes accompanying grammaticalization are
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DIRECTION OF SEMANTIC CHANGE IN GRAMMATICALIZATION
one-sidedly reductive or one-sidedly expansive. As we will show in Chapter , there are both reductive and expansive changes in grammaticalization, and while the reductive ones may be more salient, the expansive ones are more essential. Relatedly, the idea has been floated that approaches to grammaticalization can be divided into reductive and expansive ones (Traugott d; see also Section ..), but except for very early studies, especially Lehmann ( []), few approaches to grammaticalization are exclusively reductive, and probably no approach is exclusively expansive. Most approaches, even earlier ones, recognize both reductive and expansive aspects of grammaticalization (cf. Heine a). In conclusion, we accept the hypothesis of unidirectionality as one of the premises for many issues concerning grammaticalization in the remainder of this book. This does of course not mean that unidirectionality cannot be challenged. We will return to this topic in Section .. Further reading For a general discussion of unidirecionality, see Hopper and Traugott (: –). Besides the literature already mentioned in this section, Börjars and Vincent () provide an overview of thinking on unidirectionality in grammaticalization; see also Norde (). There is a wide range of studies challenging the unidirectionality hypothesis in some form or other, see in particular Ramat (), Newmeyer (), Campbell (), Campbell and Janda (), Janda (), and Joseph (). An approach to test existing hypotheses on grammaticalization by means of a worldwide sample of languages is presented by Bisang et al. (). The authors conclude that while some processes of grammaticalization are very widespread in the languages of the world, they found no process that is common to all languages. However, counterexamples are rare and may in fact often be artifacts of classification (Bisang et al. : ). The findings in Saavedra’s quantative text study of synchronic and diachronic grammaticalization also support unidirectionality (: –).
1.4 Direction of semantic change in grammaticalization and expansion of scope An important notion associated with unidirectionality in many models of grammar (cf. Chapter ) is that of scope expansion. The further some linguistic unit grammaticalizes, the more its scope expands. ‘Scope’ is
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originally a concept from logic (cf. Lyons : ) and denotes “[the] portion of a particular sentence which is interpreted as being affected by an operator present in that sentence” (Trask : ).³ Let us take the example of a fictional verb denoting ‘have,’ and undergoing grammaticalization until it becomes a past tense ending, a path of grammaticalization that is common cross-linguistically (cf. Bybee et al. : ). Of the lexical verb ‘have,’ we may say that it has scope over the object NP that it accompanies; for example a -year-old son in I have a -year-old son. The verb may grammaticalize to become a marker of resultative aspect (I have closed the door). It then has scope over (that is, affects the interpretation of) the verb phrase close the door, whose temporality it indicates. Finally, going through a phase of ‘perfect’ interpretation, it may become a past tense ending like English -(e)d in I had closed the door, as has in fact happened in a number of languages (see Kuteva et al. for examples). Past tense is generally taken to have scope not only over the verb phrase but over the whole clause. The past -(e)d in I had closed the door, for example, not only has scope over the phrase close the door but also over the aspect have -ed. In this manner, semantic scope keeps expanding during grammaticalization. It is a distinguishing feature especially for ‘secondary grammaticalization,’ that is, grammaticalization from one grammatical category to the next. While scope is essentially a logical-semantic notion, it has been integrated into the Logical Form of generative models of syntax around the time of the Revised Extended Standard Theory in the s (cf. Hornstein : ; Helbig : ). Logical Form is conceptualized as an output component of syntax, mediating between syntax and semantics (cf. Haegeman : –). It is then commonly assumed that in Logical Form scope is determined by c-command. Therefore, in generative grammar, ‘scope’ may be referred to as part of the syntax model. Nevertheless, it is essentially the same logical notion as in other non-formal models of grammar, and it expands during grammaticalization (cf. Roberts : ).⁴ ³ As we will see in Chapter , the term has been used for a different concept in some of the preceding literature on grammaticalization. ⁴ In his model of grammaticalization, Lehmann ( []: ) has claimed that ‘structural scope’ (also known as ‘syntagmatic weight’) shrinks during grammaticalization. However, Lehmann’s ‘structural scope’ is something fundamentally different from ‘scope’ in the rest of linguistics. It is therefore problematic as a label and should not be confused with scope in the logical sense (cf. Sections ., . for more detail; see also Narrog ()).
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In conclusion, scope expansion is an important aspect of the unidirectionality of grammaticalization.⁵ Now, how does this expansion of scope relate to the functional/ semantic change that we consider as the core of grammaticalization? The grammatical categories that have wide scope and develop late in grammaticalization—that is, not directly from lexical categories but from less grammaticalized, earlier, grammatical categories—typically have one of the following properties: (i)
They encode a deictic relation to the speaker; e.g. tense, epistemic modality. (ii) They encode a deictic relation to the addressee; e.g. imperatives and other mandative modalities, politeness. (iii) They modulate the speech act; e.g. illocutionary modification. (iv) They serve the organization of text and discourse; e.g. sentence adverbs, conjunctions.
Examples of grammatical categories that do not share these properties, that is, have narrower scope, have more concrete meanings that do not deictically refer to speaker, hearer, speech act, or discourse, and come early in grammaticalization, that is, they are often grammaticalized directly from lexical items and constructions. They include aspect, benefactives, possession, adpositions, and certain event-oriented modalities such as ability or volition. We label this overall movement towards speaker, hearer, speech-act, and discourse-related functions as ‘discourse orientation’ and discuss it in more detail in Chapter . The term ‘subjectification’, as it is commonly understood and used (e.g. Traugott b), refers only to a minor part of this development, namely, to an initial stage in grammaticalization in which meanings become expressive of the speaker’s self. With respect to the relationship between scope expansion and discourse orientation we submit that it is the latter which is the driver of change, and scope expansion is the result of it. The more concrete and objective lexical categories are the building blocks of sentences at the core. Grammatical categories function like the cement on the outside that embed sentences in consecutive layers of less to more advanced ⁵ We mentioned in Section . a small number of category pairs where change is bidirectional, e.g. possibility and necessity, and causal and concessive subordination. In the case of these pairs, we assume that there is no significant difference in scope.
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grammatical categories, creating connections between the building blocks and to the builders (the speech act participants, especially the speaker).
Further reading Jäger and Rosenbach () suggested in a programmatic paper that a psychological mechanism called asymmetric priming might be the cause for unidirectional language change in general and grammaticalization in particular. In simplified terms, asymmetric priming means that one meaning or form (in this case, the grammatical one) is likely to be associated from another one (in this case, the lexical one) but not vice versa. Against this hypothesis, Hilpert and Saavedra () provide experimental evidence that implies negative priming effects between grammatical and lexical meanings, thus weakening the case for asymmetric priming. However, the authors admit that their evidence is limited in several ways, so that asymmetric priming cannot yet be ruled out as a cause of unidirectionality.
1.5 Grammaticalization as explanation Grammaticalization is of great importance for the study of language for a number of reasons. It is, of course, highly relevant in the description of language change in general, and in the description of the genesis of grammars in their synchronic states in particular. In the maximal case, we may assume that practically all elements of grammar as we know them are the result of grammaticalization, so that every functional word or morphological segment ultimately goes back to some lexical expression. In practice, however, in any language there are grammatical items that are so old that it is impossible to track down their origins with certainty. We know for example, that the modals and the tense-aspect auxiliaries in English have developed from lexical verbs, but we do not know, and will presumably never know for certain, a lexical origin for the genitive -s or the plural -s. In this section, we want to show that grammaticalization is not only relevant for language history and language description but may also function as an explanation for synchronic states of language. The first major area in which grammaticalization has been successfully applied as an explanation is morpheme order, that is, the question why in
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morphologically complex words and phrases each element occupies just the place that it does. This includes the question why, cross-linguistically, languages have far more suffixes than prefixes, not only when they are head-final but also when they are head-initial (see Section . for details). The hypothesis that grammaticalization is responsible for morpheme order is known as the “fossilized syntax hypothesis”, that is, “the position of an affix is the same as the position of the non-bound lexical or grammatical material from which the affix developed” (Bybee et al. : ). A good example is the position of the definite article in Bulgarian. The language is predominantly head initial and demonstratives, being the historical source of the articles, are preposed, that is, precede the noun (example ()). However, the definite article is postposed, that is, it follows the noun (example ()). () Bulgarian (Kuteva and Heine : ) Tazi masa this. table. ‘this table’ () Bulgarian (Kuteva and Heine : ) Masa-ta table-the. ‘the table’ So why do demonstratives precede the noun and definite articles follow it in Bulgarian? The answer is found in the grammaticalization of the definite article. At the time of its grammaticalization as a definite article, between the ninth and the thirteenth centuries, a demonstrative could both precede and follow the noun. Example () shows it following the noun in a twelfth-century text. () Bulgarian (Mirčev : ; Kuteva and Heine : ) na mjasto to, ideže stoaše I pridošaˇ and came.they on place this where stood na kameni s̃tyotc’ Joann’ molja boga on stone father John praying.to god ‘And they came to THIS PLACE, where the saint Father John stood on a stone, praying to God.’ Among the two options available at that time, the demonstrative became cliticized and affixed in the postposed position, probably for prosodic
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reasons (it had less prominence there than in preposed position). However, in the later historical development, the position of the demonstrative became fixed to the position before the noun, thus leading to the apparent contradiction in word order in Modern Bulgarian. A much more extensive case for grammaticalization explaining morpheme order has been presented by Mithun (), who analyzes the highly complex structure of the Navajo verb, which had puzzled researchers for decades. The Navajo verb has been described in terms of a template, consisting of a large number of fixed positions. Figure . renders a traditional description with thirteen positions for prefixes, followed by the verb stem. 0 PP OBJ
Ia Ø PP
Ib
Ic
Id
Ie
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
PP
REFL
REV
SMI
ITR
DISTR PLU
OBJ
3 SBJ
THM ADV
MODE
1, 2 SBJ
CLF
stem
ADV NOM
Disjunct prefixes
Conjunct prefixes
Figure 1.1 Navajo verb template (according to Young and Morgan : –)
()
Position classes in Figure . (according to Young ) Object of a postposition [applied objects] Ia Null postposition Ib Postpositions [applicatives], Adverbial-Thematic, Nominal prefixes Ic Reflexive Id Reversionary: ‘returning back’ Ie Semeliterative ‘once more’ II Iterative III Distributive plural IV Object pronominals V Subject pronominals: third person VI Thematic and adverbial prefixes [ slots] VII Mode [modality, aspect] VIII Subject pronominals: first and second persons IX [Classifiers] (valency markers) X Stem
According to Mithun (: –), the following four points are especially challenging about this morpheme order.
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(i) Languages with verb-final syntactic structure are expected to be suffixing. Verb-final Navajo, by contrast, is exclusively prefixing. (ii) Mutually dependent morphemes should be contiguous, but in Navajo some are scattered throughout the verb. (iii) Inflectional affixes are expected to occur farther away from the root than derivational affixes, but in Navajo derivational and inflectional prefixes are interwoven. (iv) Paradigmatically related affixes are expect to occur in the same position in a template. But they do not do so in Navajo. Mithun () argues that it is impossible to explain this order in terms of principles of syntax or semantic scope, as other scholars had attempted (Baker ; Rice ; Hale ). Instead, prefixes in Navajo are the result of eventual grammaticalization, and their present shape reflects their current stage of grammaticalization. The decisive principle is: those words that were grammaticalized very early are closer to the stem as affixes, while the more recent grammaticalizations are further from the stem. For example, third person subjects are found in position V, while first and second person subjects are found in position VIII. This is due to the fact that Navajo grammaticalized the first and second person morphologically independent pronouns first, and the third person pronoun later. Or, subject prefixes occur closer to the verb stem than the objects, since highly topical, frequent, unstressed morphemes in a relatively fixed position were more likely candidates for grammaticalization than objects. This can be reconstructed by the increase in () phonological reduction, () generality and abstraction, and () diffuse meaning from left to right in the template. In other words, there is an increasing degree of grammaticalization from left to right. Therefore, “the positions of prefixes in the verb correlate with their age: those closest to the stem are the oldest, and those furthest the youngest” (Mithun : ). A second area where grammaticalization has been applied successfully as an explanation for synchronic language structures is in the explanation of differences and commonalities of the expression of the same grammatical category across languages. First, indefinite articles (e.g. English a(n)) are an example of grammaticalization leading to similar structural features across languages. In many languages, indefinite articles have the following properties (cf. Heine ):
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()
a. They have the same or a similar form as the numeral ‘one’, and can occupy the same position in a clause as the numeral. But if so, they are usually at the same time shorter than the numeral. b. They are also usually restricted to marking singular nouns; cf. E. a rabbit, but *a rabbits. c. If they can mark mass nouns, they can also mark plural nouns. If they can mark plural nouns, they can also mark singular nouns.
None of the properties in () is of any logical necessity for being an indefinite article. For example, there are languages where the indefinite article does not resemble the numeral ‘one,’ and with definite articles one can see that there is no necessary restriction with respect to number marking (e.g. the rabbit, the rabbits). There is no syntactic or semantic or morphological rule that would cause, and therefore explain, the properties in (). It turns out that the reason for these properties is that the indefinite articles with the properties in () have grammaticalized from the numeral ‘one’. This is a process that proceeds in stages. It starts out as a numeral (the number ‘one’), then proceeds to the stage of a presentative marker, as in (), then a specific marker as in (), and a non-specific marker as in (). English a(n) has undergone all these stages. The language of the examples is Modern English for the sake of convenience, but there is no lack of indefinite markers in many languages at these stages. They are cited from Heine (a: –), where a more detailed discussion can be found. ()
Once upon the time, there was an [or: one] old woman.
()
A man came in yesterday and started talking to me.
()
Buy me a newspaper!
At the stage of non-specific marker, the indefinite article cannot yet mark plural nouns, since it has still retained the semantic properties of the numeral ‘one’. However, there are languages that have progressed a step beyond English, and the indefinite article is now so generalized that it can also mark plural nouns and mass nouns. This is the case in Spanish, for example, as in (): ()
Spanish (Bradley and Mackenzie : ) Unas vacaciones en Italia. vacations in Italy ‘A holiday in Italy.’
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Vacaciones ‘vacations’ is an inherently plural noun which even requires the indefinite article. To summarize, grammaticalization from the numeral ‘one’ explains the properties in () for all those ‘one’-derived indefinite articles that have not yet reached the last stage, as Spanish has: The ‘one’-derived indefinite articles resemble the numeral because they are derived from it, they are often shorter because they have undergone erosion (phonological reduction) in the process of grammaticalization (Section .), they cannot mark plural because they have retained the semantic properties of the numeral ‘one,’ and marking mass nouns is the last hurdle in the extension of their usage, because masses are not countable. As mentioned initially, this explains a remarkable uniformity in properties of indefinite markers in languages across the globe, because, as Heine and Kuteva (: ) have shown, in roughly percent of all languages that have indefinite articles, thay are derived from the numeral ‘one’. Grammaticalization can also be the cause of cross-linguistic variation in the expression of grammatical categories. For example, Heine (, , and elsewhere) has shown that in the vast majority of languages, constructions for the expression of possession (e.g. I have two cell phones) have grammaticalized from the source schemas listed in (). () Formula X takes Y Y is located at X X’s Y exists Y exists for/to X X is with Y As for X, Y exists
Source schema Action Location Genitive Goal Companion Topic
The variation in source schemas is due to the fact that possession as such is a fairly abstract concept, and the relationship between the possessor and the possessed can therefore be conceptualized in several more concrete ways. Grammaticalization emerging from these schemas can explain both the cross-linguistic differences in the expression of possession, and the features that a possession construction has in a particular language. The source of the ‘have’ possessives found in many European languages is the ‘Action’ schema, since the original lexical meaning of ‘have’ in
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Indo-European is ‘take,’ ‘seize.’ This explains why the possessor is construed as the subject and the possession as the object of the main predicate. This is by no means a logically necessary way to conceptualize a relationship of possession, since a possessor is not necessarily an agent that acts on her or his possessions. The possessor may as well be conceptualized more passively, for example, as a location for the possession. Indeed, in Russian, which has a possessive construction based on the ‘location schema,’ the possessor is a location marked by a locative preposition, and the possession is the subject as in (). ()
Russian (Heine a: ) U menja kniga at me book ‘I have a book.’
In Swahili, as in many other languages as well, the possession is conceptualized as accompanying the possessor, and possession is accordingly grammaticalized by means of the ‘companion schema,’ as in () with the preposition na ‘with.’ ()
Swahili (Heine a: ) ni-na gari. I-be.with car ‘I have a car.’
As in the case of the indefinite articles, a possessive construction in a particular language is not only characterized by which source schema was chosen, but also by how far grammaticalization has advanced. The possessive verb have in English has all but lost the ability of a regular transitive verb to be passivized, as shown in (). ()
a. I have two cars. b. *Two cars are had by me.
Furthermore, grammaticalization beyond possession towards other categories such as modality in the construction have to (), and tense-aspect in the have + past participle (present perfect) construction () has taken place. ()
I had to leave early this morning. (necessity)
()
Those guys have spoilt our party. (present perfect)
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Similar grammaticalization beyond possession has taken place in other languages, and is also the case with schemas other than the European ‘action schema.’ For a more ‘exotic’ example, there is the grammaticalization of a possessive construction to express necessity (modality) as in the Austronesian language Rapanui of Easter Island (example ()). This is a development not uncommon in the languages of the world (cf. Narrog c: –). () Rapanui (Du Feu : ) a Nua te runu i te pipi Nua collect shells ‘Nua had to collect the shells’ (lit., ‘Nua’s collecting of the shells’) Finally, grammaticalization has also been adduced to explain the polysemy of specific grammatical constructions. Recall the future derived from a motion verb discussed in Section .. Across languages, motion verbs are one of four common sources for future constructions. The others are modal verbs of volition, obligation or ability, aspectual constructions (mostly ‘imperfective’), and adverbs (cf. Bybee et al. , ). Each source has a path that connects its original meaning to the function of future. For example, English will originally indicated volition, and relates to future through the path of development proposed by Bybee et al. (: ) as in (). () desire > willingness> intention > prediction According to the Oxford English Dictionary (nd edition on CD-Rom, will v.) English will had a ‘desire’ meaning up to the nineteenth century, both as a main verb () and as an auxiliary (). () Whan that thynge can not be done that thou woldest, woll that thou cannest. (Taverner, ) ‘When the thing that you desire cannot be done, desire what can be done.’ () He . . . examines the dinner-card . . . ; points . . . to the dishes which he will have served. (Thackeray, ) ‘He examines the diner menu . . . [and] points . . . to the dishes that he wants to get served.’ ‘Willingness,’ ‘intention,’ and ‘prediction’ are still present in the Modern English use of will, as in (), (), and ().
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INTRODUCTION
()
I’m sure he will help if you ask. (willingness)
()
I will soon be back. (intention)
()
Tomorrow everything will be fine. (prediction)
In this manner, the polysemy of will in Modern English and earlier stages of the language can be explained with reference to its grammaticalization from a verb indicating desire and willingness to forming the future in a construction with a main verb. As mentioned in Section ., the development has even proceeded beyond future into epistemic modality with present time reference, as in (). ()
[There’s knocking on the door] That will be the postman.
Further grammaticalization of future constructions in various languages includes the development of an imperative sense (‘You will be here at tonight!’) or use as a marker of complement clauses. In an early paper, Bybee () suggested that there are as many as six aspects of future markers that can be explained through a grammaticalization approach: () it explains why it is difficult to find a single abstract meaning for a polysemous future morpheme; () it explains the cross-linguistic similarities of grammatical meanings by similar paths of development and principles of historical change; () it explains differences between morphemes in different languages with reference to different lexical sources and different extent of change along the universal paths of change; () it predicts possible combinations of meanings; () it allows reconstruction of the lexical sources of grams; and () it suggests processes in synchrony that are probably instrumental in explaining the changes and the nature of meaning. The above areas mentioned as examples for grammaticalization as an explanation are by no means intended to be exhaustive. They were merely chosen with a focus on cross-linguistic comparison. Surely, many more can be found in any individual language, especially when it has a written history. Conversely, we do not want to suggest that grammaticalization is the appropriate means of explanation for any phenomenon in grammar. In general, one speaks of ‘internal’ and ‘external’ explanations for grammatical phenomena. ‘Internal’ explanations refer to rules or features of grammar itself, while ‘external’ explanations refer to factors located outside of grammar. We believe that the latter are more powerful, since
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the former are prone to be circular, that is, rules are formulated based on empirical observations of grammar, and then used again to explain certain features of grammar. ‘External’ explanations may refer not only to language change, but also to phylogenetic evolution, language acquisition, language processing, cognitive structure, discourse pragmatics, or language contact. Within external explanations, grammaticalization as such is not the ultimate explanation, because grammaticalization is necessarily motivated by further cognitive and pragmatic principles. It is therefore rather an intermediate layer of explanation. However, it is a good level to look for immediately accessible explanations, since cognitive and pragmatic principles lie at a higher level of abstraction. If they are not solidly based on non-linguistic research, and depend on language data, we run into the problem of circularity again.
Further reading Most relevant literature has already been mentioned in the above section. Narrog (a) provides an overview of the topic of grammaticalization and explanation from a typological perspective. The explanatory potential of grammaticalization is also discussed in Bybee (), Heine (), Kuteva and Heine (), and Mithun (). On the nature of internal explanations, see Kiparsky (); external, functional explanations are discussed, for example, in Keller ().
1.6 How to study grammaticalization There are essentially three ways in which the concept of grammaticalization can be used: First, diachronically, for the study of actual language change based on the historical records of the language involved. Secondly, synchronically, in terms of comparing degrees of grammaticalization between related constructions within one language or across several languages. And thirdly, in terms of a reconstruction of grammatical markers and constructions at earlier stages of their development for which no historical data is available. The first and the third way are similar in that they both relate to diachrony. The second and the third ways are similar in that they crucially involve criteria that characterize steps in grammaticalization.
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INTRODUCTION
1.6.1 Diachronic grammaticalization studies Studying grammaticalization diachronically is in principle no different to studying any other kind of language change in diachrony. It relies on the analysis of written records of the language at different points in time. For instance, for English substantial written documentation can be found from the ninth century onward. Therefore, in principle one can track back the development of some grammatical constructions or markers for years. This is possible on the basis of the availability of written documents and does not require electronic data. However, the advent of historical corpora has dramatically enhanced the accessibility of diachronic data for studies of language change. For English, for example, there is the Helsinki Corpus that covers a period from the ninth to the eighteenth century; there is the ARCHER (A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers) corpus that covers a period from the seventeeth to the twentieth century; and there are a variety of specialized corpora (see McEnery and Hardie : –).⁶ Kranich’s (a) study of the development of the English progressive is a good example for a historical corpus study on grammaticalization. Kranich aimed to provide a more detailed account of the semantic development and contexts of change of the progressive than pre-corpus studies had achieved. The result would also help to explain features of the progressive in Modern English, since “often apparent irregularities of present-day linguistic forms are only explicable with reference to their diachronic development” (Kranich a: ), in accord with what we said in Section .. The corpus used was the British English part of the ARCHER-, which covers a period from to . In Modern English, the progressive has mainly aspectual and subjective uses. The basic aspectual use is presenting a state-of-affairs as ongoing, of limited duration, and usually dynamic (cf. Huddleston and Pullum : ). The subjective meaning is often the expression of a negative evaluation of a state-of-affairs, but sometimes also downtoning (cf. Kranich a: –). The source of the progressive is probably the merger between the constructions beon/wesan + V-(i) ende, that is, a ‘be’ verb and the Old English present participle, and ⁶ See CLARIN (https://www.clarin.eu/resource-families/historical-corpora) for a list of historical corpora in languages of the world.
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beon/wesan + on ~ in ~ a + V-ing, that is, a ‘be’ verb, a preposition, and the Old English verbal noun. Both constructions are already documented in Old English. The participle and the noun formally merged around the twelfth–thirteenth century, accelerating the merger of the constructions. () is an early example, in which the ‘be’-verb and the participle are already analyzed as a syntactic and semantic unit, as their replacement with a ‘do’-verb in the second clause shows. () Old English (HomS (BlHom ) (Traugott : ; Kranich a: ) Þonne beo we sittende be þæm wege, swa se then will.be we sitting at the way as the blinda dyde blind.man did ‘Then we will be sitting at the way-side, as the blind man did.’ The presence of a fully grammaticalized progressive construction in the Celtic languages of the British islands probably helped this construction to spread in contrast to continental Germanic languages (see Chapter on contact-induced grammatical change). In Middle English, frequency dropped, but the construction nevertheless continued to develop, spreading to uses with present and past verbs and modals, to perfect and pluperfect verbs. The meaning and use of the progressive in Old and Middle English did not differ much from each other, but they were quite different from those found in Modern English. The main uses of the progressive were (a) to indicate an imperfective or durative situation, but not primarily associated with dynamic processes as in Modern English, and (b) a ‘subjective’ use to indicate that a specific state-of-affairs was particularly remarkable. Modern English also has a subjective use, but the Old and Middle English use was apparently more frequent and more unspecific. Example () above would be an instance where the Old English and Modern English uses overlap. On the other hand, () is an example for the marking of duration, and () for subjective emphasis where in Modern English, the simple present would be used instead. () Middle English (Gower, Confessio Amantis; th century) (Kranich a: ) The flood is Into the grete See rennende ‘the flood is into the great Sea flowing ‘The flood flows into the ocean.’
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()
Old English (Beowulf; ca. ) (Kranich a: ) Gyf þonne Frysna hwylc . . . ðæs morþor-hetes If yet Frisian any of.this feud myndgiend wære mentioning would.be ‘if on the other hand one of the Frisians would mention this feud . . . ’
Example () does not mark a ‘limited’ duration, but an infinite duration, where in Modern English the present would be more appropriate, and () marks a general emphasis, while the Modern English progressive subjective uses are more specialized, especially on expressing some kind of complaint or criticism. Kranich’s own detailed corpus study starts in the seventeenth century. She shows that the normalized frequency of the progressive in English texts grew approximately twelve times up to the twentieth century. However, she also shows that the increase in frequency is much more pronounced in fiction and drama than in specialist expository registers such as scientific writing. This can be seen by the numbers in Table .. There are some remarkable facts about the data in Table .. For one thing, there is the preponderance of use in drama and fiction vs. science and medical discourse, which Kranich (a: ) interprets as a sign of association of the progressive with oral rather than typical written Table 1.1 Rise in normalized frequency of the English progressive by register, – (excerpt from Kranich a: ) /
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
Drama
Fiction
News
—
Science
—
Medical
—
Overall
* / refers to the first half of the seventeenth century, i.e. – etc. Note that Kranich’s (a) original table contains more registers than are displayed here. The ‘overall’ number therefore differs from the mean of those listed in the rows above.
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Table 1.2 Rise in normalized frequency of the English progressive by use, – (excerpt from Kranich a: ) /
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
Aspectual uses
Percentage of total
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
Subjective uses Percentage of total
%
%
%
% %
* As in Table ., / refers to the first half of the seventeenth century, i.e. – etc.
language. Secondly, from a methodological point of view, it is remarkable that in no single register a linear increase in frequency is found, although in the overall data, we do get a linear increase. This has two possible implications. First, empirical language data often do not give the smooth and linear results that one would theoretically or ideally expect. Secondly, even in a large corpus, frequencies may not be entirely reliable, as they depend on the texts chosen and the preferences of their authors. Take for example, the exponential rise of the progressive in medical writing in the first half of the nineteenth century and its ensuing decline. This may accurately reflect the development of the progressive in medical writing, but it may also be a function of the fact that medical writing only makes up a small part of the corpus and the actual numbers are rather small. Table . shows the change in frequency by meaning, divided roughly into ‘aspectual’ and ‘subjective.’ The data imply that during the rapid rise of the progressive up to the nineteenth century the subjective uses lost share to the aspectual uses but very recently have risen again. The latter is mostly due to the rise of a very specific subjective use, labeled as ‘interpretive’ by Kranich (a: ). In a complex sentence, the clause with the progressive aspect “provides the speaker’s subjective interpretation of what [the state-of-affairs in the first clause] would mean for him personally”. () is an example. () You are helping me, darling, you’re being an angel (Cower, The Vortex) The progressive in the first clause, are helping, is an aspectual progressive, describing an ongoing situation, while are being in the second clause is an instance of the interpretive subjective progressive.
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INTRODUCTION
Besides the general change in frequency, the focus of Kranich’s study is also on change of contexts of use and functions of the construction. With respect to its functions, the most important point may be that the progressive shifted from a marker of a durative situation and the ‘remarkableness’ of a situation, to marking progressive aspect, that is, mainly to a situation that is dynamically in progress, while also further developing the non-aspectual subjective meanings. Kranich (a: ) dates this change to the period between and . On the other hand, the accompanying extension of contexts is much less dramatic than one might expect. For example, the change in situation types, or subjects (animate vs. inanimate), or adverbs used with the progressive is not very significant. There are also only two clear-cut instances of contexts that were added. First is the passive progressive as in (), which shows one of the earliest instances of documented use. ()
I have received the speech and address of the House of Lords; probably, that of the House of Commons was being debated when the post went out (, A Series of Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury, Letter from Mr. Harris to his mother, first cited by Warner : )
Secondly, the progressive with be and have as the main verb emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. ()
. . . but this is being wicked, for wickedness sake ( Johnston, Chrysal II . x., example from Denison : )
With be and have, the progressive appears to trigger a dynamic reading of the stative predicate, as in (), or a non-aspectual subjective reading. This extension of context, together with the passive progressive, is significant, because it means that the progressive can now be used with practically all kinds of predicates in declarative clauses. Lastly, another significant development is a shift from subordinate clause use of the progressive as late as at the beginning of the eighteenth century to prevalent use in main clauses in the twentieth century, especially in the spoken registers. Kranich’s (a) study is but one example of how research on grammaticalization can be conducted fruitfully through corpora. There are a number of things that only a corpus study can achieve, and these pertain mainly to frequency. As Mair () points out, it is only possible with corpora to show whether a rise in frequency is
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involved in an instance of grammaticalization, and what kind of frequency this is. Also, low-frequency grammaticalizations are very hard to track without large corpora. Furthermore, only with corpora, the relationship between registers and grammaticalization can be shown clearly. Lastly, and no less importantly, the use of corpora and concordances makes it easier to identify contexts of change and the emergence of patterns. Search results can even bring patterns to light that the researcher was not aware of in the first place. On the other hand, even a large corpus study often has to rely on data and observations from outside the corpus, and qualitative observations may be more important than quantitative ones. Note that many of the examples cited above from Kranich’s study were not from the corpus study itself but from previous research. More generally, while corpora can make the diachronic study of grammaticalization much easier, they do not offer a magic solution for fundamental problems associated with the historical study of language based on written documents. These can include documentation gaps and a reliance on specific (especially written) registers. Also, the data may be much less clear-cut than expected. For example, in neither Table . nor Table . is there a clear continuous rise in frequencies for any single criterion except in the ‘overall’ column. Likewise, the frequency of use with specific situation types or subjects did not change significantly. Or, it may be surprising that there was hardly any detectable change in frequency and use in the progressive construction in Old English and Middle English, that is, over a very long period of time. Lastly, highly grammaticalized constructions are often too old to allow tracking of the whole history of grammaticalization with actual historical data. The progressive construction was already grammaticalized by Old English. The situation is even more extreme with highly grammaticalized items such as inflectional endings. Their grammaticalization usually takes millennia rather than centuries, and they can rarely be reliably tracked through historical records to their very beginnings (cf. Haig ). But this is a general problem that exists independently of the use of corpora. 1.6.2 Grammaticalization as a synchronic concept It is quite common to say that a certain construction or word or morpheme is ‘grammaticalized’ without any mention of its actual history. In this case, the term ‘grammaticalized’ refers to a synchronic
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state as the result of a diachronic process that we may or may not have knowledge of. For example, one can legitimately say that the English progressive construction is ‘grammaticalized’ as a progressive without knowing any of the historical details presented in the previous section. This can be done with reference to parameters of grammaticalization that are discussed in detail in Chapters and of this book. Most fundamentally, the progressive construction is the exponent of the grammatical category of ‘progressive,’ which in turn is in contrast to unmarked aspect and perfective aspect across all verb classes. It is also possible to say that a certain construction or marker is ‘more’ or ‘less’ grammaticalized than a functionally similar marker or construction. Indeed, it is often within the context of a comparison of two or more markers of the same category in a synchronic state of one or more languages, that the terms ‘more’ or ‘less’ grammaticalized are used. The following comparisons seem to be particularly common: . Two or more markers or constructions of the same category in one language (e.g. “In language X, past tense is fully grammaticalized but future tense is not”). . Two or more markers or constructions of different categories in one language (e.g. “In language X, markers of tense are more grammaticalized than markers of aspect”). . Two or more markers or constructions of the same category in two or more languages (e.g. “In language X, the progressive aspect is more grammaticalized than in language Y”).
The closer the functional and the genetic relationship between the markers or constructions compared, the more reliable such a comparison can be. Conditions of grammaticalization and grammatical structures may even differ for different categories in one language, and usually differ strongly in unrelated languages. A good example for a synchronic comparison of one category across related languages is ‘threaten’ verbs in Indo-European languages. Compare examples () and (). () is the literal and ungrammaticalized use of threaten in English, while threaten in () has apparently undergone some grammaticalization. ()
The bouncer threatened us to call security if we didn’t leave.
()
The Australian dollar threatens to fall below cents.
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In (), in contrast to (), clearly, no actual ‘threatening’ is taking place, because the sentence has an inanimate subject that is incapable to commit the act of threatening. This fact as such merely indicates a metaphorical use of the verb threaten, where an inanimate subject referent is conceived metaphorically as an agent. But there is also no possible experiencer, corresponding to us in (), and the meaning of threaten here is ‘immediacy,’ that is, an aspectual category. () could be paraphrased as ‘the Australian dollar is about to fall below cents’ with the negative evaluative connotation. This kind of usage can be observed in languages across Europe. In the case of these ‘threaten’ verbs, stages of grammaticalization can be identified with specific constructions. The constructions are as follows: C: Source construction: ‘Threaten’ has an animate subject, an optional experiencer object, and an optional undergoer object or complement clause. The meaning is literal: ‘threaten’. C: The subject is inanimate instead of animate, and either the subject or the object refer to an imminent event. C: The subject is inanimate, the ‘threaten’ verb accompanies an infinitival complement specifying the imminent event. C: The nature of the subject (inanimate vs. animate) becomes unrestricted.
() may represent C, and () C. The following examples from Portuguese, a language that has developed all four constructions, show C and C. () C: Portuguese (de Lima , cited in Heine and Miyashita : ) A firma ameaça falência. the firm threatens bankruptcy ‘The company is threatened by bankruptcy.’ () C: Portuguese (de Lima , cited in Heine and Miyashita : ) Um gordo e rubicundo merceeiro [ . . . ] ameaçava a fat and reddish merchant threatened estalar tôdas as costuras da farda. to.tear all the seams of costume ‘A fat, reddish trader was about to burst out of all seams of his attire.’
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Table 1.3 ‘Threaten’-constructions in some European languages (Heine and Miyashita : ) C
C
C
C
Portuguese
+
+
+
+
German
+
+
+
+
English
+
(+)
+
+
Danish
+
+
+
Estonian
+
+
+
Romanian
+
+
(+)
Russian
+
+
Greek
+
+
Table . shows some modern European languages, and the type of ‘threaten’ construction that can be used in each language, marked by “+”. Brackets on the “+” sign indicate some restrictions on the construction. The languages in Table . are intentionally arranged in the order of which constructions they have. All European languages that were investigated had C and C. These are obviously less grammaticalized uses. C and C are more grammaticalized, and the data suggest that in turn C is more grammaticalized than C. The order between C and C is determined by the fact that C is based on a non-literal meaning that presupposes extension of context from animate to inanimate subjects. In this manner, the fact that a construction in a specific language is more grammaticalized than the related construction in a related language can be inferred from comparative synchronic data. It can also be derived from the application of criteria of grammaticalization (Chapter ): The meanings and functions of the constructions in C, C, and C are increasingly more abstract, based on metaphor, and presuppose an extension of contexts of use. Finally, in the case of European languages, the historical facts are also available to confirm the hypothesis based on synchronic data. Historical data from German show that in this language, there was only C before the sixteenth century. C rose in the sixteenth century, C in the seventeenth century, and C in the late eighteenth century (see Heine and Miyashita ). The semi-modals in English provide another, short example of grammaticalization of several exponents of one category in one language.
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While the modals (e.g. must, can, may) are generally considered as fully grammaticalized exponents of modality, the so-called semi-modals (e.g. had better, would rather, have got to, be to) and lexico-modals (e.g. have to, need to, want to) are not as clearly grammaticalized and exhibit variant degrees of grammaticalization among them. Collins (: –) argues that among the semi-modals, have got to and had better are more grammaticalized than would rather and be to. The claim is based on the following evidence: (i) Phonological reduction: have and had are not only often reduced to /v/ and /d/, respectively, but are sometimes even entirely deleted (gotta, better). (ii) In the case of have got to, the form gotta obscures the infinitive marker to, resulting in a bare infinitival complement, similar to the modals. (iii) The meaning component of ‘comparison’ is already bleached out in the case of had better but still present in the case of would rather. Thus, the following clause pattern is infelicitous with had better but possible with would rather in Modern English: [Someone] would rather/*had better [do X] than [do Y]. (iv) Have got to has clearly developed an epistemic sense, while would rather clearly has not. (With had better and be to, the situation is less clear.) (v) Would rather can take a finite clause complement (I would rather that you went with someone else), and be to exhibits subject agreement (I am to go), both properties indicating a low degree of grammaticalization. Note that all these arguments can be stated independently of actual diachronic evidence. In conclusion then, we have seen some examples of how the concept of grammaticalization can be applied to synchronic data. This is sometimes done simply in order to state whether some morpheme or construction is a grammaticalized part of synchronic grammar. But more commonly it is done to compare the grammatical status of two or more morphemes or constructions. To achieve a valid comparison, it is important to narrowly delimit the range of morphemes and constructions to items that are semantically/functionally related, and to one language or a structurally comparable set of languages. As we have seen
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for the English semi-modals, even when the comparison is restricted to one language and one category, there may be criteria that cannot be fully applied to all items under comparison, or the results may be ambiguous. Lastly but no less importantly, let it be noted that there is another way to study grammaticalization synchronically, namely in terms of synchronic variation leading to grammatical change. This is a topic we will take up again in Section .. 1.6.3 Reconstruction Grammaticalization applied to language reconstruction combines properties of grammaticalization studies on diachronic data (Section ..) and synchronic data (Section ..). While the purpose of study is diachronic (i.e. historical reconstruction), the data as the basis for the reconstruction may be mainly synchronic. Traditionally, two methodologies are distinguished in reconstruction, namely, (a) internal reconstruction, and (b) the comparative method. While (a) is normally restricted to the diachrony of a single language, (b) deals with a set of genetically related languages. Likewise, both approaches are about variation in linguistic expressions, namely, (a) typically pertains to variation within a single language, and (b) to variation among genetically related languages. The comparative method is concerned with the reconstruction of earlier states of a language or of languages based on regular sound correspondences between related languages or dialects. On the basis of such correspondences it is possible to reconstruct earlier lexical and grammatical forms, which in turn enable students of grammaticalization to test, refine, or strengthen their hypotheses on grammatical change (see Mithun for examples from the Yup’ik and Cherokee languages). Internal reconstruction relies on the exploitation of patterns in the synchronic grammar of a language or dialect to recover information about its prehistory (Ringe : ). A major concern of internal reconstruction is “with facts that make no sense, facts that do not cohere, most commonly irregularities in an otherwise regular paradigm” and it is hypothesized that regularity or “coherence must have been there at some earlier evolutionary or diachronic stage” (Givón
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: ). How internal reconstruction can contribute to reconstructing grammaticalization is demonstrated in detail by Givón () with an example of clitics in the Athabaskan language Tolowa. His generalizations guiding the application of internal reconstruction to those clitics include the ones listed in (). () Principles of cliticization (Givón : ) a. Functional relevance: Morphemes tend to cliticize to stems to which they were functionally relevant at the time of grammaticalization. b. Serial position: Morphemes tend to cliticize at the syntactic position they occupied—as words—at the time of grammaticalization. c. Clausal context: Grammatical and morphological innovation tends to occur in the most neutral clause type (main, declarative, affirmative, active). Conversely, non-neutral clause types often preserve frozen relics of older grammatical stages, in both morphology and word-order. d. Supra-segmental effects: Morphemes cliticize to large lexical stems because they are de-stressed and thus cannot stand alone as phonological words. e. Bleaching [= erosion]: Once a morpheme is de-stressed and cliticized, its phonetic erosion is accelerated. The way the two approaches can be jointly applied with principles of grammaticalization to reconstruct grammatical change can be illustrated with the following example (see also Heine a: ). The Bantu language Swahili of Eastern Africa has a future tense prefix -ta(), illustrated in (a), and the latter has an allomorph -taka- in relative clauses, cf. (b). () Swahili (Bantu, Niger-Congo; own data) a. a-ta-ku-ja kesho. ---come tomorrow ‘S/he wants to come tomorrow.’ b. a-taka-ye ku-ja kesho --. -come tomorrow ‘s/he who will come tomorrow’
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INTRODUCTION
Internal reconstruction suggests that of the two allomorphs -ta- and -taka-, the latter is the older one and that at some earlier stage the future marker had the form *-taka-. This reconstruction is based, on the one hand, on the following typological observation: Grammatical forms tend to lose rather than to gain phonological substance (see the parameter of erosion in Section .). On the other hand, it is based on the observation that—other things being equal—neutral clause types such as main clauses tend to be more innovative than non-neutral clause types, such as subordinate clauses (Givón : ; see (c) above). Accordingly, grammatical forms occurring in relative clauses are likely to be more conservative than corresponding forms in main clauses. If we assume that the earlier form was *-taka-, typological observations on grammaticalization suggest then that this form may be related to the Swahili volition verb -taka ‘want’, illustrated in (()). Concretely, in many languages across the globe verbs for ‘want’ and ‘desire’ have developed into future tense markers, the English future marker will being a case in point (Bybee et al. ; Bybee et al. ; Kuteva et al. , > ). Thus, there is reason to hypothesize that the verb -taka ‘want’ and the future tense marker *-taka- are historically related. ()
Swahili (Bantu, Niger-Congo; own data) a-taka ku-ja kesho.7 -want -come tomorrow ‘S/e wants to come tomorrow.’
This raises the question of which of the two, the verb or the tense marker, is older. For example, could the verb not have been derived from the tense marker? The question can be answered in the negative by means of the comparative method, which allows establishing that the verb must be older than the future tense marker. The application of this method shows that the verb -taka- can be reconstructed back to the verb *-càk-a ‘desire’ of Proto-Bantu, which is the hypothetically reconstructed ancestor of all the -plus modern Bantu languages, including Swahili (Guthrie –). The future tense marker, by contrast, cannot be traced back to Proto-Bantu, which suggests that it must have arisen after the split of Proto-Bantu and, hence, must be younger.
⁷ The item a- in () is a portmanteau morpheme consisting of the noun class marker a- plus the tense marker -a-.
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HOW TO STUDY GRAMMATICALIZATION
On the basis of these methodological tools it is possible to formulate a strong hypothesis to the effect that the Swahili future tense marker -ta- is the result of a common grammaticalization process. Using the parameters that will be described in Chapter , this process can be reconstructed as follows: (a) Context extension made it possible for the verb -taka ‘want’ to be extended to allow for non-human, or inanimate subject referents. (b) In such contexts, the lexical meaning of volition was lost (desemanticization), giving way to an interpretation with reference to future events. (c) Decategorialization had the effect that the verb lost salient morphosyntactic features. On the one hand, it lost its ability to occur in the past tense or to take nominal complements, being restricted to infinitival verbs as complements. On the other hand, it also lost its status as a free form and turned into a prefix of the infinitival main verb. (d) While the full form -taka was retained in relative clauses, in main clauses the form underwent erosion, and was reduced to -ta-. In accordance with these parameters, the history of the Swahili future tense marker -ta- can, on the one hand, be understood as one of ‘attrition,’ being characterized by losses of semantic, morphosyntactic, and phonological substance. On the other hand, it was also one of gains, in that the language was enriched by a new grammatical category and new means of expressing temporal distinctions. To conclude, it is always desirable to draw on historical records. But the above example may have served to show that such records are not a requirement for the reconstruction of grammatical change as long as all the methodological tools that are potentially useful for supplementing and supporting reconstruction work are exploited. Among these tools, the comparative method and internal reconstruction play an important role, especially since they also allow the reconstruction of earlier states of language use without having to rely on written or other historical documents and, hence, can readily be applied in languages without any tradition of writing. These are not the only approaches that are useful for sound reconstruction. For example, in some cases, contact linguistics can provide an additional tool for reconstruction. We will return to this issue in Chapter . Note further that the methodology discussed
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INTRODUCTION
was not meant to ‘prove’ that grammatical change has taken place but rather to search for evidence that makes it possible to formulate as strong a hypothesis of grammatical change as possible.
Further reading There are many individual studies of grammaticalization with the help of diachronic corpora. Mair () and López-Couso (a, b) may provide convenient entrance points. For a corpus-based reconstruction of future tenses in Germanic languages, combining text data with Construction Grammar, see Hilpert (). With respect to grammaticalization as a synchronic concept, or degrees of grammaticalization, there is a classic paper by Lehmann () comparing, among others, prepositions at different stages of grammaticalization. Lamiroy and De Mulder (), Carlier et al. (), and Fagard and Mardale () present intriguing hypotheses about degrees of grammaticalization across Romance languages.
1.7 Overview of the remainder of the book Chapter has provided an introduction to the most fundamental aspects of grammaticalization. The theme of ‘fundamentals’ is continued in the following four chapters. While Chapter reviews the parameters and criteria of grammaticalization that have been suggested in the previous literature, Chapter offers, in some detail, a discussion of the most important parameters of grammaticalization proposed in this book. Chapter deals with the semantic directionality of grammaticalization. In most approaches to grammaticalization, semantics and pragmatics are understood as the drivers of this change, so this is also an essential issue. Chapter discusses steps and phases in grammaticalization, including the concept of cyclical change. Chapters to discuss the mechanisms and motivations for grammaticalization. While Chapter deals with mechanisms and motivations in general, Chapter elaborates on grammaticalization and language contact. While in some countries there is a relatively stable monolingualism, in many if not most of the countries of the world,
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DISCUSSION POINTS
people live and use language under conditions of language contact. This also impacts grammaticalization. Chapter deals with the influence of typological features of language on grammaticalization. But we will see that there is also some influence in the opposite direction, namely from grammaticalization to structural typological features of languages. Chapter is a standalone chapter discussing a number of theoryspecific approaches to grammaticalization. While most of the content of this book is not theory-specific, or could be described as ‘theoryneutral,’ there are a number of linguistic theories whose application leaves a distinct imprint on the study of grammaticalization. Chapters and deal with issues ‘beyond’ grammaticalization. These include the well-discussed processes of lexicalization, degrammaticalization, and exaptation, besides a number of changes less related to grammaticalization in Chapter , and the development of discourse markers in Chapter . The latter has also been known under the label of ‘pragmaticalization’ and has led to questioning the boundaries of grammaticalization. Chapter concludes the book.
Discussion points () Few concepts or categories in the study of language are predefined by the phenomenon itself. Researchers are in principle free to define their concepts and categories one way or the other, but not all definitions will be equally useful. What are the ramifications of defining grammaticalization differently, for example, in terms of form only, or function only or their combination, or discourse or usage etc., for the study of grammaticalization? () Make a list of phenomena in language that you think may be amenable to an analysis in terms of grammaticalization and a list of phenomena that are probably not useful. Compare and discuss the ambivalent cases. () Take the example of a well-known case of grammaticalization, such as a go-future (English be going to) or the progressive, and discuss how a synchronic analysis in terms of grammaticalization and a diachronic analysis may lead to the same or a different result.
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2 Criteria, parameters, and other variables
2.1 An overview
2.2 Discussion
2.3 Conclusions
Discussion points
In Chapter , we addressed the question of what grammaticalization is. When looking in more detail at questions such as how far a linguistic item has grammaticalized at a specific point in history, or in which respect one can say it has grammaticalized, we need to set up criteria of grammaticalization. These criteria of grammaticalization also serve as clues for the reconstruction of the history of grammatical forms in the absence of written documents. The criteria, and their application to reconstruction, are the main issues we look into in the following two chapters. The present chapter is restricted to an overview of studies that have been proposed to analyze processes of grammaticalization. Our focus will be on terms and concepts distinguished to identify the main components of change. These components are most commonly described by means of notions like ‘criteria,’ ‘parameters,’ and ‘principles.’ Section . introduces the main approaches that have been proposed. In doing so, we have to be restricted to the main lines of previous work, ignoring many other useful distinctions that have been made, while Section . is devoted to a comparative appraisal of the various approaches.
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AN OVERVIEW
2.1 An overview The most influential approach, taking structural synchronic notions as a basis for analyzing grammatical change is that of Lehmann ( []; see also Norde ).¹ For Lehmann, grammaticalization is essentially a decrease of the ‘autonomy’ of a ‘linguistic sign.’ Distinguishing a paradigmatic and a syntagmatic aspect of grammaticalization, and juxtaposing them with the parameters ‘weight,’ ‘cohesion,’ and ‘variability,’ Lehmann ( []: ) arrives at the six parameters or criteria listed in Table . and described below. Table 2.1 The parameters of grammaticalization (Lehmann []: ) Axis
Parameter
Weight
Paradigmatic
Syntagmatic
Integrity
Structural scope
Cohesion
Paradigmaticity
Bondedness
Variability
Paradigmatic variability
Syntagmatic variability
Integrity, or paradigmatic weight, means that a given sign has a certain amount of semantic and phonological substance which allows it to maintain its identity. From a diachronic perspective, this parameter has two components, namely decrease in semantic integrity (desemanticization) and decrease in the phonological integrity (phonological attrition) of a sign. These components can be illustrated with the following example (Lehmann []: ): The Latin preposition dē ‘down from (the top)’ developed into a genitive marker in French and other Romance languages, for example, French de (‘of ’). Decrease in semantic integrity had the effect that both the delative meaning ‘down from (the top)’ and the motion component were lost, while decrease in phonological integrity meant that dē was reduced in some contexts to d. Paradigmaticity, or paradigmatic cohesion, is defined as “the formal and semantic integration both of a paradigm as a whole and of a single subcategory into the paradigm of its generic category.” Diachronically, ¹ This approach was already presented in Lehmann () but since it was republished with some corrections in later versions, we are referring here exclusively to the latest version of .
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it means essentially that with increasing grammaticalization a form tends to shift from a paradigm with a larger number of members to one with a smaller number of members. For example, English secondary local prepositions such as beyond, before, within, amidst, etc. form a larger paradigm than primary local prepositions such as in, on, at, from, or to. On the other hand, the parameter refers to the integration of a sign into an inflectional paradigm. Paradigmatic variability refers to the freedom of choosing a sign, typically either from the same paradigm (intraparadigmatic variability) or choosing no member of that paradigm (transparadigmatic variability). The latter relates to relative degrees of obligatoriness of the sign. That grammaticalization leads to obligatorification, that is, to decrease in paradigmatic variability can be shown with the development of articles from Latin to the modern Romance languages, which was characterized by a decrease in freedom and an increase in the obligatory use of a demonstrative (Latin ille ‘that (masculine)’) and a numeral (Latin unus ‘one (masculine)’) as definite and indefinite articles, respectively (Lehmann []: ). Structural scope, or syntagmatic weight of a linguistic sign, is defined as the structural size of the construction which it helps to form. The structural size in turn reflects its level of grammatical structure, which is determined by the syntagmatic morphosyntactic relation(s) which it contracts. A full verb, for example, may contract a morphosyntactic relation with a VP as a complement, while a tense ending only contracts a relationship with the verb stem to which it is attached. In this manner, if a linguistic sign undergoes a typical morphological process of grammaticalization, from verb to auxiliary to clitic or affix to inflectional ending, its structural size (“scope”) continues to shrink. While this is a valid concept in consonance with Lehmann’s overall concept of grammaticalization as loss of autonomy and reduction of a linguistic sign, it happens to be a fundamentally different concept than ‘scope’ in linguistics outside Lehmann’s parameters of grammaticalization (see Section . below). Therefore, ‘structural scope’ is rather misleading as a label and should be replaced by ‘structural size’ or ‘constituent size,’ corresponding to the actual concept behind it. Another problem with this notion is that it does not lead to the hypothesized result (condensation/ reduction) if applied to linguistic signs that do not both undergo morphological reduction and enter morphological paradigms. Examples include manner adverbs becoming sentence adverbs (cf. Traugott ), nouns
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AN OVERVIEW
becoming conjunctions (cf. Heine and Kuteva : –), or prepositions becoming conjunctions (cf. Heine and Kuteva : –). In each of these cases, the linguistic unit with which the grammaticalizing linguistic sign combines is of a higher level (e.g. clause in the case of sentence adverbs and conjunctions) than before. The only way to deny these systematic exceptions would be to claim that the concept of structural size (“structural scope”) does not apply to them (cf. Narrog for a more detailed discussion of Lehmann’s ‘structural scope’ vs. scope in general linguistics). Bondedness, or syntagmatic cohesion is defined as the intimacy with which a sign is connected with another sign to which it bears a syntagmatic relation (Lehmann []: –). Increase in bondedness, involving univerbation (boundary loss) and coalescence (increase in morphophonological integration), is said to proceed along a scale from (a) cliticization, via (b) agglutination (affixation), to (c) fusion or merger, where the sign loses its morphological identity (Lehmann []: ). In the grammaticalization of the Latin demonstrative ille, the proclitic French definite article illustrates (a) while the suffixal Romanian definite article instantiates (b). One result of (c) is seen in suppletion patterns such as English tooth vs. teeth, or sing vs. sang. Syntagmatic variability is defined as “the ease with which a sign can be shifted around in its context.” It decreases with increasing grammaticalization (Lehmann []: –). A verb enjoys some positional freedom vis-à-is the VP with which it combines. Once the verb turns into an auxiliary, it will lose much or all of the freedom it had before grammaticalization. Rather than resting on synchronic notions and morphosyntactic categories, the parameters proposed by Heine and Kuteva (: –; see also Heine and Kuteva ) capture salient features associated with grammatical change. They rest on the assumption that grammaticalization simultaneously affects all major components of the linguistic expressions concerned, extending from sound to meaning and from pragmatics to syntax. The four parameters distinguished are briefly sketched below; for a more detailed discussion, see Chapter . Context extension (or, in short, extension) refers to the rise of new meanings when linguistic expressions are extended to new contexts, leading to context-induced reinterpretation. Desemanticization (‘semantic bleaching’) leads to the loss or generalization of meaning content or functions.
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Decategorialization, leading to the loss of morphosyntactic properties characteristic of lexical or other less grammaticalized forms. Erosion (‘phonetic reduction’) leads to the loss of phonetic, including prosodic, substance. The ordering of the four parameters reflects the diachronic sequence in which they typically apply: Grammaticalization tends to start out with context extension, which triggers desemanticization, and subsequently decategorialization and erosion. Erosion is the last parameter to be involved, and in many cases of grammaticalization it is not, or not yet, a relevant parameter. Hopper (: –) proposed five principles for identifying potential instances of grammaticalization, or ‘grammaticization’ in his terminology. They first and foremost refer to the incipient stages of grammaticalization and the more variable patterns of language. These principles are: Layering means that new layers of structure arising via grammaticalization may coexist with older layers within a broad functional domain of a language, with the two, or more kinds of layers interacting with one another. Divergence obtains when a lexical form undergoes grammaticalization but survives as an autonomous lexical element, occurring side by side with its grammaticalized variant. For example, a verb developing into an auxiliary may still retain its status as a lexical element in other uses. Specialization refers “to the narrowing of choices that characterizes an emergent grammatical construction.” Thus, at one stage within a functional domain there may be a variety of choices which narrows and the smaller number of forms assume more general grammatical meanings. Persistence “relates the meaning and function of a grammatical form to its history as a lexical morpheme.” For example, with the change from lexical to grammatical function, traces of the lexical meaning can adhere to the form and be reflected in constraints on its grammatical distribution. Decategorialization leads towards the loss of discourse autonomy of a form, where loss of autonomy also includes functional-semantic shift.² Forms undergoing grammaticalization tend to lose or neutralize the morphological markers and syntactic privileges characteristic of full categories and assume attributes characteristic of secondary categories. ² For a slightly different use of ‘decategorialization’, see Section ..
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AN OVERVIEW
Comrie () suggests that the terms ‘grammatical’ and ‘grammaticalized’ have the same referents, differing only in whether the phenomenon is viewed purely synchronically or diachronically. He proposes a catalog of three essentially synchronic criteria to distinguish what is or is not grammatical and for describing grammaticalization. These are the following: Obligatoriness: A particular expression can be required to differing extents, being required in some environments but not in others. Boundness: A particular expression may be more or less bound. For example, affixes are more bound than clitics. Interaction with (the rest of) the grammar: This applies, for example, when a feature of nouns interacts with the rest of the grammar through agreement. In clear cases of grammaticalization all three criteria are met. The English distinction of nominal number (dog vs. dogs) is presented as such a clear case of grammaticalization: First, English nouns are obligatorily marked for number, since every noun is marked for singular or plural (obligatoriness). Second, the plural marker -s is bound (boundness), and, third, the number distinction in nouns interacts with the rest of the grammar through agreement (this dog vs. these dogs). Last but not not least, Harris and Campbell (: –, ) proposed the following three what they call ‘mechanisms’ of change in their theory of syntactic change. These are not strictly speaking criteria or principles, but have nevertheless been discussed in the same vein: Reanalysis: A process that results in changes in the underlying structure of a syntactic pattern but does not involve any modification of its surface manifestation. Extension: A process that results in changes in the surface manifestation of a syntactic pattern but does not involve immediate or intrinsic modification of underlying structure. Borrowing: Replication of a syntactic pattern which is incorporated into the borrowing language through the influence of a host pattern found in a contact language. The use of the term ‘reanalysis’ in the theory of these authors overlaps with that found in some studies of grammaticalization (see in particular Hopper and Traugott ). However, in the latter, distinctions between syntactic concepts such as ‘surface manifestation’ and ‘underlying
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structure’ are not generally made. The term ‘extension,’ as used by Harris and Campbell (: ), also shows some overlaps with the way the term is used in some studies of grammaticalization, but there are also differences (see, e.g., Chapter .). Harris and Campbell discuss a range of grammaticalization processes and also propose some alternative analyses for such processes. They offer the only framework among those discussed in this section that deals with borrowing, or more precisely, with grammatical replication. As we will see in Chapter , grammatical replication constitutes in fact an important factor in shaping grammatical change.
Further reading The studies looked at in this section present only a spectrum of the terms and generalizations that exist. Heine and Reh (: –) represent an early effort to bring together the terms figuring above, as well as a number of others. The significance of the criteria proposed by Lehmann ( []) has been discussed in a number of studies, such as Norde (). Rather than relying on established parameters such as those of Lehmann ( []) or Heine and Kuteva (), Norde and Beijering () propose a clustering approach involving a set of what they call ‘primitive changes.’
2.2 Discussion The notions and terms discussed above to describe regularities in grammatical change differ from one another in a number of ways. On the one hand, differences may arise with respect to terminology, in that, for example, regularities are referred to as ‘principles’ by Hopper (), ‘parameters’ by Lehmann ( []) and Heine and Kuteva (), ‘criteria’ by Comrie (), and ‘mechanisms’ by Harris and Campbell (). On the other hand, the notions proposed by the various authors also differ greatly with regard to whether they define synchronic or diachronic phenomena. Comrie () proposes strictly synchronic terms, even if grammatical change is implied: Obligatoriness, boundness, and interaction with the grammar refer to synchronic states of a given language—hence, there is no need in his approach to draw on diachronic evidence and reconstruction. Much the same applies to Lehmann’s
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DISCUSSION
parameters, which can be understood as capturing synchronic states. However, Lehmann ( []: table .) also proposes processes correlating with his parameters. For example, his parameter of integrity entails attrition, paradigmatic variability entails obligatorification, structural size (“structural scope”) entails condensation, etc. The situation is more complex in the case of Hopper’s () principles. While being couched in terms of grammatical change, layering, divergence, and persistence refer essentially to synchronic states reached by grammaticalized forms. The remaining two principles, specialization and decategorialization, by contrast, are essentially diachronic in that they capture processes of grammatical change. A different perspective surfaces in the approach proposed by Heine and Kuteva (): All four parameters distinguished, namely context extension, desemanticization, decategorialization, and erosion, are intrinsically diachronic in nature in that they focus on changes from one state of historical development to another. In this respect, this approach resembles that of Harris and Campbell (: –), even if the latter is more generally concerned with syntactic change than with grammaticalization. In spite of such differences in perspective there is considerable overlap between the various approaches. However, there are some substantial mismatches that the reader needs to take into account. One kind of mismatch concerns cases where different authors use one and the same term for different purposes or with a different denotation. For example, Heine and Kuteva () employ the term ‘decategorialization’ strictly for morphosyntactic phenomena only, whereas Hopper (: ) extends the term to also include functional-semantic shift (see also Hopper and Thompson () on the use of this term). Another example can be seen in the use of the term ‘extension’, which for Harris and Campbell (: , ) constitutes one of the three basic mechanisms of syntactic change, having the effect that a condition on an existing rule is removed. For Heine and Kuteva (: ), by contrast, ‘extension’ is essentially a text-pragmatic notion involving the use of a given linguistic expression in new contexts which invite novel semantic interpretations (see Section .). The term ‘structural scope’ of Lehmann ( []) is an especially severe example of mismatch. As noted in Section ., Lehmann’s ‘structural scope’ refers to something fundamentally different than ‘scope’ in linguistics outside the discussion of his parameters of
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grammaticalization, and must be considered an idiosyncratic if not misleading labeling. Lehmann’s concept is based on morphosyntactic relations between linguistic signs, and on an older endocentric constituent structure model whose details are not provided. In contrast, scope in general linguistics is a logical-semantic concept, it is defined by an asymmetric (exocentric) relationship between an operator and an operand, and not bound by, or even related to morphology.³ The result when applied to grammaticalization is just the reverse: Reduction in the case of Lehmann’s structural size (“structural scope”; Lehmann []: ), vs. extension in the case of scope in the general linguistic logical sense (e.g. Hengeveld : , : ; Matasović : ; Roberts : ; Narrog a: ; Nicolle : –; cf. Narrog for a discussion of both concepts). A second kind of mismatch involves cases where two authors each use a different term for what is essentially the same phenomenon. For example, Hopper’s () term ‘divergence’ captures the same phenomenon that Heine and Reh (: –) had described earlier as ‘split.’ A third, and a more common kind of mismatch relates to cases where one author proposes a terminological distinction not made in that form by other authors. For example, the parameter of decategorialization of Heine and Kuteva (), whereby a linguistic expression loses morphosyntactic features characteristic of its categorial status, includes changes that relate to four of Lehmann’s ( []) parameters, namely paradigmatic variability, structural size (mislabeled as “scope”), bondedness, and syntagmatic variability. Conversely, there are cases where Heine and Kuteva () propose a terminological and conceptual discrimination not made by Lehmann ( []). In the framework of the former, a strict distinction is made between morphosyntactic and phonological phenomena, the former being covered by the term ‘decategorialization’ and the latter by ‘erosion.’ This distinction is not maintained in this form by Lehmann ( [], whose parameters are designed to be applied to all levels of grammar. For example, his parameter of bondedness combines both morphosyntactic and phonological phenomena, and the same
³ Lyons (: ): “By the scope of any operator, whether it is a connective or a quantifier, is meant that part of the formula which is within its domain of operation; and this is normally indicated by brackets.”
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DISCUSSION
applies to his parameter of integrity. Or, he suggests that “phonological attrition and desemanticization go hand in hand.” It would seem, however, that there is a need to separate desemanticization and erosion since the two contrast in their diachronic behavior. First, desemanticization marks most of all the early stages of grammaticalization; erosion, by contrast, takes place as a rule at later stages of the process. And second, many processes of grammaticalization have been documented where there was desemanticization but apparently no erosion (see Heine b for discussion). For example, the High German perfect (or past tense) auxiliary haben, as in (b), is phonologically essentially indistinguishable from the possessive verb haben ‘have’ in (a), even though the former developed out of the latter—in other words, in its history of roughly a thousand years the auxiliary did not undergo erosion (Heine and Kuteva : ); see Section . for more examples. ()
Modern German a. Paul hat viel Arbeit. Paul has much work ‘Paul has a lot of work.’ b. Paul hat viel gearbeitet. Paul has much worked ‘Paul has worked a lot.’
In sum, the two parameters need to be separated, even if their effect is in an abstract sense the same: Both lead to a loss of linguistic features or, in Lehmann’s terms, to decrease in integrity. A second case relates to what Lehmann ( []: –) describes as paradigmatic variability. This parameter seems to involve two kinds of change and, hence, is captured by two different parameters in Heine and Kuteva (: –). On the one hand, it involves effects of context extension: The more a linguistic form is extended to new contexts the more its use becomes an obligatory part of the host class to which it attaches. On the other hand, it also involves decategorialization, in that the form increasingly loses morphosyntactic freedom or variability to occur independently of its host class. A third case relates to Lehmann’s ( []: –) parameter of bondedness. This parameter can be interpreted in particular as involving an amalgam of decategorialization and erosion, that is, of loss of the morphosyntactic status as a word, a clitic, or an affix on the
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one hand, and loss of phonological substance at the boundary of a form on the other. It would seem, however, that decategorialization and erosion need to be separated. For example, Lehmann ( []: ) illustrates his parameter of paradigmatic variability with the development of the demonstrative ille()/illa() ‘that’ of Latin or some post-classical variety of Latin to the definite article le()/la () in French. On the one hand, there was a gradual transition from word to proclitic. On the other hand, there was loss of phonetic substance, in that a disyllabic form (ille) was reduced to a monosyllabic article (le). Before an initial vowel in the following word, syllabicity was even lost entirely (l’). There is no evidence to suggest that the two changes coincided in time. A fourth kind of mismatch occurs when parameters or criteria proposed by one author are ignored by other authors. One example is provided by Comrie’s () notion ‘interaction with (the rest of) the grammar’, for which there is no clear equivalent in any of the approaches looked at in Section . (but see Hopper and Traugott : – for a detailed discussion of pragmatic factors). Another example can be seen in the fact that grammaticalization very frequently involves a gradual category shift from a paradigm with a larger number of members to one with a smaller number of members, most pronouncedly in the shift from lexical to grammatical categories. This generalization is covered by Lehmann’s ( []: –) parameter of paradigmaticity but is not discussed by other authors reviewed here in the way it may deserve (for divergent views see the last paragraph of this section and Traugott a: ). A third example relates to the role played by pragmatics in grammatical change, which is with one exception not treated in the approaches sketched above. This exception is Heine and Kuteva (), where the parameter of (context) extension is devoted to the interaction between context pragmatics and semantics (see Section .). A fourth example of parameters or criteria proposed by one author but ignored by other authors relates to the role of discourse. Most studies of grammaticalization in the past took sentence grammar as their frame of analysis, and this fact is reflected in the nature of the criteria surveyed in Section .. More recent research, especially research in the tradition of Traugott (a), has been extended to grammatical phenomena beyond the sentence, focusing on discourse at large for generalizations on grammatical change. An example of this line of research can be found in the theory of discourse prominence
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CONCLUSIONS
proposed by Boye and Harder () and their distinction between discursively primary and discursively secondary linguistic items (see Section .). With this distinction they provide an additional parameter for reconstructing grammaticalization processes. Finally, there is a fifth kind of ‘mismatch’ which can be seen in the fact that, unlike other authors, a given author may attribute special importance to one particular parameter or concept compared to other parameters or concepts. A case in point can be seen in Lehmann’s treatment of the concept of paradigm (Lehmann []: ; see also Diewald , a, b): Not only are three of his six parameters classified in accordance with this concept. Two of these parameters even specifically address the concept, namely paradigmaticity and paradigmatic variability. Note that the role played by paradigms in language use leading to grammaticalization is not entirely clear or even controversial, and Himmelmann (: ) concludes that “[t]here is no evidence for viewing paradigmatization as a necessary factor [of grammaticalization] at all.” Note further that even a basic distinction such as that between open class and closed class paradigms is not without problems (Boye and Harder : –). More research is needed on this issue.
2.3 Conclusions The regularities of grammaticalization proposed in the frameworks discussed in Section . do not lay claim to explanatory significance. Instead, they have various purposes, such as to distinguish grammatical (or functional) expressions from lexical ones, or to describe typical stages and phenomena accompanying grammaticalization, or to provide directives or guidelines for reconstructing grammatical change, or a combination of these. Despite their diversity, taken together they provide a solid foundation for understanding what grammaticalization is about. Newmeyer () claimed that grammaticalization is not a distinct process. Subsequent research has shown, however, that this claim must be taken with care (see also Chapter ). To be sure, the term ‘grammaticalization’ subumes a wide range grammatical changes, not all of which turned out to be regular to the extent that earlier researchers had assumed them to be. Nevertheless, there is by now fairly wide agreement that the definition of grammaticalization as a process leading from lexical
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or less grammatical to more strongly grammatical expressions is supported by a robust body of cross-linguistic data. But in spite of all the regularities that exist, it has so far not been possible to reduce all the manifestations of grammaticalization to one general formula that would allow identifying instances of the process in a uniform way. Pragmatic, semantic, morphosyntactic, and phonogical factors do not all proceed exactly the same way and at the same time (see, e.g., Heine, Kuteva, and Narrog ). Therefore such factors need to be analyzed separately, as we will do in Chapter .
Further reading For questions relating to terminological issues, such as the use of the terms ‘principle,’ ‘parameter,’ ‘criterion,’ or ‘mechanism,’ see Hopper (), Comrie (), Heine and Kuteva (: –), Harris and Campbell (), and Lehmann ( []). The question of whether the development of meaning and form in grammaticalization coincides or follows one another is discussed especially in Bisang (, ), Ansaldo and Lim (), Narrog (c), and Heine (b).
Discussion points () Do you know of other examples from the study of language where the same term refers to different phenomena depending on the author or the framework, or where the same term is used more narrowly or more broadly depending on author or framework? What are the consequences for studying language and researching in linguistics? () In your opinion, which of the parameters and criteria discussed in this chapter are purely synchronic, which are purely diachronic, and which do you think would lend themselves both to a synchronic and a diachronic perspective? () Which perspective do you believe to be more important for the way you want to study language? Give reasons for your evaluation.
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3 Four parameters of grammaticalization
3.1 Context extension
3.2 Desemanticization
3.3 Decategorialization
3.4 Erosion
3.5 Conclusions
Discussion points
The main goal of the present chapter is to propose the following four parameters for identifying and reconstructing grammaticalization: (a) (b) (c) (d)
(Context) extension; Desemanticization; Decategorialization; Erosion.
These parameters were already mentioned in Section .. In the sections to follow they will be dealt with in greater detail (see also Heine and Kuteva : –). The reasons for opting for these parameters are the following. First, unlike most other criteria or parameters dealt with in Chapter , all four parameters distinguished are intrinsically diachronic in nature, focusing on grammatical change. They therefore seem to be best suited in a book that is concerned with grammatical change. Second, the relevance of the four parameters can be tested by means of standard techniques of linguistic analysis. Third, most of the phenomena addressed in alternative frameworks can be reduced to effects of the four parameters.
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And fourth, the parameters take care of most manifestations of language use and language structure, ranging from semantics to phonology and from pragmatics to morphosyntax. In fact, the four parameters are each devoted to a different component of language structure and language use: Context extension is pragmatic in nature, desemanticization relates to semantics, decategorialization to morphosyntax, and erosion to phonology and phonetics. Three of the parameters involve loss of grammatical features. But, as has been established abundantly in relevant studies (see especially Hopper and Traugott ), grammaticalization cannot be reduced to decrease of structural richness, attrition, or ‘degeneration’: In the same way as there are losses there are also gains (cf. the loss-and-gain model; Heine et al. : ), captured most of all by the context extension parameter: Linguistic items and constructions undergoing grammaticalization lose in semantic, morphosyntactic, and phonetic substance, but they also gain in means in new contexts for the “interaction with (the rest of ) the grammar”—as Comrie (: ) puts it, processing discourse in novel ways and providing tools for restructuring grammar. There is good evidence to suggest that the four parameters apply in the order listed (cf. Bisang et al. ). This implies in particular that meaning change (desemanticization) precedes form a change (decategorialization) in grammaticalization. This is in accordance with the hypothesis proposed by Narrog (c) that formal changes in grammaticalization are secondary to functional changes and that formal changes may or may not occur, and also in accordance with the “meaning-first hypothesis” of Heine (b). In an alternative hypothesis, called the “parallel reduction hypothesis,” meaning and form change proceed in parallel (e.g. Bybee et al. : ), that is, desemanticization and decategorialization occur simultaneously. However, the results of Bisang et al.’s () research on a cross-linguistic database of grammaticalization lead to the conclusion that “meaning/ form covariation is rarely observed” (Bisang et al. : ). Instead, functional change often precedes, and presumably conditions formal change, and phonetic reduction (erosion) is the last to be involved. However, the actual relationship between semantic and formal changes requires a more fine-grained analysis than the two overarching hypotheses suggest.
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CONTEXT EXTENSION
3.1 Context extension One of the assumptions made in this book is that grammaticalization rests on changes in the use of discourse options and norms, and one major mechanism serving this purpose can be seen in the manipulation of contexts for specific communicative goals (Ariel ; see Section ..). Context extension, on the one hand, covers essentially the definition of grammaticalization as proposed by Hopper and Traugott (: ), cited in example () of the introductory Chapter . On the other hand, it also covers to a large extent what Hopper and Traugott (: ) treat as analogy or rule generalization. It means, first, that the use of a linguistic item is extended to novel contexts, leading to the rise of new meanings, and eventually also of new functional categories.¹ And second, context extension also entails increase in the frequency of use: With each new context, the probability increases that the item will be used more frequently. Thus, relative frequency of use is, at least to a considerable extent, derivative of context extension. Context extension is also the most complex of all the parameters, for the following reasons: First, it has a sociolinguistic, a text-pragmatic, and a semantic component. The sociolinguistic component refers to the fact that grammaticalization starts with innovation (or activation) as an individual act, whereby some speaker (or a small group of speakers) proposes a new use for an existing form or construction, which is subsequently adopted by other speakers, ideally diffusing throughout an entire speech community (propagation; see, e.g., Croft : –). The text-pragmatic component involves the extension from a usual context to a new context or set of contexts, and the gradual spread to more general contexts. The semantic component finally leads from an existing meaning to another meaning that is evoked or supported by the new context. Thus, text-pragmatic and semantic extension are complementary sides of one and the same general process characterizing context extension. Second, the term ‘extension’ is applied in a variety of different ways and in different frameworks. Harris and Campbell () use it as a ¹ ‘Context extension’ was referred to in earlier studies simply as ‘extension’ or ‘context generalization’ (e.g. Heine and Kuteva : –; Heine a). The reason for adding ‘context’ is that the term ‘extension’ is also used in a number of different ways (e.g. Harris and Campbell ), some of which are not entirely in accordance with the use in this book.
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technical term for one of their three basic mechanisms of syntactic change (see Section .). In their theory, extension has the effect that a condition on an existing rule is removed. While this use differs in a number of respects from the way it is applied here, there is considerable overlap, as is suggested by the examples given by Harris and Campbell. Some of those would also satisfy our criteria of context extension. However, there are also differences. Context extension is framed here in terms of semantic-pragmatic notions rather than of syntactic rules. Also, context extension entails some change in meaning, however minute that change may be, while meaning plays a less central role in the theory of Harris and Campbell (). In Section .. a sketch of the model that will be employed in the chapters to follow is provided while Section .. illustrates the model with examples. 3.1.1 The context extension model A number of approaches have been used to deal with phenomena relating to context extension (see, e.g., Bybee et al. ; Diewald ; Traugott and Dasher : –). In the present book, the four-stage model of context-induced reinterpretation depicted in Table . is adopted to describe salient characteristics of context extension. Note that the model is not meant to explain what grammaticalization is about. It merely captures specific effects of the speakers’ motivations and goals (see Chapter ). Note further that grammaticalization is a gradual process and the four stages distinguished here merely represent prototypical instances along a chain of grammaticalization. Table . suggests that the transition from the lexical or less grammaticalized source meaning of stage I to the more grammaticalized target meaning of stage IV does not proceed straight from one to the other; rather, it involves two intermediate stages, namely stages II and III. The initial stage I relates to the use of a given linguistic form and the construction of which it is a part prior to grammaticalization, and provides the input for grammaticalization. Typically, the input form is a lexical expression but this is not a requirement. The bridging context II involves the extension of that form to a new context which invites a new meaning (the target meaning) co-existing with the old meaning (the source meaning). It largely corresponds to the ‘bridging context’ of Evans and Wilkins (: ) in their analysis of
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Table 3.1 The context extension model (Heine ) Stage
Context
Resulting meaning
I Initial stage
Unconstrained
Source meaning
II Bridging context
There is a new context triggering a new meaning
Target meaning foregrounded
III Switch context
There is a new context which is incompatible with the source meaning
Source meaning backgrounded
IV Conventionalization The target meaning no longer needs to be supported by the context that gave rise to it; it may now be used in new contexts
Target meaning only
semantic change, or to what Diewald () in her analysis of German modals calls the ‘critical context.’² Bridging contexts are based on what in the literature since Grice () has been described in terms of invited inferences (Geis and Zwicky ) or conversational implicatures, or what Miller and Johnson-Laird () call ‘construal rules’: Given the schema of a verb and a particular context of use, a construal rule modifies the schema to provide an interpretation of the word appropriate to that context. (Miller and Johnson-Laird : )
Inferences, conversational implicatures or construal rules may already be there occasionally at stage I. But it is only now that they become a feature that is regularly associated with some specific set of contexts. Bridging contexts have the properties listed in (). ()
Properties of bridging contexts a. They trigger a regular inferential mechanism to the effect that, rather than the source meaning, another meaning, the target meaning, is invited by the context, offering an equally plausible, or even a more plausible interpretation of the utterance. b. The target meaning is the one most likely to be inferred but it is still cancelable (see Grice ), that is, an interpretation in terms of the source meaning is always possible.
² A critical context is characterized by multiple structural and semantic ambiguity, inviting different interpretations, including the target meaning (Diewald ).
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c. Within a given construction, some linguistic form may be associated with a number of different bridging contexts but, as a rule, most of them do not give rise to conventional grammatical meanings. The switch context III refers to the use of a linguistic form in a new context which highlights a new meaning (the target meaning) and is incompatible with the earlier meaning of that form (the source meaning). It corresponds to some extent to what Diewald () calls ‘isolating contexts,’ where the target meaning “is isolated as a separate meaning from the older, more lexical meaning.” But isolating contexts mark “the completion of the grammaticalization process,” hence they are also suggestive of the conventionalization stage discussed below. Switch contexts have the properties listed in (). () Properties of switch contexts a. They are incompatible, or in conflict with some salient property of the source meaning of stage I. b. Hence, an interpretation in terms of the source meaning is implausible. c. The target meaning now provides the only reasonable interpretation. d. Unlike the conventionalized target meaning of stage IV, the target meaning appearing in switch contexts must be supported by a specific context or cluster of contexts. The conventionalization stage IV refers to the use of a linguistic form which arose via context extension and no longer needs to be supported by the context which gave rise to it. This stage marks a new quality in grammaticalization. At this stage, speakers may no longer conceive the target meaning as being related to the source meaning. The target meaning no longer needs to be supported by context, and it can be used in new contexts other than the bridging and switch contexts. It now is the ‘normal’ or ‘inherent’ meaning of the form (cf. Hopper and Traugott : –). This means that the form and the construction to which it belongs now have the properties in () or part thereof. () Properties of conventionalization commonly observed within a grammaticalizing construction a. The target meaning is no longer context-dependent. b. The boundaries between parts of the construction are redefined.
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c. The dependency relations between the parts change. d. The target form is decategorialized. e. The target form undergoes erosion. The transition from stage III to stage IV can be conceived as a process of ‘automation’ (De Smet : ), whereby a new construction gradually evolves which, through repeated use, drifts off from its earlier uses and becomes more and more firmly represented as a selfconsistent ‘chunk’ of discourse. 3.1.2 Discussion A few examples may illustrate the significance of the context extension model. It is a commonplace that a volition schema of the kind [X wants Y] involving verbs for ‘want’ forms one of the three main sources for developing future tense categories (Bybee et al. ; Bybee et al. ; Kuteva et al. , > ). But this schema may also give rise to a different grammatical function, namely that of a proximative aspect. The function of this aspect is to define a temporal phase immediately preceding the initial boundary of the situation described by the main verb. Proximative aspects are commonly translated by means of ‘be about to,’ ‘be on the verge of,’ and the like (see Heine c; Romaine ). The examples in () are taken from the East African language Swahili (see Heine for more details). (a) illustrates stage I, showing the lexical use of the volition verb -taka ‘want.’ In (b), the construction is extended to take ku-fa ‘to die’ as an infinitival complement. Since dying is a process that one reasonably does not want to happen, (b) invites an inference to the effect that the subject referent may not ‘want’ to die but rather is ‘is about to’ die. Thus, complement verbs expressing an undesirable event, such as ‘die,’ ‘fall down,’ or ‘be hurt,’ evoke a new meaning, namely that of a proximative aspect marker (‘be about to,’ ‘be on the verge of ’). At the bridging stage II, the new meaning co-exists side by side with the earlier meaning of volition (‘want’); hence (b) is ambiguous. At stage III, a situation arises in which the volition verb is extended to inanimate subject referents, such as mti ‘tree’ in (c), that—except for metaphorical or culture-specific interpretations—are not conceived as being capable of willful actions. In such contexts, the source meaning of volition does not make sense. It is backgrounded or suppressed and
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the meaning of a proximative aspect provides the only reasonable interpretation. () Swahili (Bantu, Niger-Congo) a. Baba y-angu a-na-taka ku-ja. father -my --want -come ‘My father wants to come.’ b. Baba y-angu a-na-taka ku-fa. father -my --want -die (i) ‘My father wants to die.’ (ii) ‘My father is about to die.’ c. M-ti h-uu u-na-taka ku-anguka. -tree :- --want -fall ‘This tree is about to fall.’
I
II
III
Grammaticalization processes of this kind from verb of volition to proximative marker have been described in some detail (Heine , c; Kuteva a; Romaine ; Kuteva et al. , > ). Swahili has not proceeded beyond Stage III. This means, on the one hand, that examples instantiating Stage III, such as (c), tend to be understood by speakers as context-dependent variants of the lexical use of the volition verb -taka ‘want,’ rather than as presenting a new meaning. On the other hand, it also means that the Swahili proximative has so far not been recognized by grammarians as a distinct grammatical category. We are not aware of any Swahili grammar that has taken notice of it. The situation is different in languages that have proceeded further to the final Stage IV of conventionalization. In such languages, the volition verb (‘want’) has turned unambiguously into a proximative marker (‘be about to,’ ‘be on the verge of ’) and the construction has ‘emancipated’ itself to be recognized as a new grammatical category conforming to the properties listed in (). There are a number of languages of this kind (see Heine c for examples). Chamus is a dialect of the Eastern Nilotic language Maa (Maasai) spoken in Southern Kenya.³ Like Swahili, it is an East African language but the two are presumably genetically unrelated. Chamus appears to have gone through the same process as Swahili, namely the grammaticalization of its ‘want’ verb -yyéú to a proximative marker. The examples in () illustrate the three ³ Example () is taken from Heine (), which contains a more detailed description.
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stages, corresponding to the Swahili examples in () with examples of the initial stage (a), the bridging stage (b), and the switch stage (c). The main structural difference between the two languages is that the verbal complement of the volition verb is encoded as an infinitival form in Swahili, whereas in Chamus it is encoded as a clause constructed in the narrative tense.⁴ ()
Chamus (Maa dialect, Eastern Nilotic; Heine : –) I a. k-á-yyéú nánʊ n-a-ló n-kaŋ. k--want - --go -home. ‘I want to go home.’ b. k-é-yyéú l-páyyan n-é-rriá. II k--want -elder. --fall ‘The old man nearly fell.’ or ‘The old man wanted to fall.’ c. k-é-yyéú l-cáni n-é-uróri. III k--want -tree. --fall ‘The tree nearly fell.’
But Chamus speakers have even gone one step further: The verb -yyéú in its third person singular form has grammaticalized to an invariable aspect particle (k)eyyéú whose meaning can be paraphrased as ‘be about to, almost,’ and which may no longer be inflected for person or aspect, as example () shows. ()
Chamus (Maa dialect, Eastern Nilotic; Heine : ) a. (k)eyyéú a-ók nánʊ kʊlɛ́. -drink . milk. ‘I was about to drink milk.’
IV
The old construction illustrated in () was replaced by a new construction, which exhibits all the hallmarks of conventionalization listed in (): (a) The boundaries between the parts of the construction are redefined in that the particle (k)eyyéú, originally the main verb, is detached from the rest of the sentence. ⁴ A further difference relates to the fact that the proximative examples in Swahili are constructed in the present tense but in the past tense in Chamus. This is not a trivial difference, considering that past tense uses of the proximative are commonly called avertive rather than proximative (Kuteva a). ⁵ The function of initial is k- unclear.
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(b) No longer being the main verb, it is the former complement of -yyéú ‘want’ that is now the new main verb (a-ók ‘I drink’), and rather in the narrative, the new verb is constructed in the unmarked imperfective form. Accordingly, the subject (nánʊ ‘I’) must follow rather than precede the new main verb since Chamus is a verb-initial language. (c) The erstwhile verb form k-é-yyéú (k--want) has undergone complete internal decategorialization in that all internal morpheme boundaries have disappeared, the erstwhile verb form (k)eyyéú being an unanalyzable particle at the left periphery of the sentence. (d) And finally, there also is optional erosion in that the initial consonant k of the particle can be omitted. The following example illustrates the context extension model with a case of clause combining, namely with the English conjunction since (Traugott and König : –). The evolution of since from temporal to causal conjunction is sketched in (). () The evolution of English since (based on : –) Constructed examples a. I have done quite a bit of writing since we last met. b. Since Susan left him, John has been very miserable. c. Since you are not coming with me, I will have to go alone.
Traugott and König Meaning Temporal
Stage I
Temporal, causal Causal
II III
Example (a) is a clear instance of the initial stage I, where the sentence can be interpreted only with reference to a temporal relation between the two clauses. In contexts like that in (b), a causal meaning is triggered in addition, resulting in a bridging stage II situation. And finally, in certain contexts where one clause refers to a non-past event or to a state, the temporal meaning may no longer make sense and is backgrounded. The result is that a causal interpretation provides the only reasonable interpretation, as in (c), which appears to be suggestive of the switch stage III. Stage I is commonly found in Old English texts (ca. –). But already in Old English, since occurred in certain contexts suggestive of the bridging stage II, where a causal meaning can be foregrounded,
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CONTEXT EXTENSION
offering a ‘causal implicature’ (Traugott and König : ). Clear instances of the switch stage III arose in the fifteenth century, where a temporal interpretation is backgrounded or even blocked. But causal since has not attained the final Stage IV of conventionalization.⁶ This is suggested by the fact that it does not conform to the properties listed in () of Section ... Thus, its use has remained context-dependent, neither the boundaries nor the dependency relations within the construction to which it belongs are redefined, and it shows neither decategorialization nor erosion. To conclude, the conventionalization stage IV marks a gradual, but at the same time also a fairly dramatic change in grammaticalization. Note, however, that stage IV does not necessarily mark the end of grammaticalization. Once the target meaning has been conventionalized, it is open for further rounds of context extension. This may be demonstrated with the Present-Day English suffix -hood (Hopper and Traugott : –; Traugott and Trousdale : –). The suffix is traced back to the Old English noun hād, which had a wide range of meanings, including ‘status, office, rank, character, nature, state.’ The noun formed the head of a modifying noun–noun compound where the modifier typically referred to human beings and the head (hād) was usually interpreted as having the restricted meaning ‘rank, status of the person denoted by the modifier.’ Conventionalization of -hood appears to have been concluded already in Old English with the reanalysis of the noun as a derivational suffix. But subsequently, a second round of context extension took place in Middle English (–) when -hood experienced further extension to new environments, giving rise uses as in falsehood (see Hopper and Traugott : for details). 3.1.3 On the differential behavior of stages Once a grammaticalization process has taken place it is normally not reversible. The grammaticalized item may fall into disuse and may subsequently be lost, but the development leading to the rise of a grammatical category is unlikely to recede. This generalization, however, is in need of qualification: It seems to apply only to grammatical forms having reached the conventionalization stage IV but not necessarily those at ⁶ Note that our use of the term ‘conventionalization’ is not the same as that of Hopper and Traugott (: ).
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Stages II or III. At these stages ‘retraction’ can take place, which is not a development in the reverse direction of grammaticalization (‘degrammaticalization’) but a decline of grammaticalized uses, leaving behind the original lexical or less grammaticalized uses (cf. Section .). To give an example, Kashubian is a West Slavic language spoken in Pomerelia. Up until , Pomerelia was part of Germany, and German was the main second language of Kashubians. After World War II, Pomerelia was included in Poland and now Polish became the main second language of Kashubians. German has fully conventialized definite articles while neither Kashubian nor Polish have. But under the influence of German, Kashubians grammaticalized their demonstrative pronouns ten/ta/to and nen/na/no ‘that’ into stage II and III definite articles, that is, weakly grammaticalized articles, cf. () (for contactinduced grammaticalization, see Chapter ). But now being exposed to Polish rather than German speakers, Kashubian speakers have largely given up the use of their demonstratives as articles. Thus, the function of an associative article expressed by ta in () is nowadays normally unmarked, as it is in Polish. () Kashubian (West Slavic; late nineteenth–twentieth-century text; Nomachi )⁷ [ . . . ] Ta bieda bëła wiôlgô. that.. poverty.. be.. big.. ‘The poverty was enormous.’ () Kashubian (West Slavic; Present-day text; Nomachi : ; Ø = zero) [...] Ø
Biéda bëła wiôlgô. poverty.. be.. big.. ‘The poverty was enormous.’
The data provided by Nomachi () in fact suggest that, given an appropriate pragmatic situation, the effects of a grammaticalization process can be undone as long as that process has not reached the final stage IV of conventionalization, but more research is needed on this issue.
⁷ The sentences in this and the next example are excerpts from a larger text which is presented in Nomachi ().
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DESEMANTICIZATION
3.2 Desemanticization The term desemanticization is defined as the loss of semantic properties that a linguistic expression undergoes in the course of grammaticalization. It is an immediate consequence of context extension from the bridging stage II onward. Desemanticization is described by Lehmann ( []: table .) as one of the manifestations of integrity leading to attrition, whereby a bundle of semantic features associated with a linguistic expression is reduced to fewer semantic features. The term refers to what is also called ‘semantic bleaching’ (see Section .). Hopper and Traugott () suggest that, [t]here is no doubt that, over time, meanings tend to become weakened during the process of grammaticalization. Nevertheless, all the evidence for early stages is that initially there is a redistribution or shift, not a loss, of meaning. (Hopper and Traugott : )
‘Weakening of meaning’ apparently refers to desemanticization, and ‘redistribution or shift of meaning’ was covered in Section . within the parameter of context extension, which also relates to what Hopper and Traugott (, ch. ) call ‘pragmatic enrichment’ and ‘pragmatic strengthening.’ On the basis of the context extension model in Table ., the desemanticization of a grammaticalizing form can be described as involving several stages: (a) Desemanticization arises at the bridging stage II: An expression is placed in a context inviting a new interpretation of the meaning of that expression. This new interpretation, called the target meaning, differs from the earlier meaning (the source meaning) in that semantic properties of the source meaning which do not make sense in that context are backgrounded. Thus, compared to the source meaning, the target meaning arising in that context lacks semantic properties—that is, it is desemanticized. However, the non-desemanticized source meaning is still the normal one in other contexts. For example, in a number of verb serializing languages of West Africa or of !Xun in Southwestern Africa, the use of verbs for ‘descend’ or ‘fall down’ was extended to contexts where the semantic property of physical motion made little sense and was backgrounded, the resulting meaning
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being ‘down’ in such contexts. Thus, in the W dialect of !Xun, spoken in Northern Namibia, the verb n!!haò̀̀ -ā ‘descend’ (!! is a retroflex affricate click), illustrated in (a), can be used in a context where it forms the second verb in a series of two verbs. In this context, the meaning of the action verb of physical motion is backgrounded and n!!haò̀̀ -ā is desemanticized to the locative target meaning ‘down’; cf. (b). ()
!Xun (W dialect, Kx’a, “Khoisan”; own data) a. tc’ámmà má n!!hà ò̀ -ā kx’à. bird descend:- earth ‘The bird lands on the ground.’ b. mí m-é gù n!!hà ò̀ kù. - take: down. milk ‘I took the milk down.’
(b) With the backgrounding of the source meaning in switch contexts (stage III), the desemanticized target meaning is virtually the only meaning surviving. Such a situation can also be illustrated with another example from !Xun. The verb ú ‘go’ expresses physical motion, as in (a). But when it is placed in a context where it is the main verb and its complement is a stative verb, as gǀx’úí ‘be tired’ is in (b), then a new meaning is foregrounded, namely that of ‘completed change of state’, that is, an inchoative function, as in (c).⁸ In this context, the meaning of physical motion is incompatible with that of stative verbs, and (c) is suggestive of a switch stage III—that is, ú in (c) can no longer be interpreted with reference to its lexical meaning. ()
!Xun (W dialect, Kx’a, “Khoisan”; own data) a. Cālò má ú kē gè’è. Calo go sing ‘Calo sang while going.’ b. Cālò má gǀx’úí. Calo be.tired ‘Calo is tired.’
⁸ Since ú ‘go’ is an intransitive verb it requires the transitivizing suffix -ā (TRA) to take a complement. The grammaticalization from verbs for ‘go’ to change-of-state markers is attested in a number of languages, see Kuteva et al. (, > --); cf. English to go mad.
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c. Cālò má ú-á gǀx’úí Calo go- be.tired ‘Calo has become tired.’ Nevertheless, the lexical meaning of ú ‘go’ is retained in other contexts, such as that of (a). (c) At the conventionalization stage IV, the desemanticized target form is generalized, no longer in need of being supported by context. The !Xun language also provides an example to illustrate this stage. The verb ú ‘go’, which we saw already in the preceding example, has also given rise to a tense marker: Jointly with the transitivizing suffix -ā (), taking the following verb as its complement, it was grammaticalized to a future marker (*ú-ā [go-] > óá; Heine et al. : ); thus, the meaning of the example in () can be reconstructed diachronically as ‘he goes to come later.’ The future marker óá in () is strongly grammaticalized: It underwent internal decategorialization by losing its internal morpheme boundary (see Section ., ()), and it changed its vowel u to o. Note that there is an optional vowel lowering rule whereby u is lowered to o when there is a non-high vowel in the following syllable. Thus, the construction illustrated in () is fully conventionalized, to the extent that it shows little resemblance to its lexical source, reconstructed as *ú-ā.⁹ () !Xun (W dialect, Kx’a, “Khoisan”; Heine et al. , ()) hà ̀ má nǀǀà ǹ óá gǀè. later come ‘He’ll come later.’ Desemanticization does not necessarily mean that the entire meaning of a lexical source disappears; rather, there may be some semantic features of the source form that survive in the grammaticalized target form (cf. Hopper’s () principle of persistence, Section .). But as the example in () suggests, there may be little, if anything, left of the original source meaning once that form is fully conventionalized. Furthermore, the degree to which desemanticization takes place correlates with the degree that context extension has advanced: The ⁹ The process sketched is strikingly similar to that of the English be-going-to future tense, both of which can be hypothesized to be instances of the grammaticalization pathway > (Kuteva et al. ).
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more contexts a given form acquires, the more properties of its source meaning will be lost. For example, the !Xun verb ú ‘go’ is largely restricted to animate subject referents. The future tense marker óá, by contrast, does not show any context restrictions on subject selection. Desemanticization can be the result of conceptual processes that have been described variously as involving invited inferencing, subjectification (Traugott ; Hopper and Traugott ), metonymy and/or metaphorical processes (Claudi and Heine ; Heine et al. ; Stolz a; Heine a, b). For example, a paradigm case of grammaticalization involves a process whereby body part terms (‘back,’ ‘head,’ etc.) are reinterpreted metaphorically as locative concepts (‘behind,’ ‘on top of,’ ‘in front of’) in specific contexts, and this may eventually result in the rise of adpositions, cf. English in back of, in front of. Via metaphorical transfer, concepts of the domain of physical objects, such as body parts, are used as vehicles to express concepts of the domain of spatial orientation. Once this happens, there will be desemanticization in the target forms: The lexical meaning of the body part terms is gradually lost in favor of locative meaning. In a similar fashion, when action verbs, such as English keep, use, or go (to), were reinterpreted in specific contexts as expressing tense or aspect functions (kept V-ing, used to, be going to; see Section ..), this can be understood to have involved metaphorical processes whereby a concept of the domain of physical actions was transferred to the more abstract domain of temporal and aspectual relations.¹⁰ Once again, this led to the gradual desemanticization of the lexical meaning in the target forms, in that the meaning of the action verbs was suppressed. But desemanticization is in no way restricted to processes leading from lexical to grammatical meaning (primary grammaticalization). Instead, it can be found in much the same way in the grammaticalization from grammatical to even more grammatical meanings (secondary grammaticalization). A few examples may suffice to illustrate these kinds of changes. The examples relate to markers of tense or aspect on the one hand, and case markers on the other. A fairly common process is that of future tense markers grammaticalizing further into markers of epistemic necessity or probability. This process ¹⁰ This is a simplified rendering of the process. See our example of German drohen in Section .., which gives a more detailed description of the development from lexical verb to auxiliary.
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has happened with the English future marker will (e.g. Jane will visit me tomorrow), which was extended to contexts where a future meaning made no sense and gave way to an interpretation in terms of probability (That will be Jane (said on hearing the doorbell); see Kuteva et al. , > -). Desemanticization in this case had the effect that the future meaning of prediction was lost in favor of a modal function. () is an example of the Swahili future tense marker -ta-, which is suggestive of a process similar to that of English will: Whereas -ta in () expresses future tense, the context in () rules out an interpretation in terms of future tense in favor of one in terms of the modal concept of probability. () Swahili (Bantu, Niger-Congo; own data) a. Kipchoge Kipchoge
a-ta-ku-ja. ---come
‘Kipchoge will come.’ b. A-ta-ku-wa
nyumba-ni
sasa.
---be house-
now
‘He will be at home by now.’ Another, presumably equally common process is that from markers for perfect aspect to past tense markers that can be found, for example, in Modern Colloquial German (Bybee et al. : ; Thieroff ; see Kuteva et al. , > ). Perfects (also called anteriors) signal a past action that is relevant to the current moment, while past tenses signal only a past action. In this case, desemanticization led to the loss of the feature ‘current relevance,’ while the meaning of past action was retained (Bybee et al. : ). An example involving case markers is provided by comitative adpositions or affixes (‘(together) with’) grammaticalizing into instrumental markers (‘with, by means of’) (Luraghi ; Heine and Kuteva : –; Narrog , Kuteva et al. , > ). For example, the Latin preposition cum was originally a comitative marker. The contexts in which it was used gradually extended, and in Classical Latin marginal uses of cum as an instrumental marker emerge. They become fairly common in Late Latin, with clear attestations of switch contexts since the fourth century (Michela Cennamo, p.c.). A more recent case is provided by the comitative
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preposition dauve ‘(together) with’ in the Norman French dialect Guernésiais of the Channel Island Guernsey.¹¹ Its use expanded to also express an instrumental function, eventually ousting the earlier instrumental preposition atou ‘with, by means of’ (Jones ). The process from comitative to instrumental function has been described as involving a metaphorical transfer whereby an instrument is conceived as a companion. At the same time, its effect is also one of desemanticization in that in specific contexts the comitative meaning ‘together with’ declines and is gradually lost in favor of an instrumental interpretation. 3.3 Decategorialization The term decategorialization refers to the loss of morphological and syntactic features that a linguistic item experiences in the course of grammaticalization.¹² For some scholars, decategorialization constitutes the most essential parameter to reconstruct grammaticalization processes. Thus, all three criteria proposed by Comrie (), and all three mechanisms of Harris and Campbell (: –; ), as far as they relate to grammaticalization, have to do with decategorialization, and in Lehmann’s ( []) framework, five of the six parameters proposed are devoted to aspects of decategorialization. Once an item has been desemanticized, for example from lexical to grammatical meaning, it tends to lose morphological and syntactic features characterizing its earlier use that are no longer relevant to its new use. In this way, a number of English verbs were decategorialized in their gerundival form (-ing) and assumed prepositional functions, for example, barring, concerning, considering, etc. Consequently, they lost most of their verbal features, such as inflection for tense and aspect, ability to take auxiliaries, etc. (see König and Kortmann ; Kortmann and König ). ¹¹ Guernésiais (or Guernsey) was spoken on the island of Guernsey of the Channel Islands archipelago for more than a thousand years but is now moribund: After World War II, when many island inhabitants who had been evacuated to England during the war returned back home, English gradually began to replace this Norman dialect, a process that appears to be ongoing (Ramisch ; Jones : ). ¹² This definition is slightly different from that of Hopper (), but see also uses of the term in Hopper and Thompson ().
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Instances of decategorialization thus can be identified with reference to a set of changes that we will discuss in the remainder of this section. First, decategorialization may be internal or external, even if the boundary between the two is fluid and each of the two has also implications for the other. Internal decategorialization refers to the changes listed in (). () Salient changes associated with internal decategorialization a. Loss of the ability to be inflected and to take on derivational morphology. b. Loss of the ability to take modifiers. c. Loss of internal morphological boundaries. d. Morphosyntactic shift towards a paradigm with a smaller set of members. Not all of the changes in () can be observed in every given case of internal decategorialization, for the following reasons. First, some forms undergoing grammaticalization take neither inflectional nor derivational affixes or clitics. This applies, for example, to adverbs in many languages, and it applies more generally to the isolating languages of West Arica or Mainland Southeast Asia, which dispose of little or no inflectional or derivational morphology. Obviously, in such cases, (a) and (b) do not apply. And second, the changes listed in () may but need not all apply in a given case of grammaticalization (see below). In accordance with (a) and (b), nouns undergoing decategorialization tend to lose morphological distinctions of number, gender, case, etc., and to take modifiers or determiners, while verbs may no longer be inflected or derived, or take adverbial modifiers. For example, German nouns like Kraft ‘strength, power’ or Zeit ‘time’ gave rise to the prepositions kraft ‘in virtue of, by dint of’ and zeit ‘throughout,’ respectively. But on the way to developing into prepositions, most of the features were lost, as in (): kraft and zeit are invariable prepositions that can neither be inflected nor derived, nor can they be modified or determined (see Kortmann and König for more examples from European languages). In a similar fashion, the Swahili noun m-paka ‘boundary, border’ was grammaticalized to the preposition and subordinating conjunction mpaka ‘until’ and in the course of this process it lost essentially all the features it had as a noun. Thus, whereas the noun in (a) can be inflected for number (cf. mi-paka ‘boundaries, borders’) and triggers
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noun class agreement, the conjunction mpaka in (b) lacks all these features, being an invariable particle. ()
Swahili (Bantu, Niger-Congo; own data) a. M-paka w-a Kenya u-po karibu. -boundary - Kenya - near ‘The border of Kenya is nearby.’ b. A-li-subiri kutoka asubuhi mpaka usiku. --be.patient from morning until evening ‘He waited from morning till evening.’
In a similar fashion, Swahili ku-toka (-come.from) ‘to come from’ is a verb that is inflected for person, tense, aspect, modality, and negation, it can take a range of derivational suffixes, and it can be modified by adverbs. But in its grammaticalized form as a locative and temporal preposition (kutoka ‘from’) it is an invariable, decategorialized item that lacks all these features, as (b) shows. And much the same applies to English participial verb forms developing into prepositions, such as during, pending, concerning, or considering (see König and Kortmann ; Kortmann and König for details). When a demonstrative develops into a clause subordinator, as has happened in many languages of the world (see Heine and Kuteva : –), it may no longer be inflected. For example, the English demonstrative that is inflected for number, having those as its plural form. In its grammaticalized form as a complementizer or relative clause marker, however, it is no longer inflected (The books that/*those I know). (c) is commonly referred to as univerbation, that is, a process whereby a collocation of two or more words or morphemes loses its internal morphological boundaries and turns into a new, invariable word (cf. Lehmann []: ). This was the case, for example, when the English collocation in front of turned into an unanalyzable preposition, or the Latin phrase qua re ‘for which reason’ via Middle French quar/quer to the connective car ‘because, for’ of Present-Day French. And this also applies to the Latin expression of obligation in (a) turning into a future marker in (b), also involving erosion (Section .) in addition to decategorialization.¹³
¹³ See also Section ., (e) for phonetic boundary loss.
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() Latin (cf. Hopper and Traugott : –) a. canta-re habe-o sing- have- ‘I have to sing’ b. canta-b-o sing-- ‘I will sing’ (d) has received detailed treatment in Lehmann’s discussion of paradigmaticity (Lehmann []: ; see also Diewald , a): Grammaticalization leads as a rule from items belonging to a large morphosyntactic paradigm to a paradigm having only a restricted set of members. As pointed out by some authors, however, the notion of paradigmaticity is not without problems (e.g. Himmelmann : ; Boye and Harder : –); nevertheless, (d) provides a convenient diagnostic tool for identifying features of decategorialization. For example, categories such as nouns and verbs—however one may wish to define them—form distinctly larger paradigms than the grammatical categories derived from them. In a more general sense, (d) also relates to Hopper’s (: ) principle of specialization, which applies, for example, when at one stage within a functional domain there was a variety of choices which gets narrowed down, and the smaller number of forms consequently assume more general grammatical meanings. External decategorialization relates to the status of the grammaticalizing form vis-à-vis other parts of discourse. It includes but is not restricted to what Lehmann ( []: –) describes as syntagmatic variability. Changes commonly observed in external decategorialization are listed in (). () Salient changes associated with external decategorialization a. Loss of independence as an autonomous form. b. Increasing dependence on some other form. c. Increasing obligatoriness of use. d. Loss of the ability to be moved from its canonical position to other positions in the sentence in ways that are characteristic of the corresponding non-grammaticalized source item. e. Loss of ability to be addressed, e.g. to be referred to anaphorically or to be focalized.
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There are some strong correlations between the various changes listed in (), and some may be interpreted as specific manifestations of other changes. For example, (a) is likely to entail (b), and (c) may imply both (a) and (b). Only (e) appears to be relatively independent of the other changes. (a) and (b) relate to Comrie’s (: ) criterion of ‘boundness’ and Lehmann’s ( []: , ) parameter of ‘bondedness’ and the process of ‘coalescence.’ Gradual loss of morphosyntactic independence of the form undergoing grammaticalization typically proceeds along the scale described in (). The ultimate outcome can be loss of a morphological boundary between the grammaticalizing form and its host or some other form. ()
Free form (> clitic) > affix
(c) relates to Comrie’s (: ) term ‘obligatoriness’ and to Lehmann’s ( []: , ) parameter of ‘paradigmatic variability’ and the process of ‘obligatorification,’ leading to a situation where the use of a given form may be required in certain contexts, that is, its use tends to become predictable in certain morphosyntactic slots of a word or a sentence.¹⁴ (d) corresponds to Lehmann’s (: ) parameter of syntagmatic variability and his process of fixation. The criterion is based on the observation that lexical or less grammaticalized items may be found to occur in different positons of a sentence whereas fully grammaticalized forms are likely to be restricted to one particular syntactic slot. Nouns undergoing external decategorialization tend to lose the syntactic freedom of lexical nouns, such as the ability to be topicalized or focalized. In the Yoruba language of southwestern Nigeria, object nouns can be moved from their position after the verb to the clause-initial position. Now, the noun ara (+ possessive pronoun) ‘body’ has been grammaticalized to a reflexive marker, cf. (a), and in this capacity it can no longer be placed clause-initially, (b) therefore is not well-formed. ()
Yoruba (Kwa, Niger-Congo; Awolaye : ) a. Nwosu rí ara rɛ̀. Nwosu saw body his ‘Nwosu saw himself.’
¹⁴ A useful distinction between ‘language internal obligatoriness’ and ‘communicative obligatoriness’ has been proposed by Diewald (: ).
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b. *Ara rɛ̀ rí Nwosu. (body his saw Nwosu.) Verbs tend to lose their ability to be moved around in the sentence like full-fledged lexical verbs, or to conjoin with other verbs. (e) is of a somewhat different nature, referring to a change that is essentially semantic-pragmatic in nature, leading from discursively primary to discursively secondary items (Boye and Harder ; see Section . above). Paradigm examples are provided by nouns and verbs, which tend to lose their ability to be focalized or referred to anaphorically. This change is not restricted to open-class items such as nouns and verbs, it affects some closed class items in the same way. For example, demonstratives can be focalized (e.g. It is this that I want) and referred to anaphorically (e.g. Look at that.—What?). But once they are grammaticalized to markers of relative or complement clauses, as has happened with English that, they tend to lose these abilities—in the wording of Boye and Harder (), they shift from discursively primary to discursively secondary forms. The generalizations presented in this section were hedged by ‘may’ or ‘tend to’ for the following reason: The changes listed in () and () are not necessarily all present in a given case of decategorialization. For example, the German verb werden ‘become’ was grammaticalized to a future tense auxiliary () but it did not lose its inflections of person marking, as can be seen in (). Furthermore, the German definite articles der (), die (), and das () did not lose their inflections of number, gender, and case in their development from demonstrative to definite article. () Modern German future a. Ich werde kündig-en. I . resign- ‘I’m going to resign.’ b. Er wird kündig-en. he . resign- ‘He’s going to resign.’ There are a number of potential causes if in a given case of grammaticalization an expected decategorialization has not taken place. Some have to do with language-internal factors: There may be specific structural constraints that prevent the loss of some categorial feature. For
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example, in a number of languages verbal auxiliaries are the only grammatical category in the clause where distinctions of personal deixis, tense, aspect, or negation are encoded. Accordingly, giving up these encodings might have dramatic consequences for the information structure of the clause. Another cause pertains to the age of the grammaticalization process involved: Decategorialization does not happen overnight, that is, it takes some time to materialize, and the younger a process is, the lower will be the degree of decategorialization reached.
3.4 Erosion Erosion means that a linguistic expression undergoing grammaticalization and being used frequently loses part of its phonetic substance, typically at its left or right boundary. In some approaches, erosion is treated jointly with other phenomena. For example, Lehmann’s (: ) parameter of integrity includes not only erosion, which in his terminology relates to ‘decrease in phonological integrity’ or ‘phonological attrition,’ but also desemanticization, referred to as ‘decrease in semantic integrity.’ Erosion, frequently labeled as ‘phonetic reduction,’ does as a rule not occur in the initial stage of grammaticalization (Norde : ). As was noted in Section ., this parameter is usually the last to apply in grammaticalization processes. Evidence is provided by a number of documented cases of grammatical change. The following are just a few of the examples in support of this hypothesis: • The development of the English be-going-to future is sketched by Hopper and Traugott (: –) in terms of a four-stage scenario. On this scenario, there was reanalysis at stage II and analogy at stage III, but the erosion of going to to gonna marks the final stage IV after the expression had been conventionalized as a future tense marker.¹⁵
¹⁵ Note that erosion is treated by Hopper and Traugott (: ) as ‘reanalysis.’ Hence, the development from going to to gonna is interpreted by them as a second instance of reanalysis.
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• The demonstrative disi ‘this’ (< English this) of the English-based creole Sranan of Suriname developed into a relative clause marker around the end of the seventeenth century. Subsequently, it developed further into a subordinator of temporal, causal, and concessive clauses in or before the second half of the eighteenth century. But erosion from disi to di occurred only in the course of the nineteenth century (Bruyn a, b, ; see also Section .). Furthermore, erosion is not a requirement in grammaticalization. For example, we noted in Section . that, in spite of its history of nearly one millennium as a tense-aspect marker, the High German auxiliary haben did not undergo erosion. It is still phonetically indistinguishable from its lexical source, the possessive verb haben ‘to have, possess.’ And much the same applies to its Latin equivalent habēre ‘to hold, possess’, cf. (a), which has also given rise to the perfect aspect auxiliary avoir in French, cf. (b). Nevertheless, its form as a verb of possession and as an auxiliary in French is the same.¹⁶ In a similar way, the French negation marker pas ‘not’ has retained the phonological form of the noun pas ‘step, pace’ from which it is historically derived (Hopper : ). () Modern French a. Nous avons faim. we have. hunger ‘We are hungry.’ b. Nous avons dormi bien. we have. slept well ‘We have slept well.’ According to Heine and Kuteva (: ) there are two basic types of erosion. The first type, called morphological erosion, involves entire morphological units. For example, when the Old English adverbial phrase ϸa hwile ϸe (that. time. that) ‘that time that’ or any of its variants was grammaticalized to the temporal and concessive subordinator while in Modern English (Traugott and König ), this meant that morphological segments were lost. And much the same
¹⁶ This does not apply to the development of Latin habēre as a future tense auxiliary, which has been affected by all parameters of grammaticalization, including massive erosion, in almost all of the Western Romance languages.
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happened in the case of its Old High German counterpart al di wila daz ‘all the time that,’ which was grammaticalized to the causal subordinator weil ‘because’ in Present-Day German, which is also characterized by loss of morphological elements. The second type, let us call it phonological erosion, is distinctly more widespread. It is restricted to phonological, or phonetic features that are lost in the process of grammaticalization. Phonological erosion most commonly involves the changes listed in (), or any combination thereof. ()
Kinds of phonological erosion a. Loss of phonetic segments, including full syllables. b. Loss of suprasegmental features, such as stress, tonal distinctions, or intonation. c. Loss of phonological autonomy and adaptation to adjacent phonological units. d. Phonological simplification. e. Boundary loss.
The development in English from because to colloquial English coz is an instance of (a): It entailed both loss of phonetic segments and reduction from a disyllabic to a monosyllabic unit. Since the eroded form coz does not occur in all varieties of English, there is reason to assume that erosion was a process that took place subsequent to desemanticization and decategorialization. The grammaticalization of the English adjective full to the derivational suffix -ful illustrates (b), as it entails a loss of the ability to be stressed. Loss of distinctive stress is in fact a fairly widespread effect of grammaticalization, for example in the process from demonstrative modifier to definite article. Thus, Greenberg (: ) notes that in a number of languages, demonstratives and definite articles have the same or almost the same form. However, they differ in particular in that the former may carry stress while the latter are unstressed. Examples include definite articles in German (der), Hungarian (az), and in the Uto-Aztecan language Papago (he?g) (see also de Mulder and Carlier ).¹⁷
¹⁷ There may be other differences in addition. For example, the Hungarian demonstrative form az loses not only stress as an article but also final -z if the next word begins with a consonant (Greenberg : ).
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(c) means that the phonetic shape of a grammaticalizing form is modified and adapted to adjacent segments. It refers to what Hopper and Traugott (: ) treat as one of the characteristics of ‘reanalysis,’ namely change in degree of cohesiveness, for example when the English future form be going to changed optionally into be gonna. Paradigm cases of (d) involve phonetically complex sound units that in the process of grammaticalization lose part of their phonetic features. For example, many West and central African languages have labial-velar consonants, such as kp and gb, which are phonetically more complex than the corresponding labial (p, b) or velar consonants (k, g). Accordingly, in the Ewe language of Ghana and Togo, gb was “simplified” to a corresponding velar g in some forms that underwent grammaticalization. Thus, the noun gbé ‘location, direction’ gave rise to the ingressive aspect marker -gé, and the verb gbɔ ‘to return’ to the repetitive aspect prefix -ga (Heine : ). In quite a number of cases, both morphological and phonetic erosion are involved. For example, the grammaticalization of the phrase by the side of to the preposition beside in Modern English appears to have involved both morphological and phonological erosion. Similarly, the development of the Latin phrase in casa ‘in the house (of)’ via Old French (en) chies or chiése to the Modern French locative preposition chez ‘at’ involved loss of both morphological and phonological features (see Section .). Boundary loss (e) means that a phonetic boundary disappears. Such a boundary can either be one between different parts of the grammaticalizing element, or one separating a grammaticalizing element from an adjacent word. An example of the former is provided by the English future marker (be) going to when it is optionally reduced to (be) gonna. The latter can be observed, for instance, when a plural marker fuses with the noun to which it belongs, becoming an inseparable part of the noun, as has happened in the case of English plural noun forms like children, oxen, etc. Loss of a phonetic boundary tends to be paralleled by loss of a morphological boundary (see Section ., (c)), but the two need not coincide. In accordance with the definition provided above, ‘erosion’ is a technical term of grammaticalization theory which should be distinguished from ‘phonetic reduction’ and other similar terms, for the
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following reasons: On the one hand, phonetic reduction is understood as a more general kind of change which need not involve grammaticalization. For example, the English copula verb ’s in She’s a teacher is a phonetically reduced version of is, but this is not due to grammaticalization. And second, erosion also differs from phonetic reduction in that it includes loss of morphological elements, as we saw above. Erosion can have dramatic consequences for the affected forms, to the extent that a grammaticalized form may no longer be conceived as being historically related to its lexical or other source. For example, not every speaker of English may be aware that the indefinite article a in a car is historically derived from the numeral one. In the Chadic language Lamang of Northeastern Nigeria, the forms ghvà and -và do not look strikingly similar, the former being a noun, also serving as a reflexive marker, whereas -và is a suffix serving verbal reflexive and middle functions (Wolff : –). But there is common grammaticalization process not only found in Africa but also in other parts of the world leading from lexical nouns for ‘body’ or ‘head’ to reflexive, and even to middle and passive markers (Heine b; Schladt ; Wiemer : ; Kuteva et al. , > ). At the same time, erosion can be restricted to subtle effects which are hard to identify without detailed phonetic analysis. For example, isolating languages of Mainland Southeast Asia, such as Burmese, Thai, Khmer, or Vietnamese, exhibit grammaticalization on a massive scale, leading, for example, from nouns and verbs to a range of functional markers. Quite commonly, the phonological forms of the grammaticalized markers and their lexical sources are ostensively the same. As phonetic experiments carried out by Ansaldo and Lim (: –) suggest, however, even in such languages grammaticalizing words may undergo subtle changes in pronunciation. The authors demonstrate that in two morphologically strongly isolating and tonally complex Sinitic languages spoken in Singapore, namely Cantonese and Hokkien, function words show vowel/syllable reduction, that is, erosion typical of grammaticalization. Erosion is on the whole a fairly stable unidirectional change. Nevertheless, a number of cases of opposite changes have been documented, refererred to as phonetic strengthening; see Norde (: ) for discussion.
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3.5 Conclusions In spite of the fact that there are many correlations between the various parameters, we have treated each of them independently. There are two main reasons for this procedure. The first is that each parameter is devoted to a distinct component of language structure: Context extension deals with text pragmatics, desemanticization with semantics, decategorialization with morphosyntax, and erosion with phonology and phonetics. It is therefore possible to analyze the contribution of each component in its own right. The second reason is that despite the large amount of research that has been devoted to this subject matter, the nature of the correlations between the parameters is still to some extent unclear. What seems to be clear, however, is that the effects of the four parameters do not, as a rule, coincide in time. None of the parameters is sufficient to define grammaticalization as a process; rather, each of them applies also to other kinds of change, in particular to lexical change, or to lexicalization. But taken in conjunction, they provide a reasonable tool for identifying such processes, and they are also instrumental to accounting for directionality in grammatical change (see, e.g., Diewald : ). And in fact, many pathways of grammaticalization bear witness to the joint effect of parameters. One fairly widespread pathway is that from demonstrative to definite article, for example in many European languages (Hawkins , ch. ; Heine and Kuteva : –). First, there was context extension in that the demonstratives were used in a broader range of contexts, extending for example from visible referents (e.g. Mind the step!) to non-visible ones (The king has abdicated.). Second, there was loss of the meaning as exophoric spatial deictics (desemanticization). Third, the demonstratives also experienced loss of part of their morphosyntactic independence, including increase in obligatoriness of use (decategorialization) and, fourth, the demonstratives also lost part of their phonetic substance (erosion). These parameters did not all apply at the same time, and their effects were not exactly the same in all languages concerned. For example, erosion in French led to the loss of segmental phonetic substance in the development of Latin ille ‘that ()’ to French l(e) ‘the ().’ In German, by contrast, the most
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conspicuous phonetic change appears to have been the loss of suprasegmental substance, namely loss of distinctive stress on the way from demonstrative dér ‘this ()’ to article der ‘the ()’ (Greenberg : ). But in spite of such differences, the joint effect of the parameters allows treating them as manifestations of one distinct process, namely one that leads to the rise of new functional categories and is similar across languages—that is, a process that can be distinguished from other kinds of linguistic change, such as lexical change.
Discussion points () Is there any of the four parameters discussed in this chapter that is more essential than others in your view? How will emphasizing one or the other parameter correspond to a different view of grammaticalization overall? () Which of the parameters is the easiest to observe empirically? What tools or materials would be needed to observe each of them empirically? () How would the parameters apply to one of those examples of grammaticalization in Chapter that were discussed in some detail (Spanish analytic future, possessive construction, English progressive, etc.)?
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4 Directionality of semantic change in grammaticalization
4.1 Bleaching, generalization, abstraction
4.2 Discourse orientation
Discussion points
Semantics is a long-standing topic in grammaticalization studies since in many approaches to grammaticalization semantics is assigned a central role. In this sense, discussion of semantics is pervasively represented in this book. This chapter will nevertheless pick up one issue in particular that has attracted much attention in the research literature, namely the question of directionality of semantic change in grammaticalization. First we discuss whether it is useful to think of the basic semantic change in grammaticalization in terms of ‘bleaching,’ ‘generalization,’ or ‘abstraction’ (Section .), and then we address the question of ‘subjectification’or ‘discourse orientation’ in grammaticalization (Section .).
4.1 Bleaching, generalization, abstraction In Section . the term ‘desemanticization’ was introduced, defined as the loss of semantic properties that a linguistic expression experiences in grammaticalization, both from lexical to grammatical and from grammatical to more grammatical meaning. An alternative term that is widely used is ‘bleaching,’ which is an interesting concept for two main reasons. First, it has been commonly used in grammaticalization studies. Nevertheless, it has been controversial. Some researchers
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consider it as the basic mechanism of semantic change, but others reject it. Adoption and rejection reflect rather straightforwardly some of the basic theoretical stances towards grammaticalization discussed in Chapters and . Secondly, it is interesting because ‘bleaching’ is an everyday word that has been used metaphorically as a technical term mostly without an explicit definition. That is, for many scholars, its use presupposes a tacit understanding of what it should mean. But precisely those different intuitive understandings of the word are another reason for its adoption vs. rejection, as we will see. The earliest use of the term is attributed to von Gabelentz (: ), who mentions it in the context of new ‘expressive’ grammatical forms that emerge to replace older ones that are bleaching out (verblassen, verbleichen). In modern grammaticalization-related research it has been brought up again by Givón (a) and has been present ever since. Terms that are mentioned as having similar meaning but whose actual denotation in contrast to each other is not always clear either are ‘weakening,’ ‘degradation,’ ‘desemanticization,’ ‘depletion,’ and ‘loss’ (cf. Sweetser ; Heine et al. : ; Hopper and Traugott : ). A simple dictionary definition of ‘bleach’ that may be the smallest common denominator is ‘to grow white or lose color’ (Merriam Webster online, bleach intransitive verb; https://www.merriam-webster. com/dictionary/bleach). There are three main aspects to this meaning. First is a property or substance that is being lost, namely that of color. Second is a substance that undergoes the loss of a property or attached substance but remains largely unaffected by the change. This is the thing that ‘grows white or loses color,’ for example, a cloth. Thirdly, we understand that in a natural setting, without decisive human intervention, the loss of color is not sudden but gradual, for example through long-term exposure to sunlight or through repeated exposure to water and detergent. We could thus define ‘bleaching’ with respect to language change as a ‘process in which a specific part of the meaning of a linguistic form is gradually weakened and eventually disappears, while another part of it remains unaffected.’ Now it seems that most differences in thinking about ‘bleaching’ as a metaphor for meaning change emerge from whether the fact that there is a substance largely unaffected by the process and that remains is acknowledged or not. If the ‘bleaching’ is understood merely as loss of color without reference to the remaining substance, ‘bleaching’ is simply another word for ‘loss.’ On the other hand, if ‘bleaching’ is
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understood from the perspective of the substance undergoing the process, a specific part of the semantic structure gets lost while another one remains. Secondly, it is sometimes ignored that ‘bleaching’ as a metaphor from everyday language typically implies a gradual process and not a sudden one. Proponents of the term have come mainly from three camps of grammaticalization research, namely the language processing-oriented research (cf. Section .), formal approaches to grammaticalization (cf. Section .), and Cognitive Grammar (cf. Section .). For the language processing-oriented approach, as represented by Bybee (, , b, ), ‘bleaching’ is a process inexorably linked to the way grammaticalization proceeds, namely through repetition and habituation. Repetition itself diminishes the force of a word, phrase or construction. . . . In grammaticization, the generalization or bleaching of the meaning of a construction is caused by frequency, but it also contributes to additional frequency, since a generalized construction can be used in more contexts, leading to an almost inexorable movement along a grammaticization path. Constructions that have been bleached of their more specific lexical meaning are more likely to pick up inferential meaning from the context, that is, grammatical meaning. (Bybee : )
As seen in this quote, Bybee uses the terms ‘bleaching’ and ‘generalization’ interchangeably. This process of bleaching or generalization occurs at the very beginning of grammaticalization, caused by repetition, and enables further grammaticalization. The reason is that “the loss of specificities of meaning makes a morpheme applicable in a more general range of contexts. For example, if will [, which grammaticalized from a verb of volition to a future modal] does not signal volition, it can be used with a wider range of subjects, including inanimate objects” (Bybee b: ). However, the process does not stop here: Generalization seems to characterize the entire grammaticization continuum—we note that as the process unfolds, grams always become more general and more abstract in their meaning, more widely applicable and more frequently used. (Bybee a: )
We can see that for Bybee, ‘bleaching’ is not an indiscriminate loss of meaning but rather that specific aspects of meaning are lost (“the lexical meaning is bleached of specificities of meaning, or generalized as specific components of meaning are lost” (Bybee : )). This is a faithful application of the ordinary language term ‘bleaching’ as a metaphor for semantic change. It does not preclude retention of meaning (“grams encode a meaning that is at once abstract and general,
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but in addition contains traces of its former lexical meaning” (Bybee : )). It also does not preclude acquisition of other meanings (“Constructions that have been bleached of their more specific lexical meaning are more likely to pick up inferential meaning from the context, that is, grammatical meaning” (Bybee : )). And it is pervasive in grammaticalization. Starting out from a quite different theoretical background, some generative grammarians analyzing grammaticalization have been equally positive about the application of the term ‘bleaching’ to the process. Abraham (, ), for example, similar to Bybee, takes bleaching as a semantic process that accompanies grammaticalization from beginning to end. Roberts (: ) likewise considers ‘bleaching’ “an intuitive, useful and expressive description” of the semantic aspect of grammaticalization. However, he suggests that the term is in need of explication. Specifically, a certain type of meaning of a word or morpheme is subject to ‘bleaching,’ and that is non-logical or descriptive meaning, while logical meaning is retained. For example, in IndoEuropean languages, words with the meaning ‘whole,’ that is, ‘being in good shape, not being damaged, not lacking in any of the integral parts, functioning properly’ are the most common source for quantifiers with the meaning ‘all.’ The meaning ‘whole,’ that is, ‘being in good shape,’ is a property of individuals, and as such a descriptive, non-logical meaning. In contrast, the quantifier ‘all’ is a logical constant that denotes a subset relation between two sets. Another case would be French noun rien ‘thing’ that ended up as a negation word (‘nothing’) in Modern French. Rien ‘thing’ refers to an entity in the world and its interpretation requires knowledge about the world. In contrast, to interpret rien as a negator, it is only necessary to know the relation between two sets (Roberts : –). Lastly, grammaticalization is also conceptualized as ‘bleaching’ in Cognitive Grammar, but we will leave the details on this approach to Section .. The concept of ‘bleaching’ has come under fire on a number of accounts. First of all, it is the idea of a one-sided weakening or loss of meaning that has been criticized (e.g. Sweetser ; Hopper and Traugott : –). However, as we have seen above, the idea of bleaching as a mere equivalent of weakening and loss of meaning is neither warranted by the meaning of the original everyday word nor by the actual use of the term by its proponents. According to Hopper and
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Traugott (: ), “[p]erhaps the most damaging evidence” against the idea of bleaching in grammaticalization comes from the fact that “when a form undergoes grammaticalization from a lexical to a grammatical item, some traces of its original lexical meanings tend to adhere to it,” a phenomenon known as ‘persistence’ (cf. Section .). This argument overlooks the fact that it is exactly this kind of ‘persistence’ that is definitory for bleaching in contrast to mere weakening and loss. As the proponents of the concept emphasize, a constitutive part of bleaching is that an abstract or schematic semantic structure that was already part of the lexical meaning remains or is laid bare through the process. For Abraham (, ), total loss of lexical meaning is a late stage of grammaticalization that is hardly ever reached. More commonly, some of the lexical meaning remains in the process of bleaching. Hopper and Traugott () however, do not entirely deny the validity of a concept of bleaching. For them, as for Fischer and Rosenbach (), bleaching is only characteristic of the last stages of grammaticalization. This contrasts especially with Bybee (, , b, ), for whom bleaching is an essential part of the process from the beginning to the end. For her, bleaching is a condition for the development of grammatical meaning, since “constructions that have been bleached of their more specific lexical meaning are more likely to pick up inferential meaning from the context, that is, grammatical meaning” (Bybee b: ). Moving on from criticism that is mainly based on a different understanding of the term ‘bleaching’ to more substantial counterarguments, Sweetser () points out a specific problem with the term ‘generalization.’ Recall that this term has been used as a synonym for bleaching in Bybee’s (, b, ) work. Generalization seems a perfectly suitable term when, for example, markers of progressive or habitual become broad ‘imperfects,’ which encompass both the original meaning and additional imperfect meanings. However, when a deontic modal such as must (You must be back by five) develops an epistemic sense (The Beetle must be the most loved car of all times), the epistemic sense does not encompass the original deontic sense. But apparently the problem here lies with the way the target category is conceptualized. The imperfect is seen as a collection of various imperfect senses or uses, including habitual and progressive. Likewise, if the overall meaning of a modal that results from the extension to epistemic meaning is taken as
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the target of change, instead of only the extension towards epistemic meaning itself, the same holds for the modal as for the imperfect: The overall result is a more general meaning, in this case including epistemic and deontic or other non-epistemic uses of the modal. The most substantial counterarguments against the validity of ‘bleaching’ are probably (a) the development of meanings and functions seemingly unrelated to the original lexical meaning, and (b) the development of polysemies that seem to include unrelated meanings, as laid out by Heine et al. (: –). That is, the new grammatical meanings are not merely a filtered out, schematized, or shifted version of the original lexical meaning but something genuinely new. According to Heine et al. (: –), (a) is the case for the French negation markers pas, personne, point, and rien, which derive from nouns denoting, respectively, ‘step,’ ‘person,’ ‘point,’ and ‘thing,’ or in the case of body part terms like ‘hand’ or ‘eye’ that gave rise to directional meanings such as ‘from’ and ‘towards,’ respectively, in African languages. As for (b), it seems hard to explain from the perspective of bleaching why general verbs for ‘take,’ ‘leave,’ or ‘let’ can have given rise to such diverse grammatical functions as completive focus and perfective aspect. How can they be gained from a mere schematization of the original lexical meaning? For Heine et al. (: ) cognitive and pragmatic mechanisms must decisively alter or add to the meaning in order to reach these apparently unrelated new grammatical meanings. However, even this seemingly compelling counterargument cannot be left undisputed, as Roberts (: ) shows. For him, the negative sense of rien is only seemingly unrelated to the original lexical meaning ‘thing.’ That is, it is intrinsically related through the loss of non-logical descriptive meaning, with only logical meaning remaining.¹ This constitutes a change “from λx (thing (x)) (‘the set of x such that x is a thing’), to (taking n-words to be a kind of negative quantifier) λPλQ ￢∃x[P(x) & Q(x)] (‘the sets P and Q such that nothing is in both’)”. Likewise, a closer investigation of the source and target meanings mentioned by Heine et al. (: –) may reveal other semantic relationships overlooked by the authors. ¹ Logical meanings, for Roberts (: ) are ‘permutation-invariant’ meanings, that is “meanings which do not depend on empirical facts for their contribution to truth; such interpretations depend purely on set-theoretic or numerical aspects of relations among referents, not on any intrinsic properties of the referents themselves.” Non-logical meanings in contrast depend on the properties of individuals.
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Heine et al. () proposed ‘abstraction’ as a principle in the place of ‘bleaching.’ Abstraction is considered a fundamental principle of language by some cognitively oriented linguists. Fortescue (: ), for example, suggests that there are two major types of abstraction, namely ‘disembodiment from specific sensory features’ and ‘simplification or generalization across instances.’ The latter clearly lines up with ‘bleaching’ and ‘generalization’ in grammaticalization as discussed above, and as acknowledged by Fortescue himself (: ). Fortescue seeks a synthesis of the two types of abstraction in Whitehead’s ( []: ) concept of ‘transmutation,’ in which “complex arrays of sensory input [ . . . ] are integrated and simplified in order to be experienced as unified ‘conceptual feelings’.” This process of abstraction underlies practically all aspects of language including phonology, for example recognition of successive phonemes, semantics, for example recognition of semantic fields and frames, syntactic constructions and textual/ discourse embedding (Fortescue : –), and is also at work in grammaticalization. Heine et al. (: –) in light of their counterargument against ‘bleaching’ are not satisfied with abstraction in terms of simplification and generalization, since it does not seem to explain the development of very diverse, and sometimes even seemingly unrelated new grammatical meanings. They therefore turn to the concept of ‘metaphorical abstraction’ by Schneider () that serves to relate more abstract contents to more concrete contents across conceptual domains, and thus introduces an element of creativity. Metaphorical abstraction can be either ‘structure-preserving,’ which means that a lexical item remains a lexical item but the meaning becomes more abstract, or ‘structure-changing.’ The latter is the case when, for example, a noun not only adopts a more abstract meaning (e.g. ‘head’ becomes ‘intellectual ability’) but also starts to participate in new, grammatical contexts, such as becoming a postposition or clause subordinator. If we think of ‘abstraction’ in terms of the concrete example of future be going to, which has been treated as a prototypical case of grammaticalization (see also Sections ., .), the process starts out with a verb that has the concrete meaning of physical motion in space, with an animate entity as the subject of motion and a physical goal. The resulting future marker is bereft of all the concrete elements of meaning, that is, the motion in space, the physical goal, and the entity that moves. What is left is the abstract mental projection of the realization of
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an event at a point of time ahead of the time of speech. The relationship between source (motion towards a goal) and the target (future) of grammaticalization can be described in terms of metaphor from space to time, although the actual historical steps of development may be more aptly described in terms of metonymy (cf. Section .). In summary, although being fundamental to the process of grammaticalization, and having been discussed from early on, the question of the role of bleaching or generalization vs. abstraction is still unresolved. Part of the problem has been the lack of definition of the terms, especially bleaching, and the resulting gap in what scholars have meant when they referred to it. Moreover, the attitude towards bleaching, generalization and abstraction has been strongly influenced by the basic concept of grammaticalization a scholar espouses. The terms ‘bleaching’ and ‘generalization’ seem to appeal to frameworks that emphasize the mechanical aspect of semantic change in grammaticalization, the term abstraction to frameworks that emphasize a creative aspect, and for yet other frameworks, none of these terms are particularly appealing. In any case, more in-depth and detailed research, including psycholinguistic research would be required to provide more definite answers that are acceptable across frameworks.
4.2 Discourse orientation ‘Subjectification’ and ‘intersubjectification’ in semantic change in general and grammaticalization in particular are concepts that have sparked a host of research activities in these fields especially since the s. Initially they were introduced through diachronic work by Traugott (, b, and elsewhere) and synchronic work by Langacker (, , ; ‘subjectification’ only). In this chapter, we take a broad perspective on the topic, labeled as ‘speech-act orientation’ in Narrog (a, b, b), and re-labeled as ‘discourse orientation’ here, to make clear that we are not referring to ‘speech acts’ in a technical pragmatic sense. Under this perspective it is assumed that in semantic change in general and in grammaticalization in particular, meanings tend to become increasingly oriented towards the speech act participants, that is, speaker and hearer, and towards organizing speech or discourse itself. Traditional ‘subjectification’ is only a small part of
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this overall development. In summary, the three tendencies of semantic change are: increasing orientation towards the speaker’s perspective (increased speaker orientation), II increasing orientation towards the speech situation including the hearer (increased hearer orientation), and III increasing orientation towards speech (text) and discourse itself. I
In the following sub-sections we first discuss each of these tendencies (speaker orientation, Section ..; hearer orientation, Section ..; textual discourse orientation, Section ..), then their relationship to grammaticalization (Section ..), and lastly possible counterexamples or divergences from these tendencies (Section ..). 4.2.1 Increase in speaker orientation The notion of speaker orientation is anchored on the notions of subjectivity, and its dynamicization, subjectification, as well as speaker deixis. These are notions with a long tradition in philosophy, psychology, and linguistics. In linguistics, there are three major concepts of subjectivity that are still currently relevant (for details, see Narrog a, ch. ; b). A Subjectivity in terms of speaker commitment. B Subjectivity in terms of speaker deixis (and construal). C Subjectivity in terms of accessibility of information.
(A) represents the most common understanding of the term. It is, in terms of Lyons (: ), “the locutionary agent’s expression of himself and his own attitudes and beliefs.” Or, as put by Verstraete (: ), it is about “taking positions of commitment with respect to the propositional content of the utterance.” While we do not claim here that these are identical ideas, they squarely fall within the range of a speaker expressing themselves and their attitudes. (B) is a concept that was mentioned by Lyons () mainly with respect to tense and demonstratives. It has been used by Abraham (, ) as an alternative to the concept of subjectivity, and has been developed in a theory-specific way in Cognitive Grammar (Langacker , ). In
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Langacker’s framework, linguistic expressions are viewed in terms of construals involving a conceptualizer (speaker) and an object of conceptualization (an event). A construal is conceived of as subjective if the conceptualizer’s perspective is reflected but not explicitly put “onstage” in a linguistic expression. Otherwise it is objective. Unlike concepts (A) and (C), the Cognitive Grammar concept of subjectivity does not require reference to the context but is instead identified with specific linguistic forms and constructions, and thus a matter of grammar. Also, in contrast to (A), reference to the speaker is as a rule implicit instead of explicit. (C) is a more technical understanding of ‘subjectivity’ that also goes back to Lyons’ (: ) writings. Proponents of this concept are Nuyts (a, b) and Portner (). For them, subjectivity means that “[the speaker] alone knows the evidence and draws a conclusion from it,” while in intersubjective sentences “[the speaker] indicate[s] that the evidence is known to (or accessible by) a larger group of people who share the conclusion based on it” (Nuyts a: ). This is an entirely pragmatic concept. Table . presents ‘speaker orientation’ as a synthesis of concepts of ‘subjectivity’ to the extent that they are compatible with each other. The examples are mainly from the category of modality. When referring to diachronic change involving speaker orientation, we are assuming that there are cases in which it eventually becomes associated with linguistic forms. This process of increasing association of a form or construction with subjectivity has been called subjectification. Here we speak of an increase in speaker orientation. In keeping with the concept of speaker orientation developed here and represented in Table ., an increase in speaker orientation may take place along the following parameters: (i) increase in subjective content or meaning associations of a lexical item; (ii) increasing constraints on the use of a form in terms of morphosyntactic combinability; (iii) increasing use in constructions associated with subjectivity; (iv) increasing use in contexts associated with subjectivity. Of primary interest here is an increase in speaker orientation in grammar (ii to iv). Loss of tense/aspect marking on a grammaticalizing verb is a potential example of parameter (ii). Increasing use of a
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Table 4.1 Features of speaker orientation Feature
Concept
Examples
i.
Inherently subjective lexical meanings
Interpersonal accessibility
Inherently subjective lexical items (e.g. idiot, gorgeous)
ii.
Constraints on the use of a form in terms of morphosyntactic combinability
Speaker-deixis
Tense and mood inflections, demonstratives; highly grammaticalized modality; e.g. in a language with tense inflection, a modal marker lacks the possibility for past inflection, and thus lacks this specific possibility of descriptive use
iii.
Actual use of a form in a specific syntactic construction
Commitment
A deontic modal marker used in the present with a second person subject is usually performative, and thus more subjective (Coates ) Mental state verbs with first-person subject usually indicate that the judgment is personally associated with the speaker, and neither invokes shared knowledge nor a shared judgment (Nuyts a: –)
Interpersonal accessibility
iv.
Discourse- and extralinguistic context
Commitment
Modification of modal markers that indicates distancing, and thus lower performativity (e.g. past tense, negation), may in fact have only a mitigating function. In context, the utterance is actually performative; e.g. I thought . . . instead of I think . . . in expressing a counterargument An evaluation can be based on a general rule (more objective) or on the speaker’s personal values (more subjective)
Interpersonal accessibility
Features (i) and (ii) are part of linguistic forms, and therefore semanticized (i) and grammaticalized (ii). Features (iii) and (iv) are essentially bound to context, and therefore inherently linked to pragmatics.
grammaticalizing verb with inanimate or impersonal subjects in metaphorical meaning would be a potential example of parameter (iii). Parameter (iv) would be reflected in changing frequencies of use in different environments, for example, increasing use in contexts associated with speaker–hearer interaction. Thus, (ii) may be conceptualized in terms of distinct steps that can be identified formally, but (iii) and (iv) are factors primarily associated with changes in frequency. In this manner, increase in speaker orientation is a gradual process. Example () illustrates a grammaticalizing construction associated with subjectivity in sense (A), in expressing a speaker’s attitude. The development of the English progressive was discussed in Section ..
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and we repeat an example here. The Old English progressive in () marks emphasis, especially on expressing some kind of complaint or criticism. () Old English (Kranich a: ) Gyf þonne Frysna hwylc . . . ðæs morþor-hetes If yet Frisian any of.this feud myndgiend wære mentioning would.be ‘if on the other hand one of the Frisians would mention this feud’ (Beowulf; ca. ) Another example that is often cited as a case of subjectification, and constitutes an increase in ‘speaker orientation’ as defined here is the functional extension of the English modals to express epistemic meanings in constructions that express the speaker’s reasoning. Must in () (Middle English) expresses a general objective necessity based on physical or social conditions, while () is one of the earliest examples in which it expresses an epistemic necessity in the speaker’s world of reasoning (Goossens : –). () Middle English (Goossens : ) Wherto and why burieth a man his goodes by his grete avarice, and knoweth wel that nedes moste hy dye? For deeth is the ende of every man . . . ‘For what purpose and why does a man bury his goods because of his great avarice, knowing well that he must necessarily die? For death is the end of every man.’ () Early Modern English (Fryer: A New Account of East India; cited in Goossens : ) The Portugals striving to possess themselves of Muschat, were put to such stress, that had not their Armado come to their relief, they must have desisted their Enterprize: . . . ‘The Portuguese, striving to acquire Muscat, were put under such stress, that had not their fleet come to their relief, must have abandoned their campaign: . . . In the sense of the four criteria, the rise of epistemic uses in a modal like must corresponds to an increasing use in constructions and contexts associated with subjectivity. In terms of concepts of subjectivity, this
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development would primarily constitute an increase in speaker orientation in terms of (B) speaker deixis, since epistemic modals refer to the estimation of likelihood by the speaker rather than a condition on the subject. 4.2.2 Increase in hearer orientation While speaker orientation is based on the discussion of concepts of ‘subjectivity,’ ‘hearer orientation’ is anchored on the discussion of concepts of ‘intersubjectivity’ in previous research. And just as there are three major notions of ‘subjectivity’ in linguistics, there are three major notions of intersubjectivity currently in use, as listed below (cf. Narrog b for details). A Intersubjectivity in terms of attention towards the addressee. B Intersubjectivity in terms of (a) hearer deixis, or (b) speaker plus hearer deixis. C Intersubjectivity in terms of accessibility of information (also: ‘evidentiality’). ‘Intersubjectivity’ is a concept less common and less discussed in linguistics than subjectivity. Outside of, and prior to its use in linguistics, it is mainly found in philosophy. (A), (C), and partially (B) can be identified with specific authors. Traugott (c: ) defines intersubjectivity in the sense of (A) as the “speaker’s attention to addressee selfimage.” Intersubjectivity in this sense complements subjectivity and is opposed to objectivity. It is also relatively narrow, as is clear from the definition above. As for (B), we are not aware of any specific scholar operating explicitly with hearer deixis. The expression ‘hearer deixis’ (Ba) as a counterpart to ‘speaker deixis’ seems problematic, because the ultimate deictic center in language is arguably always the speaker, or at least includes the speaker. However, there are expressions in language that are centered on the addressee in an implicit manner, the same way that there are expressions that are implicitly centered on the speaker. These include imperatives (where no explicit ‘you’ is required), questions, or addressee honorifics in languages that have them. So, if ‘hearer deixis’ is a term to be avoided, at least ‘hearer centeredness’ or ‘hearer orientation’ is a useful concept to have.
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On the other hand, there is also a concept of deixis to speaker and hearer that has been labeled with the term ‘intersubjectivity’ (Bb). Verhagen (, ) modified Langacker’s concept of construal in a way that intersubjectivity replaces subjectivity as the basis. While Langacker identifies the “ground” in a construal primarily with the speaker, Verhagen identifies it with the presence of two conceptualizers, the speaker and the hearer. The ground as speaker plus hearer then provides the intersubjective basis of a construal. Thus, intersubjectivity in his sense is speaker plus hearer deixis. Furthermore, intersubjectivity conceptualized in this way is not opposed to subjectivity but subsumes (or, embeds) it, and is opposed to objectivity. Lastly, intersubjectivity in terms of accessibility of information (C) has already been mentioned as the opposite of subjectivity in Section ... It applies when “the evidence is known to (or accessible by) a larger group of people who share the conclusion based on it,” thus leading to “shared responsibility” (Nuyts a: ). That is, it means sharedness of information. With respect to terminology, (C) and Verhagen’s (B) seem to be more compatible than (A) with the denotation of ‘intersubjectivity’ in disciplines outside linguistics. For example, Proudfoot and Lacey (: ) define ‘intersubjective’ as something for which “there are ways of reaching agreement about” and state that it is “usually contrasted with subjectivity rather than with objectivity, which it may include,” and the psychologist Tomasello (: , ) seems to understand intersubjecivity in terms of ‘sharedness.’ Therefore, the use of ‘intersubjectivity’ for concept (A) is arguably idiosyncratic. However, the concept as such is useful in its dynamicization for diachronic purposes. Intersubjectification in sense (C) does not show a straightforward direction of language change, as it would automatically entail a decrease in subjectivity. Likewise, concept (B) in Verhagen’s specific sense does not have a dynamicized diachronic version. Verhagen’s (, ) intersubjectivity refers to a consistent presupposition of communication, and as such is essentially not subject to increase or decrease. In conclusion, by ‘hearer orientation’ we here refer to (B) in the first sense (a), that is, the expression of hearer centeredness. It can be taken to subsume concept (A) of intersubjectivity as a subset. We understand orientation towards the addressee in a general sense, not limiting it to the attention to the addressee’s self or image needs as does Traugott (b, d).
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What holds for increase in speaker orientation, then also holds for increase in hearer orientation: hearer orientation is fundamentally a property of context. However, there are cases in which it may become associated with linguistic forms and constructions. This can be reflected in a change of morphosyntactic properties, or in a change in contexts of use. Referring to the category of modality again for the purposes of illustration, the development of may’s use conceding the hearer’s point of view, as in (), would be a case of a development of hearer orientation. This use has been entrenched in certain constructions, such as the concessive construction in (), in which may reflects an imaginary objection from a non-specific addressee (cf. Narrog b: –; the examples are from the London-Lund Corpus). ()
B: Jake is useless, absolutely bleeding useless (A laughs). He is feeble, he is weak. He is totally unorganized. A: Yes, that may be so. But I’m sure he is capable of lifting . . . few pieces of furniture from the van.
()
Whatever one may think of Kenneth Williams, I thought he did a very good rendering.
Utterance such as () and () presuppose the presence of an addressee and reflects the speaker’s consideration towards them. To the extent that this construction emerged at some point in history and then spread to different uses, this is an example of increasing use in constructions and contexts associated with hearer orientation.² Another well-known example is the development of addressee honorifics from referent honorifics (Traugott and Dasher : ch. ). 4.2.3 Increase in textual orientation Increase in speaker orientation and hearer orientation are accompanied by a third major tendency in semantic change of grammatical items that has received less attention. The development of textual or discourse or functions is a distinctive tendency that cannot be subsumed under
² According to Visser (: ), the first examples of this use of could date back to the fourteenth century, as extensions of earlier uses of could.
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speaker- or hearer orientation. Typical examples for the development of textual functions that do not seem to involve speaker- or hearer orientation are the development of complex clause constructions out of independent speech acts. The development of indirect questions, complement clauses and relative clauses (cf. Herring ; Heine and Kuteva , ch. ; Kinuhata ) out of interrogatives and concessive conditionals out of imperatives (cf. Narrog b) are prime examples. To start with an example from the category of modality again, may has developed a so-called ‘concessive’ use in a number of constructions. These constructions include use in as-concessives as in () and in coordinated constructions as in (). () I looked at some of my portraits and grotesque as they may be, they capture some aspects of reality. (Coates : ) () We may have our differences from time to time, but basically we trust another’s judgement. (Quirk et al. : ) May in () and () is speaker-oriented, in the sense that it expresses an epistemic judgment of the speaker. It is also hearer-oriented by expressing the attention of the speaker towards the addressee: the speaker takes into account and admits to an imaginary objection or criticism by the hearer, before presenting his or her own counter-argument to it. However, going beyond this strong hearer-oriented component, may here also has a discourse-building component. It marks a concessive proposition, and thus creates textual coherence within a series of propositions associated with different discourse participants. This textual or discourse function beyond a speaker- and/or a hearer-oriented function may be rather peripheral with modal verbs, but is a central function of discourse markers or modal particles (for instance, in German). Another example are imperatives forming conditionals or so-called concessive conditionals in a variety of languages. () is an imperative clause in English functioning as a conditional protasis. () is an imperative clause in Japanese, a language in which imperatives are morphologically marked, functioning as the condition in a concessive conditional. () Finish your homework and I’ll give you some ice cream. (Quirk et al. : )
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speaker orientation (may: acquisition of epistemic meaning) hearer orientation (may: conceding to the hearer’s stance) discourse orientation (may: integrating parts of discourse)
Figure 4.1 A sequence of semantic changes in grammaticalization
()
Modern Japanese (Narrog b: ) Neko=ni s.eyo, inu=ni s.eyo, okor.u cat= do. dog= do. get.angry. taimingu=ga muzukasi-i. timing= difficult. ‘Whether cats or dogs, the right timing for getting angry with them is difficult.’
In both cases, a clearly hearer-oriented construction has acquired a textual use. Integrated into conditional and concessive conditional sentences, the imperative serves to connect two or more propositions in discourse and indicate semantic relationships between them. This function can be labeled as ‘textual’ or ‘discourse orientation’ analogous to speaker orientation and hearer orientation. Like the latter two concepts, it also has an obvious diachronic dimension, that is, when linguistic forms develop more discourse-oriented meanings. In the case of may, a historical chain of changes as represented in Figure . can be assumed (see Narrog b for details). Note that all these changes took place in an already grammaticalized modal verb, that is, in secondary grammaticalization. In the case of the imperatives as conditionals, the chain would start with ‘hearer orientation.’ The potential sequence of changes is the topic of Section ... 4.2.4 Discourse orientation in grammaticalization The question of increase in discourse orientation (and previously subjectification/intersubjectification) has been mostly raised in the context of grammaticalization. Nevertheless, it has not been claimed
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that this type of semantic change and grammaticalization entail each other. Clearly, an increase in discourse orientation can also take place in the lexicon. Examples are increase in speaker orientation of gradable adjectives (Maat ) or of speech act verbs (Kissine ). On the other hand, the reverse case is less trivial. The idea that grammaticalization always accompanies some form of discourse orientation would not seem unreasonable. Visconti (: ), for example, writes with respect to the concept of subjectification, “subjectification is pervasive, as it is motivated by the very subjectivity of the speech event.” Ultimately the involvement of discourse orientation in grammaticalization is an empirical question, but it is only fair to assume that in a fundamental sense, by appropriating lexical items or constructions for the use of grammar, speaker(s) integrate it into the world of speech act participants, and ultimately the organization of speech. The creation of grammar through grammaticalization thus can be seen as intrinsically involving an increase in discourse orientation. Questions that arise then are (a) whether there are structural correlates in grammaticalization to an increase in discourse orientation (Section ...), and (b) the concrete relation between the sub-types of discourse orientation and stages of grammaticalization (Section ...). Furthermore, if the increase in discourse orientation is regular and unidirectional, the question of counterexamples or counterdirectionality arises. This will be dealt with in Section ... 4.2.4.1 Structural correlates
One of the most important aspects of semantic change involving grammar is the question of the reanalysis of scopal relationships. Arguably, scope increase is also indicative of increased discourse orientation, as it signifies a move from propositional content, concerned with the description of the event and its participants towards categories which operate on the propositional content, and are deictic of the speaker and the speech situation. The most obvious indicator of the relationship between increased discourse orientation and scope increase is word order change towards clause-peripheral, or NP-/VP-peripheral, position. Examples for this abound in the literature (e.g. Swan ; Traugott and Dasher , ch. .; Visconti for English adverbs, particles, and connectives; Adamson ; Davidse et al. ; Breban for the English NP;
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López-Couso : – for examples from Spanish; and Onodera and Shinzato for clause-level phenomena in Japanese). An example of an increase in discourse-orientation in the NP is provided by Davidse et al. (). According to them, the type nouns sort of and kind of started out in head noun position, the most rightward in the NP-structure, then acquired further leftward positions, as modifiers, then postdeterminers and nominal qualifiers, and finally as quantifiers, that is, in primary determiner use, which is ‘textual’ and ‘intersubjective.’ The head noun, the nominal qualifier and the quantifier use are illustrated in examples () to (), which are taken from Davidse et al. (: –). The b. row in each example shows the presumptive structure. ()
a. A special kind of beer. (head noun) b. [determiner] + [adjective + type noun/head [of + N]
()
a. Some kind of an artist. (nominal qualifier) b. [qualifying complex determiner] + [determiner][head noun]
()
a. All sorts of trouble. (quantifier) b. [quantifier = primary determiner] + [head noun]
As for leftward position on clause level, in Japanese, a head-final language, expressions referring to the epistemic state of the speaker, the hearer or their relationship, are usually found sentence-initially, sentence-finally, or both, as in example () with the speaker-oriented elements marked in bold. () Modern Japanese (Minami : ) kare=mo k.uru=daroo=ga, sukosi Tabun probably he= come.== a.little okure.ru=ka=mo sirena.i be.late.== don’t.know- ‘Probably he will come as well, but he might be a little late.’ However, a maximal degree of speaker orientation or hearer orientation and wide semantic scope do not necessarily correspond to clauseperipheral position. This depends on the structural characteristics of a language. German, a mixed word order language, has a set of intersubjective and textual markers, the modal particles, which are often an expression of the speaker’s evaluation of the relationship between the proposition and the hearer’s knowledge and expectations. Despite
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these functions, they are syntactically relatively deeply embedded in the so-called ‘mid-field’ of the German clause, as shown in (). ()
Modern German (Abraham : ) Nur hat er ja alles nötige getan. has he all necessary done ‘Nevertheless he did everything necessary, didn’t he?’
There are two modal particles here that relate the proposition to discourse (nur) and emphasize the speaker’s claim of the accuracy of the statement towards the hearer (ja), respectively. Abraham (: ch. ), on the basis of co-occurrence restrictions of modal particles and clause types, argues that they nevertheless occupy a high structural position (CP position) in the Logical Form of the clause. Similarly, adverbs in German may line up from left to right in order of decreasing scope after the V verb, making the narrower-scope adverbs appear closer to the periphery. Likewise, some of the so-called final particles in Japanese, that express the speaker’s estimation between their own and the hearer’s knowledge, also may occur sentence-internally That is, instead of indicating the relationship between the proposition as a whole to the speaker’s knowledge, this is done piecemeal fashion, phrase by phrase, as with the particle ne in example (). ()
Modern Japanese (Saigo : ) Ore=mo=ne bosai=wa=ne zitu=wa ussura I== bonsai== really= faintly kyoomi=ga at.te . . . interest= be. ‘Me, too, I actually have a slight interest in bonsai . . . ’
These ‘anomalies’ indicate that not in all languages and under all circumstances does a high degree of discourse orientation correspond to clause (or sentence) periphery. Concurrently to word order, the structural criteria for subjectivity named in Section .. are also indicators of increased discourse orientation. If a morpheme or construction originally had the potential to be tensed, negated, modalized, used in the protasis of conditional clauses, etc., but later loses these possibilities, this development reflects the loss of non-performative uses and thus increased discourse orientation. This observation is in accord with the assumption that if certain items or certain categories are frequently used for discourse orientation,
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and lose descriptive uses, this usage is imprinted on their structural properties. Lastly, it is important to note that degrees of grammaticalization accompanying increased discourse orientation are not straightforwardly comparable across structures and languages. The relation between increased discourse orientation and grammaticalization only holds for the history of individual structures and constructions. Not every grammatical marker that is higher on the scale of discourse orientation is necessarily more grammaticalized than a marker further down the scale. It is entirely possible that an item is morphosyntactically highly grammaticalized, for example as an affix, but nevertheless has narrow scope and less discourse orientation than a different item that is morphosyntactically less grammaticalized. While it is possible to track the individual history of the change of a main verb to an auxiliary, it is much harder to measure its degree of grammaticalization and evaluate it against that of an adverb, a mental state predicate or some other construction. In this manner, it is only possible to hypothesize for each individual marker or construction developing towards more discourse orientation that its development is potentially accompanied by morphosyntactic grammaticalization. Furthermore, it cannot be claimed that the most recently developed meaning has to be the most discourse-oriented of the marker as a whole. It only has to be more discourse-oriented than the meaning from which it is derived. On the other hand, if two markers are on the same or a similar path of morphosyntactic development, the more discourse-oriented one can be expected to be more grammaticalized. Thus, in English we find that modals such as must, may, and can are generally more discourseoriented than semi-modals such as have to and be able to.³ Beyond structural indications of discourse orientation, in general, an increase of performative uses as opposed to descriptive uses indicates increased discourse orientation. In the case of epistemic modal markers, for example, an increase of uses where the speaker expresses his or her commitment in the truth of an inference, and in the case of deontic (volitive) modality, an increase of uses involving the speaker and the
³ Of course it is also possible that the semi-modals of Modern English are not half way on the path to becoming full modals, but rather form a category with properties on their own. Krug () argues for such a view.
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hearer, and specifically, the speaker as a source of authority, is then taken to be indicative of increased discourse orientation. 4.2.4.2 Discourse orientation and stages of grammaticalization
A glance at the subjectification research shows that subjectification in the sense of (A) in Section .. of the speaker’s commitment and explicit expression of their attitudes and beliefs has been primarily identified with an early stage in the development of grammatical items. Traugott (c: ) herself suggested this when writing that “subjectification is more likely to occur in primary grammaticalization (the shift from lexical/constructional to grammatical) than in secondary grammaticalization (the development of already grammatical material into more grammatical material).” The reason has to be sought in “the greater accessibility of the original meaning to speakers and hearers before this has been obscured by frequent reanalysis” (Traugott b: ). Going even further, Visconti () considers semantic shift from propositional to non-propositional meaning (that is, in primary grammaticalization) as definitional for subjectification. However, the association of speaker orientation with early grammaticalization would only be true if we identified it with concept (A) subjectification. Explicit subjectivity in the terms of speakers’ opinions and evaluations is naturally more likely expressed if a linguistic item still has some lexical substance. The association with early grammaticalization does not hold if speaker orientation is identified with speaker deixis. Speaker deixis, as a more abstract form of speaker orientation, actually increases in late stages of grammaticalization, that is, in secondary grammaticalization. This happens, for example, when nonepistemic modal verbs become epistemic, labeled as ‘extreme subjectification’ by Langacker (), or when aspect markers, which are not or only weakly speaker deictic, eventually evolve into markers of absolute tense (e.g. Bybee et al. : ; Kuteva et al. : ; Narrog ), which are speaker deictic practically by definition. Hearer orientation in the sense of intersubjectivity (A) (see Section ..), that is, corresponding to intersubjectification in the narrower Traugottian definition, has been primarily identified with secondary grammaticalization. Traugott (b: ) hypothesized that “there cannot be intersubjectification without some degree of subjectification.” Later, she made preceding subjectification definitional for intersubjectification in Traugott (c: ) and
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claimed that “[i]ntersubjectification intersects less extensively with grammaticalization. In most languages it is grammaticalized only into some discourse markers and interjections” (d: ). However, overall the evidence from grammaticalization research so far is still limited, and there is also no logical necessity for this order of changes. If hearer orientation in its diachronic dimension is conceived of sufficiently broadly, and is not based on speaker orientation by definition, the question of the sequence of changes is still open to empirical inquiry. In the case of textual discourse orientation, the evidence is in favor that, except for the development of discourse markers (Chapter ), textual discourse orientation is a late stage of development. The list below shows some examples of developments in support of this hypothesis (cf. also Section .., and for more details, see Narrog b). • As discussed above, for English may the textual function came last in the modal verb’s development. • In some languages, such as English, Russian, etc., imperatives, that is, the most clearly hearer-oriented mood constructions in languages (see Fortuin and Boogaart ), have assumed a textbuilding conditional function (e.g. Make a move and I’ll shoot). These appear to be very late, if not final developments in the lives of such constructions. • Similarly, imperative constructions in some languages have developed concessive conditional functions, for example in Lithuanian and Japanese (e.g. Ambrazas ; Narrog b). • Subordinating markers indicating logical relations between propositions, discourse markers, and final particles are often end points of chains of grammaticalization. See, for example, Bybee et al. (: –) for subordinating functions as end points in the grammaticalization of modal markers, Heine and Kuteva (: ) for subordinating functions as end points in the grammaticalization of a variety of categories, and Abraham () for German modal particles with discourse functions as the end points in grammaticalization.
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Overall, then, the relationship between discourse orientation with grammaticalization is an area that has yet to be fully explored, but we may tentatively conclude the following: • Increase in speaker orientation in the Traugottian sense of subjectification as the expression of speaker’s attitudes or evaluations is primarily associated with early stages of grammaticalization. • Increase in speaker orientation in terms of speaker deixis is primarily associated with late stages of grammaticalization. Thus, while the expression of speaker attitudes recedes, speaker deixis may instead increase in late grammaticalization. This is in keeping with the overall development towards increasingly abstract meanings in advanced grammaticalization (Section .). • There is not much reliable evidence yet about where hearer orientation starts, increases, or decreases. The claim for a narrow concept of hearer orientation (Traugott’s (d) intersubjectification) has been that it is associated with late stages, but this is a definitional rather than empirically based claim. Hearer-oriented grammatical expressions are found both at an early stage of grammaticalization (e.g. addressee honorifics), and in potentially highly grammaticalized items and constructions (e.g. imperatives). • Textual discourse orientation is primarily associated with late stages of grammaticalization (acquisition of additional, more advanced, grammatical functions). A fixed order of changes rather than strong tendencies cannot be established without more extensive evidence. We may assume that the above-mentioned tendencies are not absolutes. It is also conceivable that there is some variation in the sequence of changes depending on the grammatical category. For modality and mood, that is, the category that provided most examples in this section, textual discourse orientation appears to be the last stage in the development of grammatical markers, following increase in speaker orientation and hearer orientation. There is also evidence for the possibility of direct hearer and discourse orientation without a significant stage of speaker orientation. The most likely candidates for this kind of change are so-called parentheticals or theticals (cf. Chapter ), that is, constructions which may be co-opted instantaneously for high-level interpersonal or discourse functions without running through a gradual semantic and
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grammatical development. Thus, it is premature and may in the end even be misleading to posit a single, rigid sequence of changes. 4.2.5 Counterexamples to (inter)subjectification and their status in discourse orientation Proponents of (inter)subjectification and related concepts have generally expressed confidence that this is an important, if not the most important type of semantic change in grammaticalization. Thus, Traugott and Dasher (: ) assert that “the main mechanism of semantic change is subjectification (including intersubjectification). This follows from the hypothesis that the seeds of semantic change are to be found in SP/Ws [speakers/writers; a.n.], drawing on and exploiting pragmatic meanings that arise in negotiated interaction.” Likewise, Narrog (a: –) hypothesizes that “semantic change always proceeds in the direction of the same or a higher degree of speech act orientation.” Indeed, there is a long trail of case studies across a large range of typologically diverse languages and theoretical literature that underscores the ubiquity of speaker orientation (subjectification), although work on hearer orientation (intersubjectification) and even more on textual discourse orientation is still relatively scarce. A list of relevant literature can be found in “Further reading” at the end of this section. In contrast, arguments against (inter-)subjectification as an important or dominant type of change, or for reverse tendencies of changes in individual cases, have been few and far between. They include Adamson (), who made a case for the de-subjectivization of emphatic deictic elements in literary prose, and Kranich (a, b), who suggests that secondary grammaticalization of the English progressive and other tense–aspect related categories involves de-subjectification. Most significantly, based on her study of the history of the English progressive, Kranich (b: ) claims that “secondary grammaticalization processes (or later stages of grammaticalization) commonly lead to a type of semantic change that can be labeled objectification.” Furthermore, presumptive counterexamples to the sequence of changes in (inter)subjectification have been brought forward. We will discuss these counterexamples in the light of the concept of discourse orientation, starting with counterexamples to the overall directionality of
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change (Section ...), and proceeding to problems with the sequence of changes (Section ...). 4.2.5.1 Cases of de-subjectification/objectification
In the (inter-)subjectification literature, the general assumption is that the overwhelming majority of changes conform to the hypothesized unidirectionality, and counterdirectional developments may exist only as very limited exceptions. Traugott, the original proponent of (inter-) subjectification, left the door open for such exceptions, but only under specific conditions: Does objectification then occur? Indeed. In semantic change it is the highly conscious and deliberately interventive sort of change that comes about when ordinary words are preempted for technical or legal purposes, . . . . But these are cases of “external” “nonnatural” change not of “internal” “natural” change, which is the central concern of historical cognitive semantics. (Traugott : )
The idea here is that changes towards more subjectivity are natural, while counterdirectional change is the result of an artificial manipulation of language material. Notwithstanding, some scholars have argued for “naturally occuring” counterexamples to subjectification. Two cases proposed in the literature involve question markers. In a study on the grammaticalization of historical questions in Tamil, Herring () proposed a chain of grammaticalization from question markers to text cohesion markers and clause-linking markers, that is, relativizers and adverbial conjunctions. Example () shows the question marker -ē indicating a rhetorical tag question in narration, and as a relative clause marker in (). The latter is hypothesized to be derived from the former. ()
Tamil (Herring : ) Inta aracan kannai mutikkittiruntan-ē this king eye. close...- ‘The king was keeping his eyes closed, right?’
()
Tamil (Herring : ) Nan poy aval ninriruntal-e anta itattil . . . I go she stand...- that place. ‘I went and stood in the place where she had stood . . . ’
Herring’s () analysis is not strictly based on historical data, but we are not aware of research questioning the plausibility of this scenario
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of change. According to the author, the original development of a tag question marker is a case of subjectification (in our terms, we would add that it also crucially or even primarily involves hearer orientation), while further development towards a relativizer is the opposite. She speaks of “pragmatic unmarking” and “gradual diminishing of [the markers’] expressive impact” (Herring : –). While the question markers are originally used “subjectively” for rhetorical questions, they end up as grammatical markers of conjunction and subordination devoid of expressiveness. Herring () concludes that, [t]hus the history of the conjunctions . . . and the relativizer may be said to involve both subjectification—in the original extension . . . from true to rhetorical questions—and de-subjectification, in the grammaticalization of pragmatic devices as autonomous clause-linking elements. (Herring : )
In Japanese, a similar development has taken place. In this case, the language is historically well-documented. Japanese originally had no indirect question markers. The direct question marker ka developed into an indirect one from the fifteenth century on. Kinuhata () sketches this development as follows. () shows an example of the direct question use which is already documented in the early stage (eighth century), while example () shows an example of the indirect question use from Modern Japanese. () Old Japanese (Kinuhata : ) Wa=ga puru sode=wo imo mi-tu=ramu=ka I= wave sleeve= wife see-== ‘Did my wife see me wave my sleeves?’ () Modern Japanese (Kinuhata : ) Watasi=wa dare=ga paatii=ni ki.ta=ka I= who= party= come.= sir-ana.i know-. ‘I don’t know who came to the party’ According to Kinuhata (), indirect questions are not only semantically less expressive of the speaker’s doubt (subjectivity), but also syntactic properties of subjectivity are lost, since the indirect questions are now embedded in past tense, negation, etc. He concludes that the development of the indirect question function “constitute[s] the
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counterevidence to subjectification” and labels this as a case of ‘syntacticization’ (Kinuhata : –). Last but not least, Kranich (a, b) has argued for interpreting the historical development of the English progressive in Early and Late Modern English as a case of de-subjectification, counter to previous research that had presented it as a paradigm case of subjectification (especially Fitzmaurice in Wright ; Fitzmaurice a). The main reason is that in the decisive period of grammaticalization of the English progressive to a common aspect marker in the second half of the eighteenth century, subjective uses significantly decline in number. Interestingly, though, they rose again from the nineteenth century on, when the aspectual uses were firmly established (cf. Kranich a: chs ., .). Specifically, certain types of subjective use, evaluative and emphatic ones, as exemplified in (), declined, while uses as in example (), which Kranich (a) labels as ‘interpretative,’ have been on the rise. ()
They were now able to speak to each other and consult. That Louisa must remain where she was, however distressing to her friends to be involving the Harvilles in such trouble, did not admit a doubt. Her removal was impossible. (archer\-. bre\aust.f) (Kranich a: )
()
HARRY. Why, it is possible you may yet receive a valentine. SOPHIA. Nay, now, but don’t you go to think that I am asking for one; for that would be very wrong of me, and I know better. (archer\-.bre\holc.d) (Kranich a: )
Thus, Kranich (a: ) observes that “the rise in the subjective uses that one sees in the th and th centuries only affects a very specific meaning of the progressive,” namely the interpretative function. In her view, this function “was built on the aspectual use” (Kranich a: ). As for the temporary decline of subjective uses of the progressive, Kranich suggests that . . . in order for a form to be recruited for the expression of subjective meaning, the speaker has to be free to decide whether or not to use the marker in question. . . . Now if the use of a particular marker is felt to be appropriate (or even obligatory) in a particular grammatical context, regardless of speaker involvement, attitude, or desire for emphasis, then such subjective meanings can no longer be associated with this marker in such a context. (Kranich a: )
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This is a quite plausible explanation. If a grammatical marker becomes extremely frequent and obligatory in certain contexts, it obviously cannot retain its ‘subjective expressiveness.’ At each instance of use the speaker would be forced to be ‘subjective’ if intended or not. One can also put it reversely in more traditional grammaticalization terms, namely that the expressiveness of a marker will ‘wear off ’ or ‘bleach off ’ through very frequent use. While the English progressive developed new subjective uses instead, this is not necessarily the case, as Kranich (b) argues. It seems that in the course of the development of tense– aspect markers in other European languages as well, expressive subjective uses simply wore off, without being “replaced.” The first counterexample to directionality in (inter)subjectification, namely the development of clause-integrating usage of question markers, is related to the development from subjective and intersubjective to markers of clause integration, entailing loss of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. This actually fits well with the framework of increase in discourse orientation presented here. Expressive speaker-oriented and hearer-oriented uses give way to text-/discourse-oriented uses. As stated above, it seems quite likely that textual discourse orientation is very often a late or the last stage of discourse orientation. This is also in line with the overall tendency of ‘abstraction’ in grammaticalization (Section .). Meanings and functions that operate primarily or purely for the organization of grammar and text are more abstract than earlier stage speaker-oriented and hearer-oriented expressive meanings. Likewise, it is no surprise to see expressive and evaluative subjective uses of aspect markers to be primarily associated with early stages of grammaticalization and then receding when the aspect marker becomes an obligatory part of grammar. As we know from Bybee et al. () and other research on grammaticalization, in a broad perspective, aspect markers are on a trajectory towards tense marking, and thus towards speaker deixis. That is, they shift from a more concrete and expressive type of speaker orientation to a more abstract one. The labeling of part of these processes as ‘de-subjectification’ is correct in the sense of subjectivity (A) in Section ..: Expressive subjective meanings decrease or are lost. However, the term ‘objectification’ would be misleading since we do not see an increase in, or return to objective description of the external world. On the contrary, the meanings of the grammaticalized items increasingly become part of the abstract internalized domains of grammar and speech.
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4.2.5.2 Problems with the sequence of changes
The issue here is again the mutual order of the three tendencies, namely speaker orientation, hearer orientation, and textual discourse orientation, as they have been discussed in the literature. We will start here with the question of the relative position of textual orientation vis-à-vis speaker orientation and hearer orientation since relevant examples were already presented in the preceding paragraphs. In the case of ‘concessive’ may (cf. Section ..), we first find the development of speaker-oriented epistemic uses, then uses that imply a concession, that is, are hearer-oriented, and finally clearly marked concessive constructions (cf. Narrog b: –). In the case of the imperatives grammaticalizing into conditional or concessive conditional protases, it is clear that the hearer-oriented use formed the basis for the extension to the text-oriented uses. With respect to the development of question markers into textual markers presented in Section ..., we find the same tendency. The Japanese direct question marker, which has a clear hearer-oriented dimension of meaning, historically unambiguously precedes the textand discourse-organizing indirect question use. With respect to the Tamil rhetorical question markers developing various subordinating functions, Herring () depicts the following scenario. The rhetorical questions are “a means of engaging the attention of the interlocutor.” For that purpose, “the narrator constructs a hypothetical listener with whom he ‘interacts’, even speaking at times in this other listener’s ‘voice’” (Herring : ). In our current understanding, we would identify such uses as hearer-oriented. From this, according to Herring (), the ‘discourse-organizational’ and ‘textual’ function developed, that is, textual orientation followed and eventually “replaced” heareroriented uses (Herring : ). Note that Herring () labels the hearer oriented uses as “expressive” and “subjective” because this was the only available terminology at that point. Traugott (b: ) commented on Herring () that “these changes . . . do evidence a shift from attention directed primarily to the hearer toward more internally oriented, more solely speaker-based text organisation.” This comment is interesting because Traugott seems to admit here a shift from the intersubjective (which was not yet distinguished from the subjective) to the textual or the subjective (if the textual is included in the subjective). This leads to the next question, namely the ordering
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between the speaker oriented and hearer oriented, or “subjective” and “intersubjective” in previous terminology. We will not deal here in any detail with alleged counterexamples that are based on concept (C) of intersubjectivity, namely shared evidence based on information accessible to both speaker and hearer. Intersubjectivity in this sense is close to objectivity. We do not expect “intersubjectification” in this sense to be a relevant diachronic tendency. Quite the contrary, we would expect intersubjective meanings to give way to subjective ones. Unsurprisingly, this has actually been shown in studies such as Cornillie (, , ) or Ghesquière (, ). They are therefore not examples for a different sequence of changes or counterdirectionality. A more detailed discussion of these cases is provided in Narrog (: –). If we try to identify possible counterdirectional developments from intersubjective to subjective vis-à-vis the dominant (A) concept, what we do find is the development from intersubjective to textual-oriented markers outlined above. This is due to the fact that in the (A) concept the textual uses are not acknowledged as such but instead labeled as ‘subjective.’ The only other case that we are aware of relate to certain parentheticals, that is, constructions that can be used instantaneously (without undergoing much grammaticalization) for metatextual grammatical and discourse functions as illustrated in () and () (the examples are from Kaltenböck et al. : ). () Mary—don’t forget—is coming over to visit. () Because John is, you say, a spy, we should be careful what we say to him. Don’t forget in () and you say in () are apparently not grammaticalized but used instantaneously. Nevertheless, these phrases immediately assume intersubjective ((), ()) and evidential () functions. It is thus reasonable to assume that also more established expressions such as you know are intrinsically intersubjective, and do not need to go through a phase of subjectification. Fitzmaurice (a) tried to preempt arguments against the hypothesis that subjectification necessarily precedes intersubjectification by claiming that second-person you know (intersubjective) must be derived from first-person I know (subjective). This is historically not really clear but cannot be excluded either. Avoiding this problem, Brinton () chose to study a first-person
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intersubjective parenthetical instead, namely, I mean. Based on the observation of the historical data, she stated that “in the case of I mean one cannot show that subjective meanings clearly precede intersubjective meanings” (Brinton : ). Traugott (c: ) argued against this, suggesting that “parenthetical I mean has always been pragmatically intersubjective. Over time it has been used more intersubjectively to express emphasis and assertion of the veracity of an utterance . . . but it has not been intersubjectified, except in fixed phrases like You know what I mean?.” In terms of the concept of discourse orientation, none of these sequences of changes presents a challenge or a counterexample to this concept. First of all, we do not claim that there is one fixed order of changes. We merely observed that a change from speaker-oriented to hearer-oriented and finally textual-oriented meanings is most frequent and most likely. Herring’s () case confirms this tendency. We also admit the possibility that there may be hearer- and discourse-oriented meanings without preceding speaker orientation. The development of discourse markers broached here could be a good example for such a development (see Chapter ). 4.2.6 Conclusion As argued in this chapter, an increase in discourse orientation may be fundamental for most if not all grammaticalization. Speakers appropriate words from the lexicon to express meanings and functions relating to the speech act participants, and ultimately to organize speech and text itself. In most cases this goes hand in hand with increasing abstraction (Section .). It is only natural therefore if expressive speaker-oriented and hearer-oriented meanings and functions eventually give way to speaker and hearer deictic functions and finally to functions that purely organize speech itself. The concept of discourse orientation accounts for these changes better than ‘subjectification’ and ‘intersubjectification,’ which only cover partial developments. The term ‘objectification’ for the last, very abstract stages of grammaticalization does not seem appropriate, since these stages do not represent a return to meanings that objectively describe an external world, but anchor linguistic expressions to the extreme in an internalized world of speech.
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DISCUSSION POINTS
Further reading Besides the two quasi-monographic studies (Traugott and Dasher ; Narrog a) and other research already cited above, there is a large number of book-length paper collections dedicated to the topic. These include Stein and Wright (eds.) (), Athanasiadou et al. (eds.) (), Cornillie and Delbeque (eds.) (), Onodera and Suzuki (eds.) (), Davidse et al. (eds.) (), Devos and van der Wal (eds.) (), van der Auwera and Nuyts (eds.) (), Brems et al. (eds.) (), and van Olmen et al. (). A monograph on intersubjectification by Shindo () deals with intersubjectification in the lexicon. Other notable contributions not yet cited outside these paper collections include Visconti () on the subjectification of conditionals in Germanic and Romance languages, Fitzmaurice (b) on subjective discourse markers eventually becoming intersubjective, Aaron and Torres Cacoullos () on quantifying subjectification of a Spanish counter-expectation marker, Breban () on subjectification of adjectives in English NPs, López-Couso () with a theoretical consideration on the concepts of subjectification and intersubjectification, Rhee (, , ) and Sohn () on (inter)subjectification of sentence-final particles, discourse markers, and reportatives in Korean, Xing () and Chor () with studies on (inter)subjectification in Sinitic languages, Evers-Vermeul et al. () on the subjectification of Dutch and French causal connectives, Breban and Davidse () on the (inter)subjectification of very, and Bergqvist (), and Tantucci (, ) with theoretical considerations on the concept of intersubjectification: Bergqvist () disusses the requirements for a linguistic expression to become intersubjective, while Tantucci (, ) proposes an extended concept of intersubjectification, in which an assumed third party has an indirect social bearing on the utterance.
Discussion points
() Describe the concepts bleaching, generalization (of meaning), and abstraction with examples from a language that you know well. Which concept is most suitable on the basis of your analysis? () How do the terms discourse orientation and (inter)subjectification differ in the way they capture meaning change in grammaticalization? () Why do you think is speaker orientation thought to be more common than hearer orientation? Do you think that hearer orientation presupposes speaker orientation?
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5 Steps and phases of grammaticalization
5.1 Gradualness
5.2 Stages
5.3 Grammaticalization chains
5.4 Grammaticalization in semantic maps
5.5 Polysemy, transcategoriality, and heterosemy
5.6 Cycles
Discussion points
In this chapter, we will explore a number of ‘nuts and bolts’ issues about how grammaticalization proceeds: Is grammaticalization sudden or gradual, in what kind of stages does it advance, and do the same grammaticalizations recur again and again in the same language? We start out with the question of gradualness (or non-gradualness) of grammaticalization (Section .), continue with stages of grammaticalization (Section .), then with so-called ‘grammaticalization chains’ (Section .), The concept of ‘semantic maps’ is analyzed in Section ., while Section . deals with three technical terms that are widely used in the literature on grammaticalization. Finally, we discuss cycles of grammaticalization in Section .. 5.1 Gradualness To begin with, we need to emphasize that whether or not grammaticalization is a gradual process is to some extent a matter of the perspective adopted and the model employed to describe the process.
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For example, one researcher may analyze the process as consisting of a sequence of distinct acts of innovation, to be described in terms of a ‘scale’ (Lehmann []: ). Another researcher may prefer to look at the same process from the bird’s eye perspective of the historical linguist interested in long-term effects of grammatical change. For him or her it may be best described and accounted for in terms of a ‘continuum’ (Heine and Reh : ), a ‘chain’ (Claudi and Heine ; Craig : –; Heine et al. : –; Heine ;), or a ‘cline’ (Hopper and Traugott : –; see Section .). Naturally, readers may want to choose the perspective that is best compatible with their own approach to the study of language change. ‘Gradual’ change, as in the title of this section, refers to “change that occurs via discrete micro-steps” (Luraghi and Bubenik : ). Lehmann (: ) provides a mathematical formula, in which ‘gradual’ means that “given more than two elements E, E . . . En, Ei- is to Ei as Ei is to Ei+” (where “E” stands for “element”). Of course, this is meant as an approximation, and not literally in the sense that the distance between each set of two functions must be exactly the same. There are three logical possibilities with respect to the gradualness of grammaticalization as a process, the first of them, (A), is that it is gradual as just defined. The two others, (B) and (C), are the polar opposites on a scale with ‘gradualness’ in the middle. A Grammaticalization is ‘gradual’, that is, it proceeds step by step. B Grammaticalization is ‘abrupt’, that is, it involves a saltation from source to target category. In Lehmann’s () formula this would mean that there are steps as in (A) but these steps are maximally large. C Grammaticalization is ‘continuous’ or ‘gradient’, that is, proceeds in an indistinguishable continuum. In Lehmann’s formula, this means that “whichever two adjacent variants Ei and Ej are selected, there is always a variant Ek such that Ei > Ek > Ej is gradual . . . ” (Lehmann : ). Note that the question that we are concerned with here is how change proceeds within the grammar of a language and its speakers, and not the spread within a community of speakers. The latter is necessarily gradual in a natural language setting. The gradual diffusion of language changes within communities of speakers is also well-documented in sociolinguistics (e.g. Labov ), and should be considered uncontroversial.
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As for grammaticalization in the grammar of a speaker, or a language, each of these possibilities has been claimed as a hypothesis in previous research. However, (A) has been the majority position in grammaticalization studies. It is also the position adopted in this book. We will therefore briefly present positions (B) and (C) and state the reasons why we think hypothesis (A) should be preferred. The idea of grammatical change in general and grammaticalization in particular being ‘abrupt’ or ‘catastrophic’, cf. (B), is mainly associated with formal studies of syntactic change (e.g. Lightfoot , ; Roberts and Roussau ). It is based on (a) a model of grammar that requires rigid correspondence between linguistic forms and syntactic positions, and (b) the idea that grammaticalization takes place during first language acquisition: For example, in a Principles and Parameters model, children set the parameters of their language, which may be different from the parameter setting of their parent generation. This leads to change (Lightfoot ). The idea that grammaticalization is a gradient in accordance with (C), in contrast, may be latent in some functional research on grammaticalization, but has been argued for most explicitly in Lightfoot (), who suggests that “language change operates in a fairly consistent manner, owing to human perception and cognition, working relatively steadily along the lines of similarity and contiguity” (Lightfoot (: ). Stance (B) is dictated by its theoretical premises and has been criticized for not being compatible with the gradualness observed empirically in synchronic and diachronic language data, which exhibit gradience and gradualness. Furthermore, it has been claimed that language change can also be described in a model that is based on gradual change, and thus is more compatible with fine-grained empirical data (e.g. Heine et al. : –; DeLancey , ; Hopper and Traugott : –). In fact, in formal grammar itself, there has been a movement to model grammaticalization in a way that allows for gradualness and better accounts for empirical data (van Gelderen , c). The main problem with stance (C) is that while gradience may be a well-observed phenomenon in synchronic language data, and may indeed have psychological reality, it is not a practical heuristic for the study of grammatical change. As Lehmann (: ) notes, “if differences between adjacent variants become infinitely small, no
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grades may be discerned any longer.” In order to meaningfully describe change, we need to assume steps with some degree of distinction. With historical data, essentially it is only possible to show steps, for example the extension of a construction to a new set of verbs, or with a new tense form, etc.; it is not possible to show developments that cannot be pinned down as steps in the data. Another question is to what extent the concept of gradience is empirically valid in language change. Even some functional linguists suggest that change may proceed in distinct steps for the individual speaker, even if those steps are very small (e.g. Hopper and Traugott : ; Traugott and Trousdale : –). In the rest of this section we provide a few examples of gradualness in the development of grammatical categories. The first example involves the Swedish verb sitta ‘sit,’ which is used as a progressive in a pseudo-coordinative construction. This is illustrated in (): ()
Swedish (Hilpert and Koops : ) Vi bara satt och pratade. we just sat and talked ‘We were just talking.’
According to Hilpert and Koops (), whose description we follow, the construction was already available in the oldest texts -(fourteenth century). () is an example. ()
Swedish (Hilpert and Koops : ) Ther sato nokre kompana oc drukko oc lifdho i There sat some friends and drank and lived in ofwerflødhlikheth. abundance ‘There sat some friends and drank and lived in abundance.’
However, all the examples in the oldest texts “express actions that are either conventionally carried out in a sitting posture, such as eating or drinking, or are at least fully compatible with a sitting posture, such as talking” (Hilpert and Koops : ). But sitta could already be used in temporally intersecting events, cf. (). ()
Swedish (Hilpert and Koops : ) Tha han kom til qwinnan oc sat och taladhe when he came to woman and sat and talked
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med henne, tha frestade direfwllin honom with her then tempted devil him ‘When he came to the woman and sat and talked to her, the devil tempted him . . . ’; alternatively ‘When he came to the woman and was talking to her, the devil tempted him.’ Providing the temporal background of a main clause event is, according to Hilpert and Koops (), a typical progressive and imperfective function. Furthermore, the verb sitta in this construction was used strikingly often without a locative phrase that indicated the place of sitting, unlike in lexical use outside of this construction. So, we may assume that grammaticalization was already incipient and speakers at that time were already able to interpret sitta in the sense of ongoingness. In a corpus study from the oldest text to Modern Swedish, Hilpert and Koops (: –) then show that the following features of a grammaticalized aspect construction gradually increased in frequency, in comparison to lexical uses outside the construction: (a) Use without specification of location of sitting: In Modern Swedish, this constitutes the clear majority of uses of sitta in the pseudo-coordinating construction, in contrast to lexical sitta. (b) Temporal adverbials have become increasingly located outside the construction, indicating greater coherence of the construction. (c) Extraction of objects of the second verb, which is generally not possible in genuine coordinated constructions, is becoming increasingly more frequent. Note that with respect to all these criteria, a gradual increase in numbers is observed. If anything, Hilpert and Koops () provide an example for the continuity of change. However, at some point, speakers of Swedish acquired an interpretation of sitta as ongoingness instead of physical sitting, and without the assumption of such a step, the description of the grammaticalization would be incomplete. The second example is about the development of the English preposition thanks to. According to Ahn (, ), the preposition developed from the noun thanks (pl.) and the preposition to in the following steps:
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(i) Semantic change of the lexical noun thank ‘thought’ (thirteenth century) to ‘favorable thought/favor,’ then ‘gratitude,’ and then ‘thanks being given to’ (seventeenth century). (ii) At this stage of the semantic development, thanks came to be used in the construction [[be thanks] to someone]. (iii) It became possible to delete be in this construction: The structure now was [[thanks] [to (someone)]]. (iv) The construction was rebracketed as [[thanks to] (someone)], and the interpretation was ‘indebted to someone’ (eighteenth century). (v) In the nineteenth century thanks to further acquired the meaning ‘in consequence of,’ whereby the favor could also be attributed to an inanimate entity, and in Present-Day English, finally, ironic uses evolved where it does not refer to a favorable situation. According to Ahn (: ), the semantic change preceded and enabled the syntactic changes. The decisive step was the rebracketing in the eighteenth century, but this was preceded by a number of necessary steps, and then followed by further steps in the development. Another example is provided by the Modern French preposition chez ‘at (with human referents),’ which has developed from the Latin noun casa ‘house’ (Old French (en) chies or chiése). The development was enabled by a number of conditions and steps, which we describe here from (i) to (vi), following Harrison and Ashby (): (i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv) (v)
While Latin had free word order, in Vulgar Latin and early Romance, the dependent genitive, in this case the owner, came to follow the noun, in this case chiése ‘house.’ In Old French, with human possessors, a preposition did not have to precede the possessor, i.e. it did not have to intervene between chiése ‘house’ and the possessor. Between the ninth and the eleventh century, chiése became obsolete as an independent noun with the meaning ‘house.’ Other nouns, such as maison, became prevalent in this meaning. In parallel, chiése acquired the ability to indicate a location without being preceded by a preposition of location (en or a). However, chiése continued to be used with a following possessor in the meaning ‘house of.’ Harrison and Ashby (: )
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consider use with professions instead of buildings, e.g. chiés un pestor ‘house of a miller/at a miller’s,’ as the first clear prepositional use. There is a metonymic connection, since professionals were associated with the buildings in which they resided. (vi) In later periods, chiése came to be used with a group of people entirely dissociated from buildings, e.g. chez les perses ‘among the Persians,’ chez ma mère ‘at/of . . . my mother,’ and finally with works of literature and art chez Descartes ‘in Descartes’ writing.’ There is one decisive step in this chain, namely the emergence of the possibility to indicate a location without being preceded by a locative preposition. This was made possible by the loss of the use as an independent noun: chiése could thus specialize in the possessive use indicating someone’s location. Still, there is no saltation since chiése retained its lexical meaning. So, while Harrison and Ashby () do not present corpus data, we may expect that in the transitional period in Old French there was some measure of ambiguity between chiése as simply ‘the house of ’ and ‘at the house of.’ Furthermore, semantic generalization proceeded fairly slowly. Even in Modern French, chez seems to be still restricted to use with human beings (and their products) in its prepositional use. On the other hand, it is also not particularly insightful to say that there was a continuous change, since we need to pin down steps in the development to describe it meaningfully.
5.2 Stages If the steps in the grammaticalization of individual items are looked at from a larger perspective and generalized across instances, we can identify larger steps, that is, ‘stages’ of grammaticalization from a specific source to a specific target. The idea is that with certain sources and targets, there is no direct change from source to target, but clearly discernible steps in between, the ‘stages.’ An example was already mentioned in Section ., namely the cross-linguistically observed stages in the development of indefinite articles from the numeral ‘one.’ At stage I, the numeral is just a numeral and has no functions beyond that. This is, for example the case in Swahili, where the numeral moja ‘one’ (ex. ()) has no grammatical function.
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()
STAGES
Swahili (Heine a: ) Ni-na gari moja. I-have car one ‘I have one car.’
At stage II, the numeral is able to function as a presentative marker, introducing a new discourse referent, but has no further grammatical function. This stage is ascribed to the Russian numeral odin ‘one’, as in example (). ()
Russian (Heine a: ) Zhyl da byl odin starik . . . lived was one old.man ‘Once upon a time there was an old man . . . ’
At stage III, the numeral can function as a ‘specific marker,’ marking any participant in discourse known to the speaker but presumed to be unknown to the hearer. This stage can be attributed to Street Hebrew exad, as in example (). ()
Street Hebrew (Heine a: ) Ba hena ish-xad etmol ve-hitxil le-daber came here man-one yesterday and-started to-talk ve-hu . . . and-he ‘A man came in yesterday and started talking and he . . . ’
Next, the numeral may become a nonspecific marker, marking a participant whose referential identity neither the hearer nor the speaker knows (ex. (); stage IV). The marker is still restricted to singular reference. This is the stage into which the indefinite articles in English and many other western European languages have developed. ()
Buy me a bottle of water, please!
At the last stage, V, the erstwhile numeral ‘one’ can be used for practically all kinds of nouns, even mass or plural nouns, although there may be language-specific restrictions. Spanish and Italian, for example, have reached this stage. In () (cited as ex. () in Chapter ), the indefinite article derived from the numeral ‘one’ has evolved to mark even plural nouns.
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() Italian (Bradley and Mackenzie : ) Unas vacaciones en Italia. vacations in Italy ‘A holiday in Italy.’ One more example for ‘stages’ of grammaticalization is the grammaticalizaton of posture (sit–stand–lie) auxiliaries in many languages of the world as presented by Kuteva (, ). At stage I, the verbs simply mark bodily posture of animate beings. Especially relevant for the further development of the verbs is their use in a construction where the clause with a posture verb is followed by a second clause referring to a simultaneous event, as in () from Bulgarian. () Bulgarian (Kuteva : ) Ana sedi na divana i piše pismo Ana sit.. on couch.the and write.. letter a bašta í sviri na piano. whereas father her play.. on piano ‘Ana is sitting on the couch and is writing a letter whereas her father is playing the piano.’ The decisive feature of stage II is that now the position is not restricted to animate beings but is extended to inanimates. () exemplifies the same biclausal construction in Bulgarian as (), but this time with an inanimate subject. ()
Bulgarian (Kuteva : ) Drexite sedjat v koridora i saˇbirat clothes.the sit.. in corridor and gather.. prax. dust ‘The clothes are in the corridor and gather dust.’
At this stage, a reinterpretation of ‘sit’ to merely indicate the continuation of the event in the following clause is especially prone to taking place because the verb ‘sit’ has lost its concrete, physical meaning when used with inanimate subjects. Thus, () may be subject to reinterpretation as ‘the clothes in the corridor are gathering dust.’ This reinterpretation (stage III) is confirmed in sentence structure when adverbials do not follow the posture verb anymore but the whole verbal complex, as in () (note that the verb here is ‘lie’, and not ‘sit’ as in the previous examples).
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() Bulgarian (Kuteva : ) Trionaˇt leži i raˇždjasva v mazeto saw.the lie.. and get.rusty.. in cellar.the ‘The saw is getting rusty in the cellar.’ Lastly, at stage IV, the construction is extended to animate subjects, where the meaning ‘sit’/‘lie’/’stand’ also gets replaced with a progressive reading as in (). This represents the stage of conventionalization discussed in Section .. () Bulgarian (Kuteva : ) Sedi i se oplakva vmesto da sit.. and complain.. instead to se xvane za rabota. take.. for work ‘S/he is complaining all the time instead of starting to work.’ 5.3 Grammaticalization chains In adopting a yet more general perspective on consecutive steps in grammaticalization, one can go beyond the ‘stages’ in Section ., and identify ‘grammaticalization chains.’ ‘Grammaticalization chain’ (in short, ‘chain’) is a concept that has been used to describe the interlocking pattern of transition from lexical or other less grammaticalized expressions to more strongly grammaticalized expressions (Heine ). An example is provided by Moser (), who identified the complex grammaticalization chain of the ‘give’ verb in the Nilo-Saharan language Kabba, rendered in Figure .. Since the language has no significant historical records, the reconstruction is based on synchronic variation. Strictly speaking, Figure . kàre ‘give’
BENEFACTIVE
RECIPIENT
(2 arguments) m-ar-i
(1 argument) k-àr-i
CAUSATIVE
PURPOSIVE/ RESULTATIVE
(1 argument) kàr-em
(0 arguments) ta kàre (tà)
COMPLEMENTIZER
SEQUENTIAL
CONNECTIVE
(0 arguments) ta kàre tà
(0 arguments) àre
(0 arguments) tà
Figure 5.1 Grammaticalization chain of ‘give’ in Kabba (Moser : )
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presents two chains, which can also be conceptualized as one large chain. The starting point is the ditransitive (-argument) verb kàre ‘give.’ Note that in various inflectional forms, the initial k- can be dropped, and syntactically, not all arguments have to be realized in the surface structure. In the upper chain in Figure ., kàre first developed into a benefactive marker with two arguments. The arguments are realized as prefixes and suffixes on the verb stem. ()
Kabba (Moser : ) M-ínga dèné m-ar-έ -found wife -give- ‘I found a wife for him.’
In a literal reading, () might be translated as ‘I found a wife and I gave [her] to him.’ However, according to Moser (), semantically ‘give’ is already a benefactive and does not imply literal ‘giving.’ The next step to ‘recipient’ is represented in example (). ()
Kabba (Moser : ) N-áw à pà tàr kàrə Dómìnic -go to tell story give Dominic ‘He is going to tell the story to Dominic’
As a marker of ‘recipient,’ kàre may still have person endings. However, after specific verbs, such as the one for ‘tell’ in (), it can even appear in uninflected form. Note that ‘benefactive’ and ‘recipient’ are both dative functions, and Moser () glosses both in () and () simply as ‘dative.’ The second chain starts with ‘causative’ function and goes all the way to a ‘connective.’ We will only provide examples for the first two functions on this chain here. () illustrates a causative, and () a purposive. We retain ‘give’ as a gloss in each case, while Moser () glosses each instance with the function that it instantiates, emphasizing that she considers kàre as fully grammaticalized in each of its functions.
¹ Note that in the of Figure . (m-ar-i), the prefix is for subject and the suffix for .
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() Kabba (Moser : ) M-á kàr-έ n-óso - give- -fall ‘I will make him fall.’ () Kabba (Moser : ) Ń-ddɔ pùrù dɔ-dé té tà kàrə ń-bbeél -shot fire head- give -fear ‘They fired at them to make them afraid.’ Now, decisively for the concept of a chain, each following function on the chain should be ‘interlocking’ with the previous one, that is, we should expect some overlap and instances of use that exhibit ambiguity between two adjacent functions. For example, ambiguity between ‘causative’ function as in () and the ‘purposive’ function as in () can be found in an example such as (), which could be interpreted both as ‘causative’ and as ‘purposive.’ () Kabba (Moser : ) kàrə Ń-pà bè mbatà kùwà né gɔ kərə -spoke like seize his foot elephant give tà sánge màre dèw ke kété search other person first ‘He spoke like this to excuse himself to the elephant so that he (the elephant) could find someone else (to shave his head).’ According to Heine (, a) grammaticalization chains have the following properties: () Properties of grammaticalization chains a. They are linear. b. They are directional, extending from least to most strongly grammaticalized expression. c. They have an interlocking structure of the form [A–A/B–B–B/ C . . . Z], where each member of the chain, i.e. function, shares at least one feature with adjacent members (functions). d. They are the result of a gradual process leading from least to most strongly grammaticalized expression. e. They have both a synchronic and a diachronic dimension: Being the result of a historical process, this process is likely to be reflected in the synchronic structure of a language.
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f. They are continuous structures in the sense that there is no general answer to the question of how they should be cut up into segments, or whether they contain focal points or prototypical instances. We assume chains to be a ubiquitous phenomenon, relating to many different aspects of grammatical change. Practically any small and locally restricted sequences of changes as discussed in Section . or the preceding section of this chapter can be conceptualized as a chain. A minimal example is given in (), which is based on the data in (), repeated from Section ... ()
Chain of meaning change of English since from temporal to causal conjunction (Traugott and König : –; see Section .. above): Temporal > temporal/causal > causal
()
The evolution of English since (based on Traugott : –) Constructed examples a. I have done quite a bit of writing since we last met. b. Since Susan left him, John has been very miserable.
and König
Meaning Temporal Temporal, causal c. Since you are not coming with me, I will have to Causal go alone.
On the other hand, there are what one may call ‘macro-chains,’ extending over a range of more general grammatical changes, such as the one in Figure ., or the macro-chain from lexical noun to case affix in (), based on Lehmann (: ). ()
Macro-chain from lexical noun to case affix Lexical > relational > secondary > primary > case noun noun adposition adposition affix
Furthermore, chains may involve either substantive expressions, such as since in (), or schematic categories, such as ‘noun’ or ‘adposition’ in (), and they may involve either meaning or form, or both, as in Figure .. Lastly, instead of ‘chain’ (Claudi and Heine ; Craig : –; Heine ; Heine et al. : –), alternative terms such as ‘continuum’ (Heine and Reh : ), ‘scale’ (Lehmann []: ;
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Heine and Claudi ), or ‘cline’ (Hopper and Traugott : –) have been proposed. The term ‘cline’ especially is just as widely used as ‘chain.’² One reason for not adopting the latter term, or any of the other terms, is that they do not reflect property (c), that is, the interlocking nature of grammaticalization chains.
5.4 Grammaticalization in semantic maps From chains of grammaticalization it is only a small step further to the representation of grammaticalization in so-called semantic maps. Semantic maps are two- (potentially even three-)dimensional representations of degree of similarity of a specific range of linguistic categories. The similarity is usually conceived in terms of function and meaning, although it may be instantiated through something different, such as contexts of use. To take an example from the lexicon, ‘breathe’ is not obviously related to ‘take a rest,’ but it is related to ‘pause for breath,’ which can be seen as an intermediary between ‘breathe’ and ‘take a rest.’ Therefore, if we represent the similarity between these meanings in a twodimensional space, we want to place ‘pause for a breath’ spatially between ‘breathe’ and ‘take a rest.’ François () presented a map for the similarity between meanings related to ‘breathe,’ which is rendered as here Figure .. Note that the map in Figure . not only contains a number of hypotheses about the similarity between certain lexical meanings related to ‘breathe,’ but also about connections between the expressions of those meanings, represented by lines. For example, a lexeme is likely to express both the meanings
utter, speak
take a vacation
whisper
take a rest pause for breath
[someone] blow [wind] blow
breathe
Figure 5.2 Semantic map of ‘breathe’ (François : ) ² For a different use of the term ‘cline,’ see Halliday (: ).
cease to do
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‘breathe’ and ‘pause for breath,’ and then may or may not additionally express the meaning ‘take a rest.’ Furthermore, a lexeme may express both ‘take a rest’ and ‘take a vacation,’ and in addition ‘cease to do.’ In contrast, according to the map, we should not expect a lexeme to express ‘take a vacation’ and ‘cease to do’ without also expressing ‘take a rest.’ This is indicated by the lack of a connecting line between ‘take a vacation’ and ‘cease to do.’ The evidence for similarity and connections can be taken from an appropriate quantity of data from one language, showing, for example, that two related meanings are expressed by the same lexeme or are used in the same or in similar contexts. It can also be provided by data from many languages that show that the similarity is recurring across languages. This type of evidence is obviously even more robust, and therefore semantic maps are primarily associated with linguistic typology. The concept of semantic maps has also been applied to a number of areas in grammar. Narrog and Ito () constructed the semantic map in Figure . based on case polysemy data in languages. The semantic map contains fifteen meanings/functions from the domain of case, centered on ‘companion’ (Mary walks with her child) and ‘instrument’ (Mary stunned Jane with a gorgeous dress). We assume here that the other meanings and functions on the map are easily understandable or can be found in the literature or on the internet. In any case, relationships between meanings in this domain were posited () on the basis of simple mathematics, namely the calculation of the—dependency of one meaning on other meanings in the sample, and () on singular co-occurrences of one meaning with a specific other meaning.
physical proximity clausal coordination
NPcoordination possession
duration co-participant
route
companion
cause/reason instrument
passive agent ergative agent
source material temporal ‘from’
Figure 5.3 Semantic map of the instrument/companion domain (Narrog and Ito )
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As for (), the requirement is that each of the meanings must appear in at least ten morphemes in the database. If the occurrence of one meaning depends on another meaning by more than percent (.), the existence of a connection between those two meanings is hypothesized. Extending the calculation to relations between three meanings, a dependency of more than percent (.*.) is required in order to hypothesize a connection, with the three meanings occurring simultaneously in at least five morphemes. As for (), it was assumed that if a morpheme M has only the meanings A and B, and this situation occurs in at least three different languages, there is a direct connection between these two meanings. Solid lines indicate the result of calculation of a dependency-relationship between two meanings, square-dotted lines the result of calculation for three meanings, round dotted lines the result of the assumption (), and long-dashed lines the result of the second assumption under less strict conditions, namely singular cooccurrence in one morpheme in only two languages. Now it is possible to add a diachronic dimension to the map. To this end, we need to assume that synchronic connections between meanings/functions are the result of semantic extensions that occur through time. For example, given that ‘instrument’ and ‘passive agent’ are connected, it is both possible that the ‘instrument’ function extended to a ‘passive agent’ function and vice versa. The ultimate arbiter on the direction of the connection is diachronic evidence. Here it is in favor of an extension from ‘instrument’ to ‘passive agent’ (see Narrog : ). When all connections on the map in Figure . are checked for diachronic directionality, the diachronic map in Figure . is obtained (cf. Narrog a: ). duration physical proximity clausal coordination
NPcoordination possession
route
co-participant
cause/reason companion
instrument
passive agent ergative agent
source material temporal ‘from’
Figure 5.4 Semantic map of the instrument/companion domain with directionality of meaning extension (Narrog a: )
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The first thing to note about this map in terms of grammaticalization is that only meanings and functions that are already grammatical are represented. That is, Figure . is a map of ‘secondary’ grammaticalizations. This is not a necessity, however. Nothing would preclude us from combining lexical and grammatical meanings and forms in one map. It is undeniably more common, however, to have semantic maps exclusively made up either of lexical or of grammatical meanings, for the sake of greater coherence and comparability between the categories on the map. Secondly, relating back to Section . on grammaticalization chains, it is also possible to split up a complex map like the one in Figure . into many grammaticalization chains, say, from ‘companion’ to ‘instrument,’ and further to ‘cause/reason.’ Also, instead of first building a map such as the one in Figure . and then adding a diachronic dimension to it, it would be perfectly fine to work in reverse—combine several grammaticalization chains and build a larger semantic map like that in Figure . in a bottom-up fashion. In any case, a diachronic semantic map is the potentially largest unit to represent consecutive and related grammaticalizations above the ‘chains’ (Section .) and the ‘stages’ (Section .). Further reading Besides the papers cited in this section, Anderson (, ) and Haspelmath (, ) are classic papers on semantic maps. Narrog and van der Auwera () specifically address the topic of semantic maps and grammaticalization, while Georgakopoulos and Polis () represent the state-of-the-art of semantic map research.
5.5 Polysemy, transcategoriality, and heterosemy When as a result of step- or stage-wise grammaticalization, as described in the preceding sections, the meaning of a linguistic form changes, then the semantic outcome is commonly described as polysemy: There are now two related meanings or senses associated with one and the same form, namely the source meaning and the target meaning, and the two are in some sense related to one another, that is, there is
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significant overlap in semantic content between the two meanings (Enfield : ). For example, when the use of the volition verb will was extended in the Middle English period to contexts taking inanimate subject referents incapable of volition (see the parameter of context extension; Section .), a future tense meaning evolved, giving rise to polysemy where the earlier meanings of volition and intention now coexisted side by side with the future meaning (Bybee and Pagliuca ). Polysemy thus appears to be a largely predictable effect of grammaticalization. But there are problems with this term. One problem is how to establish that the different meanings of a grammaticalizing form such as will are ‘related’: Is there uncontroversial empirical evidence to show that there is significant overlap in semantic content between the concepts of volition and future (tense)? Another problem is whether the different meanings can belong to different grammatical categories, such as different syntactic or morphological classes. A third problem concerns the question of whether diachronic information, such as etymological relationship, should play a role in defining polysemy. For example, go in (a) is a verb of physical motion but auxiliary denoting future tense in (b). We know that the latter meaning is historically derived from the former (e.g. Bybee et al. ; Hopper and Traugott ; Mair ; Hilpert ). Should such knowledge play a role in deciding whether the two meanings expressed by go qualify as an instance of polysemy? ()
a. Jane is going to Paris. b. Jane is going to come soon.
A final problem is the following. Once a new meaning has evolved as a result of grammaticalization, its form may change due to erosion (Section .). For example, the future marker is going to in (b) is optionally reduced to is gonna. Assuming that the meanings of go in (a) and (b) are polysemous, there remains the question whether polysemy extends also to reduced forms such as gonna? To be sure, such problems have received detailed treatment, and extended versions of polysemy have been proposed (e.g. Enfield ). Still, the general question remains whether ‘polysemy’ is a relevant concept that we need to take into account when analyzing grammatical change. In view of such problems, alternative perspectives and concepts have been proposed, either to supplement or to replace the term polysemy.
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In particular, two terms have been suggested, namely transcategoriality and heterosemy. Transcategoriality obtains when a linguistic form has two (or more) semantically related members, where each member is associated with a different plane of linguistic organization and the two are part of some regular pattern (Heine et al. ). An example of transcategoriality can be seen in the English item round, occurring as an adjective (a round table), a preposition (He walked round the corner), a verb (The boat will round the buoy soon), an adverb (I went round to the shop), or a noun (It’s my round). ‘Different plane’ on the one hand refers to the morphosyntactic structure within a sentence, most commonly different word or morpheme categories, or different constituent structures (Robert ). On the other hand, different planes may also refer to structures of linguistic discourse beyond the sentence (Do-Hurinville and Hancil ; DoHurinville and Dao ). ‘Related members’ may be both free forms, like nouns or verbs, or bound forms, like affixes. But one member can also be a free form while the other is a bound form, such as English full, which is a free form when used as an adjective (a full cup) but a bound form when used as a derivational suffix (lawful data). Membership in a set of transcategoriality rules out items that are semantically and/or phonologically entirely different from one another, but it includes cases where the different members share semantic and phonological features to the extent that they can be conceived by speakers as being related to one another in a meaningful way. Thus, members of a transcategoriality set need not be identical in every respect but must be similar enough in meaning and form to be judged to be related.³ Unlike polysemy, transcategoriality is claimed to have explanatory significance. Robert (a, b, c) in particular argues that transcategoriality can be accounted for in terms of economic motivation: It provides a means for the optimization of linguistic systems in that it allows having a maximum of functions expressed with a minimum of forms. Like polysemy, transcategoriality is essentially a synchronic notion, and both are faced with the same problem, namely with how to determine what ‘related meanings’ are. ³ This criterion comes close to the criterion proposed by Persson (), according to whom members of a heterosemy set must have a common core sense.
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This problem does not exist in the case of heterosemy. According to Lichtenberk (), heterosemy obtains when within a single language: . . . two or more meanings or functions that are historically related, in the sense of deriving from the same ultimate source, are borne by reflexes of the common source element that belong in different morphosyntactic categories. (Lichtenberk : )
Heterosemy differs from both polysemy and transcategoriality in the fact that historical relationship is a definitional property. Consider the following example. The English numeral one and the indefinite article a, differ from one another both semantically and formally to the extent that one might hesitate to classify them as belonging to the same set of polysemy or transcategoriality.⁴ But they clearly belong to one and the same set of heterosemy since we know that the latter is historically derived from the former via grammaticalization. In a similar way, the Swahili verb ‐taka ‘want’ shares heterosemy with the future tense prefix ‐ta- since the latter is a grammaticalized form of the former (see Kuteva et al. , > ). In the course of grammaticalization, ‐taka was reduced to ‐ta- via erosion (see Section .). But the two morphemes differ from each other both in their meaning (‘want’ vs. future tense) and their form (‐taka vs. ‐ta-)—hence, they are not suggestive of polysemy, nor presumably of transcategoriality. On the other hand, both of the terms transcategoriality and heterosemy have been proposed more specifically to deal with polygrammaticalization, that is, with cases involving “a mulitiplicity of grammaticalization chains that may originate in one particular lexical morpheme” (Craig : ). The example in () from the West African language Ewe illustrates a network of polygrammaticalization. The morpheme le occurs on three different planes of grammar, namely that of lexical items in (a), of verb phrase morphology in (b), and of noun phrase morphology in (c). On the basis of principles of grammaticalization it can be assumed that first there was the locative copula verb, as in (a). This then developed on the one hand in the direction of the verb phrase, contributing to the rise of a discontinuous progressive marker le . . . ḿ, as in (b). On the other hand, it also grammaticalized into the noun phrase, turning into the locative (and temporal) preposition le, as in (c). ⁴ Not everybody may agree, though, that the numeral and the indefinite article are semantically different.
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()
Ewe (Kwa, Niger-Congo; Heine et al. : –) a. Kofí le megbé. Kofi be.at behind ‘Kofi is behind.’ b. Kofí le nú ɖu-ḿ. Kofi thing eat- ‘Kofi is eating.’ c. Kofí wɔ dɔ´ le Lome. Kofi do work at Lome ‘Kofi worked in Lome.’
Verb
Aspect marker
Preposition
The terms transcategoriality and heterosemy provide convenient means for identifying patterns of semantic and formal similarity between linguistic items belonging to different grammatical categories. However, heterosemy is arguably the more informative term since it not only refers to what relationship patterns exist but also to why they do exist. To conclude, all three terms, polysemy, transcategoriality, and heterosemy, capture certain features of grammaticalized forms. But for the purposes of grammaticalization research, heterosemy might be the most useful one since it rests on diachronic reconstruction, which is central for grammaticalization theory.
Further reading Polysemy in grammaticalization has been discussed in a wide range of studies (e.g. Traugott ; Heine b). The term ‘transcategoriality,’ by contrast, evolved only at the beginning of this century (Robert a, b, c, ; Do-Hurinville ; Do-Hurinville and Dao ; DoHurinville and Hancil ; Heine et al. ) and has so far not been widely used in work on grammaticalization. The term ‘heterosemy’ was first proposed by Persson () and subsequently modified and popularized by Lichtenberk ().
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CYCLES
5.6 Cycles In the present section as well, grammaticalization processes are considered from a wider perspective, that is, one that may be of help for understanding why such processes take place. To this end, two main mechanisms are distinguished in Section .., while Section .. deals with a concept that has kindled considerable scholarly activity in the course of the last decade, namely that of cyclic grammatical evolution. 5.6.1 Renewal and innovation There are two main ways in which grammaticalization can arise, namely either via renewal or via innovation. Strictly speaking, these two mechanisms must be distinguished from the concept of grammaticalization: They are not covered by the definition of grammaticalization (see Chapter ). Nevertheless, they are a prerequisite of grammaticalization, and hence are needed for a more comprehensive understanding of grammaticalization. For example, while presenting a detailed and a critical account of the notion ‘renewal,’ Reinöhl and Himmelmann () suggest that, . . . the empirical ground covered by renewal significantly overlaps with the empirical ground covered by grammaticalization theory, as both are concerned with the development of grammatical markers and constructions. (Reinöhl and Himmelmann : )
We are restricted here to a concise descriptive use of the two mechanisms to the extent that they are of use to account for grammatical change. Renewal is a mechanism whereby an existing expression of a grammatical category is replaced by a new expression, with the result that the new expression assumes a function that is similar to the old one (Lehmann []: ; Hopper and Traugott : ; Vindenes ).⁵ Renewal can be achieved either by reinforcement or by substitution. Figure . provides a graphic representation of the two kinds of renewal to be discussed below. ⁵ For reasons of ‘terminological elegance,’ Lehmann ([] : ) uses ‘renovation’ instead of what is called here ‘renewal.’ Note that ‘renovation’ is also used by him interchangeably with substitution. In order to avoid confounding the two notions, ‘renovation’ is avoided here.
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a Reinforcement A b Substitution A
=> AB => B
Figure 5.5 Two mechanisms leading to renewal Note: (=> stands for ‘is replaced by’)
Reinforcement is commonly understood to be a mechanism whereby a grammatical marker A is supported by some additional expression B ‘strengthening’ the meaning of A, the new marker thus being AB (e.g. Lehmann []: ; Reinöhl and Himmelmann : ). The term is most commonly applied to processes where a linguistic form has lost part of its phonetic, semantic, and/or pragmatic substance and is assumed to be ‘strengthened’ by some other element. Reinforcement applies, for example, when a case suffix is strengthened by an adposition, an adposition is strengthened by an adverb, a personal affix of a verb is strenghtened by a full personal pronoun, or a negation marker by some nominal or adverbial expression. Items reinforcing a grammatical form most frequently follow the latter, but they may as well precede it, or both precede and follow the modified lexical form, as the adverb her ‘here’ does in the Norwegian example in (). ()
Present-Day Norwegian (Vindenes : ) de her arrke her that here sheet here ‘this sheet here’
One may wonder whether ‘reinforcement’ is in fact an entirely suitable term for the process involved. It would seem that rather than ‘reinforcing’ or ‘strengthening’ an existing form, a more important reason for introducing a new element is to provide the speaker with new discourse options for expressing functions such as conceptual differentiation, focusing, emphasis, anaphoric highlighting, or for narrowing down the range of possible referents.⁶ This, however, is an issue that would need a separate treatment (see, e.g., Hansen ).
⁶ Since the term ‘reinforcement’ addresses at best only one of the functions of the new element, the more general term renewal is preferred in some of the literature of grammaticalization (e.g. Heine and Reh : ; Hopper and Traugott ; Kuteva ; Giacalone Ramat and Mauri : –; cf. also the ‘phonological bulking’ of Matisoff () and the ‘hermit crab processes’ of Heath ()). Presenting a detailed analysis of
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In substitution, also referred to as ‘renovation’ (Lehmann []: ), expression A falls into disuse and is replaced by a largely equivalent expression B. For example, the Latin conjunction nam ‘because’ was replaced by the form quare, which developed into the reason conjunction car ‘because’ of Modern French (Lehmann []: ). Paradigm examples of substitution can be found in the development of pidgin languages. Pidgins arise in situations of intense language contact where a contact language, frequently called the ‘lexifier language,’ is used regularly by speakers whose first languages are different. In such situations, both the lexicon and grammatical structure of the contact language tend to be drastically reduced (see Section .). This reduction process affects in particular bound morphemes such as inflectional and derivational affixes, which are likely to disappear and to be replaced by free forms like lexical items. The way this process may lead to large-scale substitution can be illustrated by the following example, where the ‘lexifier language’ was a variety similar to Standard Swahili, cf. (), and the resulting pidgin was Kenya Pidgin Swahili, cf. the corresponding sentence in (). () Standard Swahili (own data) ni-me-ku-tafut-i-a kazi. --.-search-- work ‘I have been looking for work for you.’ () Kenya Pidgin Swahili (Heine , ; Heine and Kuteva ) mimi kwisha tafuta kazi kwa wewe. I finish search work at you ‘I have been looking for work for you.’ The examples illustrate four kinds of substitution that appear to have affected the pidgin: (a) The first person subject prefix ni- of Standard Swahili was replaced in the pidgin by the free pronoun mimi ‘I’, (b) the second person object prefix ‐ku- was replaced by the free pronoun
the notion ‘renewal,’ Reinöhl and Himmelmann (: ) conclude that it “is not a useful and viable concept for the analysis of linguistic change.”
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wewe ‘you’, (c) the perfect prefix ‐me- was replaced by the verb kwisha ‘finish’, and (d) the function of the applicative suffix ‐i- is expressed by the general locative preposition kwa ‘at, with’ in the pidgin. Innovation is a mechanism whereby a new grammatical category is created for which earlier there was no conventionalized category in the language concerned (Lehmann []: ). Innovation contrasts with renewal, which introduces new grammatical expressions by replacing earlier equivalent expressions. For example, Latin had no conventionalized articles whereas modern Romance languages do. The grammaticalization of the Latin numeral unus ‘one (.sgm)’ to indefinite articles and of the Latin distal demonstrative ille ‘that (.sgm)’ to definite articles in the Romance languages thus constitute instances of innovation rather than renewal. The factors leading to innovation are still largely unclear. But it seems that language contact can play an important role, where speakers of language A replicate a grammatical category from language B for which previously there was no equivalent category in A. A number of innovations of this kind are reported by Aikhenvald (, , ) from the North Arawak language Tariana of northwest Amazonia in Brazil. Tariana has been in close contact with languages of the East Tucanoan group, and in the course of this contact it innovated a range of new grammatical structures by replicating (‘calquing’) East Tucanoan structures.⁷ For example, Tariana speakers innovated a perfective category by grammaticalizing their verb ‐sita ‘finish’ to a perfective aspect marker on the model of East Tucanoan languages. The above observations relate to clear manifestations of the two mechanisms—they ignore the fact that renewal and innovation cannot always be clearly separated from one another (see Lehmann []: – for discussion). Furthermore, our focus is exclusively on grammatical change in the early stages of its development. What on the surface appears to be a case of substitution can actually go back to an earlier reinforcement process, as will be shown in Section ... Renewal and innovation have contrasting effects on the typological profile of the language in which they occur: That profile is not significantly altered when renewal takes place. Innovation, by contrast, means that the language is enriched with a new grammatical category ⁷ For the term ‘replication’, see Chapter (language contact); cf. also Heine and Kuteva ().
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and, hence, its profile is no longer exactly what it was before. And the two mechanisms differ also from one another in that only the former normally gives rise to morphological cycles. 5.6.2 The morphological cycle Both reinforcement and substitution can be responsible for cyclic grammatical evolution. This can be demonstrated with the classic example of negation marking in the history of French. In Old French, the verbal negation proclitic non (subsequently nen and finally ne) was frequently reinforced with post-verbal nouns such as pas ‘step, pace’, point ‘dot, point’ or mie ‘crumb’. The nouns pas and point were subsequently grammaticalized, giving rise to the discontinous negation marker ne–pas and ne–point of Modern French. Ne– pas is frequently reduced to pas in colloquial speech. This evolution can be reconstructed as in (); for exemplification, see Hansen (: ). () Reconstruction of the evolution of reinforcement in French negation marking (simplified) Stage Construction Structure I ne Verb A II ne Verb (pas) A (B) III ne Verb pas AB IV (ne) Verb pas (A)B V Verb pas B Comparing only the initial stage I with the final stage V, the impression is conveyed that this is an instance of substitution in that the earlier negation marker ne (A) was replaced by pas (B). As a matter of fact, however, we are dealing with a cyclic evolution of reinforcement that must have proceeded along the stages set up in (). Cases like () are referred to in the relevant literature as instances of a morphological cycle, or of cyclic grammaticalization, that is, a cyclic form of evolution, typically involving morphosyntactic material, leading to the renewal of a grammatical category.
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Most of this work is devoted to what is commonly referred to as Jespersen’s Cycle and the study of negation, such as that of the general French negation marker sketched above (Jespersen ). But the notion of cyclic grammaticalization has also been employed for a number of other grammatical phenomena. In particular, van Gelderen (a) discusses the following cases of cyclical morphosyntactic development with examples from a range of languages: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g)
the subject agreement cycle; the object agreement cycle; the pronominal copula cycle; dependent marking cycles; the DP cycle; tense–mood–aspect cycles; negative cycles.
Cyclic grammaticalization can in fact be observed in a number of domains of grammar. Examples of the cyclic renewal of demonstratives are discussed by Vindenes (), and the notion of cyclicity has also been extended to semantic-pragmatic phenomena and the analysis of pragmatic markers (Hansen ); see also below, and Heine et al. (). The example of French negation in () illustrates two important features of cyles. First, the old and the renewing element may be similar in meaning, but this is by no means a requirement: The reinforcing noun pas ‘step’ of stage II had semantically little in common with the negation marker ne. And second, the renewing element need not occur in the same slot as the old element: The cycle had the effect that negation in French shifted from the pre-verbal to the post-verbal position. Most work on cyclicity has been concerned with morphosyntactic change. But cyclic development can also be found in semantic change. For example, based on the data of Ghezzi and Molinelli (), Hansen () discusses what she calls semantic/pragmatic cycles in Latin and Italian, called pragmaticalization cycles by Ghezzi and Molinelli (). For example, both the Latin speech act verbs rogo ‘I ask’ and quaeso ‘I pray/request’ and their Italian equivalents chiedo ‘I ask’ and prego ‘I pray’ gave rise to a series of cyclic developments from verb form to politeness marker. Cyclic grammaticalization can be restricted to one morphological cycle, but it may as well be repeated. Thus, in the development of forms
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for ‘(with)in’ from Proto-Indo-European to French there were three instances of cyclic reinforcement, as the example in () shows. () From Proto-Indo-European to French: Repeated reinforcement of forms for ‘(with)in’ (Lehmann []: ; “=>” stands for reinforcement, and “>” for grammaticalization) a. Proto-Indo- *in ‘in’ => *en-tos European b. Latin intus ‘within, => *de-intus ‘of/from inside’ within’ c. French > dans ‘in’ => dedans ‘inside’ Rather than the metaphor of a ‘cycle’, it has been argued by some scholars that a ‘spiral’ is more appropriate to describe the developments involved. Von der Gabelentz ([] : –) was presumably the first to propose the latter metaphor, arguing that renewed pathways are not exactly the same as the ones preceding them. The term was taken up by Meillet ([] ), who maintained that linguistic development proceeds in spirals since languages add extra words to obtain an intensified expression. Subsequently, the words weaken, wearing out and being reduced to the level of simple grammatical tools. New words are added again for expressive purposes, and the weakening process begins anew, and so on without end. The term spiral has been taken up in some recent studies of cyclic grammatical change. Hansen (: ), for example, found that some of the morphosyntactic and semantic/pragmatic changes identified by her in pragmatic markers of Romance languages behave “more like spirals than cycles.” Haspelmath () speaks of an
Further reading The following studies in particular provide accounts of cyclic grammatical development: Jespersen (), Heine and Reh (: –), Heine et al. (: –), Croft (), Dahl (), van Gelderen (, a, b, ), Hansen (, , ), and Ghezzi and Molinelli (). Earlier studies of cyclicity include von der Gabelentz (), Jespersen (), Meillet ([] ), and Hodge (). Hodge () argued that cyclical development can be applied to the evolution of entire languages (cf. also Section ..).
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‘anasynthetic spiral’ for the change involved in the renewal of categories that are expressed synthetically in morphosyntax by those that are expressed analytically (see Chapter ).
Discussion points
() Grammatical change has been variously described as gradual, abrupt, or continuous. What advantages and drawbacks do you see for each of these perspectives? () The first three sections of this chapter have discussed steps and stages and chains of grammaticalization. One can also find the term ‘cline’ instead of ‘chain.’ Which of these terms do you think is the most characteristic for grammaticalization? () Why would speakers of a specific language be motivated to create a ‘cycle’ or a ‘spiral’ of a certain category, and under which circumstances may they be not motivated?
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6 What drives grammaticalization? Mechanisms and motivations
6.1 Mechanisms: reanalysis and analogy
6.2 The language system
6.3 Communicative needs or goals of the speaker
6.4 Inferences and contexts
6.5 Cognition and conceptualization
6.6 Frequency of use and language processing
6.7 Discourse
6.8 Conclusion
Discussion points
In this chapter we will discuss what is behind grammaticalization. Even at this point this is still a wide-open question, since it cannot be sufficiently answered purely on the basis of language data. Most scholars would agree that an answer would require reference to fundamentals of cognition and communication to which we do not have direct access. The solutions scholars have given tend to correlate to their theoretical backgrounds and convictions, and their general approach to the study of grammaticalization. Answers to what drives grammaticalization are usually given in terms of ‘mechanisms’ and ‘motivations.’ There is no clear borderline between the two. For some scholars, the mechanisms as such are already the motivations, for others, motivations are the triggers for mechanisms, and for still others, mechanisms are not needed. On the other hand,
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many processes have been labelled variously as both ‘mechanisms’ and ‘motivations’ (for example, analogy, metaphor, inferences). Nevertheless, we make a distinction here along traditional lines. ‘Reanalysis’ and ‘analogy’ have been labelled fairly consistently as ‘mechanisms.’ They are discussed together in Section .. Sections . to . discuss aspects of grammaticalization typically considered as ‘motivations’ for grammaticalization, namely the language system (Section .), communicative goals (Section .), inferences and context (Section .), cognition (Section .), frequency (Section .), and discourse (Section .). They are followed by a summary and conclusion in Section ..
6.1 Mechanisms: reanalysis and analogy ‘Mechanism’ refers to possible regularities in how some meaning or form, or combination of meaning and form changes, beyond a mere comparison of source and target (cf. Lessau : ). This may include enabling and motivating factors of the change (cf. De Smet : ). In historical linguistics, reanalysis, analogy (extension), and borrowing have been proposed as the three main mechanisms of grammatical change (cf. e.g. Harris and Campbell : ; Campbell : ). Borrowing is part of the discussion of grammaticalization and language contact in Chapter . It can often be observed very directly from its result with some knowledge of the source. In contrast, whether a change should be attributed to reanalysis or analogy, or both or neither of them is far less obvious and has been notoriously controversial. We will start here with a short discussion of reanalysis (Section ..), which was identified as the main mechanism for a long time, continue with a discussion of analogy in Section .., which has received more attention recently, before summarizing in Section ... 6.1.1 Reanalysis While unknown as a concept to the nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury historical linguists, reanalysis has been a mainstay of modern grammaticalization theory from early on (see Hansen ). Lord (, ) identified grammaticalization of serial verbs mainly with
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reanalysis. Heine and Reh (: –) provided numerous potential examples for grammaticalization and reanalysis in African languages, emphasizing that grammaticalization and reanalysis were related but not identical processes. The most frequently cited definition of reanalysis is by Langacker (: ), namely “as change in the structure of an expression or class of expressions that does not involve any immediate or intrinsic modification of its surface manifestation.” He adds, however, that “reanalysis may lead to changes at the surface level . . . , but these surface changes can be viewed as the natural and expected result of functionally prior modifications in rules and underlying representations” (Langacker : ). The structure affected may include: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)
constituency and hierarchical structure, categorization, grammatical relations, and cohesion, that is, if a linguistic unit is an independent word or part of a larger unit (cf. Harris and Campbell : –).
English be going to, grammaticalizing from verb of motion to future tense, may serve as an example again. According to Campbell (: ), the following reanalysis took place. ()
Lilly is going to marry Ron. Structure: Lilly is going to marry Ron
()
Lilly is going to marry Ron. Structure: Lilly is going to marry Ron
In (), be going to is a verb of motion in a purposive construction, that is, someone is physically moving with the goal of performing a specific action at the destination. In (), be going to indicates a temporal relationship between the time of speech and the event indicated by the main verb. The decisive point for Campbell () is that the surface structure of the sentence has not changed, but speakers interpret it differently. Following Hopper and Traugott (: ), we can assume that additionally a rebracketing of constituents has taken place. Speakers have reanalyzed be going to in () as one unit in (), that is, as an auxiliary: ()
Lilly is going [to marry Ron].
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() Lilly [is going to] marry Ron. It is important to note, though, that the essence of reanalysis is not category change or syntactic rebracketing but semantic reinterpretation. This is clearly stated by Harris and Campbell (: ): “Grammaticalization is often associated with ‘semantic bleaching,’ and this ‘bleaching’ is the result of reanalysis or, perhaps better said, it is the essence of the reanalysis itself.” This analysis of grammaticalization in terms of reanalysis may sound very common-sensical. Hopper and Traugott (: ) still stated that “[r]eanalysis is the most important mechanism for grammaticalization, as for all change,” and in structural approaches to grammaticalization, reanalysis has always been identified as a core mechanism of grammaticalization (cf. e.g. Roberts and Rosseau ; van Gelderen c). In generative frameworks it is generally assumed that it is the child in language acquisition that does the reanalysis. However, the role of reanalysis in grammaticalization has increasingly come under fire. In (i) to (v), we will list the most important arguments that have been brought up against reanalysis, and offer a short critical discussion of each argument. (i)
Grammaticalization is unidirectional, while reanalysis is not (Heine and Reh: : ). For example, the plural -s in Old English treowe-s was reanalyzed as part of the stem to become Modern English truce, while in the case of peas, the -s was originally part of the noun stem (Haspelmath a: ). However, the few examples for the bidirectionality of reanalysis that have been provided are mostly from the domain of morphology, where counterdirectionality is more commmon than in other domains of grammar. Morphology is also the most important source for examples of change in the opposite direction of typical developments in grammaticalization (cf. Section .). In fact, the reanalysis of treowe-s to truce can be taken as the last stage of grammaticalization (obsolence/loss), and the reanalysis of peas to pea-s, as an exceptional change in the opposite direction. On the other hand, it is clear that unlike grammaticalization, reanalysis is not intrinsically unidirectional. This should be undisputed.
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(ii) While reanalysis is abrupt categorical change, grammaticalization is gradual (cf. Lehmann : , Haspelmath a: ). That is, reanalysis was negatively associated with a theoretically motivated concept of abrupt grammaticalization that was found to be empirically not adequate (cf. Section .). However, at least some proponents of reanalysis consider reanalysis as ‘micro-change’ in contrast to grammaticalization as ‘macro-change.’ Thus, one grammaticalization can consist of a number of micro-changes, including several reanalyses (e.g. Harris and Campbell : ). Reanalysis in the eyes of these proponents is rather like the seed of change, the invisible semantic reinterpretation that later may or may not lead to more obvious and drastic syntactic and phonological change (cf. Harris : ). (iii) Not all grammaticalization involves reanalysis, and not all reanalysis is grammaticalization (e.g. Heine and Reh ; Haspelmath a). For the latter, it is not difficult to come up with examples. Haspelmath (a: –) provides a number of them, including the reanalysis of the German external possessor dative to adnominal possessor, which is not an apparent grammaticalization. Lehmann (: ) shows that in ‘lateral conversions’ like the derivation of the verb butter from the noun butter, reanalysis has taken place but not grammaticalization. In contrast, for the former, the evidence is much trickier, and largely hinges on the concept of reanalysis adhered to. Haspelmath (a: –) provides a host of alleged examples of grammaticalization without reanalysis. These include change from serial verb to preposition and complementizer, from relational noun to adposition, from head to dependent, clause fusion, and so on. These changes have in common that they were presumably neither abrupt nor did they involve a change in the hierarchical structure of the clause. This argument rests on very specific assumptions about what reanalysis must be like: It must be abrupt and it must imply a change in hierarchical clause structure. However, as we have seen above, both assumptions are neither conceptually necessary nor are they held by the proponents of reanalysis themselves, at least not by all.
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(iv) Reanalysis, in contrast to analogy, has no psychological or neurological reality in terms of language processing (Fischer ). This argument is very difficult to prove or disprove with the methods of linguistic research without resorting to circularity. Fischer’s understanding of language processing and language change is mainly informed by Pulvermüller’s () model of ‘neuronal grammar,’ in which analogy plays a central role (cf. Fischer : –). This idea is intriguing in its reference to interdisciplinary research, but it is practically impossible to evaluate it meaningfully in a purely linguistic framework, especially given that hypotheses about grammar and the brain are constantly subject to modification themselves. (v) Reanalysis needs ambiguous structures. However, an ambiguous structure presupposes that an alternative interpretation already exists, that is, that some change has already taken place (Lehmann : ; De Smet , ). De Smet () proposes in more detail that change traditionally labeled as ‘reanalysis’ is in fact due to either analogy, ‘automation’ or ‘category-internal change,’ whereby the latter two can be understood as kinds of extension (cf. Section ..), that is, are also analogical in nature. This is a logical rather than an empirical argument and may in fact be the most substantial of all counterarguments to reanalysis in language change in general. It implies questioning fundamental assumptions about the nature of linguistic categories. If an existing model is necessary for reanalysis to a new category, then, indeed, either all change is essentially analogical, or we have to assume the existence of universally available categories (De Smet : , –). On the other hand, one could argue that universally available pathways of reasoning, that is, inferences in context, enable human beings to create new target meanings and functions through reanalysis even if the target was not extant as a model in the language. In that case, it would not be the categories that are universally available but the paths leading to those categories. Note also that according to Hansen (), reanalysis typically takes place in contexts that are not ambiguous but rather vague or underspecified while ambiguity may be the result of
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reanalysis. Furthermore, she makes a distinction between two kinds of reanalysis, namely ‘neo-analysis’ and ‘re-analysis,’ according to whether or not the hearer’s mental grammar already includes an existing analysis of the construction which is reanalyzed. In conclusion, it is not clear that every grammaticalization includes reanalysis, and it is clearly not the case that every reanalysis in language change is a grammaticalization. However, this does not exclude the possibility that reanalysis still plays an important role in grammaticalization. Almost everything hinges on the concept of reanalysis applied. In much of the discussion about reanalysis, proponents and opponents do not share the same concept. Opponents often assume a very rigid idea of reanalysis that one might stereotypically associate with historical research in a traditional generative framework. It only matches the actual concept of reanalysis espoused by some of its proponents, and is not a logical necessity either. 6.1.2 Analogy/extension Analogy is a broad concept based on similarity. Luraghi and Bubenik (: ) define analogical change as “[c]hange in word structure under the influence of semantically, formally or functionally related words. It results from an attempt to make some linguistic forms more similar to other linguistic forms in some respect.” A typical example is so-called ‘analogical leveling,’ in which words with a minor inflectional pattern change their forms in accordance with a majority pattern; for example Old English bōc/bēc (singular and plural of ‘book’) becoming book/books in Modern English or sunne/sunnan (singular and plural of ‘son’) becoming son/sons (Gaeta : ). The concept of analogy is believed to go back to Ancient Greece and was already established in nineteenth-century historical linguistics. It has been applied to practically all areas of grammar, including phonology. Because of its age and the breadth of phenomena that can be subsumed under it, it has been considered as a rather vague concept. Attempts have been made to improve on it, including the introduction of an alternative term ‘extension,’ which could be defined from scratch and therefore more narrowly. Concretely, Harris and Campbell (: ) define extension as “a mechanism which results in changes
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in the surface manifestation of a pattern and which does not involve immediate or intrinsic modification of underlying structure.” This definition is intentionally designed to complement reanalysis as a change not directly affecting surface structures. Analogy was originally known to historical linguists as an irregular type of change complementing regular change (cf. Campbell : –; Gaeta : –). So, not surprisingly, one of the earliest proponents of grammaticalization, Meillet ([] ), treated analogy and grammaticalization as mutually exclusive. When grammaticalization reemerged as a topic in linguistics in the s and s, analogy was initially treated with great skepticism as well. Givón (: ) labeled analogy as a “pseudo-explanation” and Heine and Reh (: ) wrote, “it is doubtful whether analogy can be attributed any explanatory significance at all.” In the s a different view became prevalent, according to which change was initiated by reanalysis, and analogy/extension was the potential key mechanism in the ‘actualization’ of the change, that is, its spread. The basic idea came from Timberlake (: ), who suggested that reanalysis was followed by ‘actualization,’ which is “the gradual mapping out of the consequences.” In the model of change proposed by Harris and Campbell (: ), “[o]nly reanalysis and borrowing can introduce an entirely new structure into a language,” while “by definition, extension cannot introduce an entirely novel structure.” Instead, extension followed on reanalysis and helped to alter surface manifestations step by step, thus rendering (syntactic) change gradual (Harris and Campbell : ). Multiple reanalyses and multiple extensions might follow on each other to complete a change. Taking the example of be going to again, Hopper and Traugott (, ) showed how a sequence of reanalysis and analogy (extension) could come up for the process of grammaticalization. As we saw in Section .. ((), ()), first a reanalysis, as from () to () took place. () Lilly is going [to marry Ron]. () Lilly [is going to] marry Ron. Then, analogy took over, as the pattern spread to verbs with which the original construction was semantically not compatible, such as like in () (cf. Hopper and Traugott : ). () Lilly [is going to] like Ron.
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Most instances of analogy in this kind of model, like the one in (), can perhaps more profitably be interpreted as manifestations of ‘context extension,’ that is, one of the four parameters of grammaticalization discussed in Section .. Since analogy brings about (linguistic or sociolinguistic) ‘rule spread’ rather than ‘rule change,’ it presupposes reanalysis in grammaticalization. For Hopper and Traugott (: –, ), the presence of analogy even provides evidence to establish that reanalysis has taken place. Lastly, as we can also expect from Harris and Campbell’s () model, another reanalysis, namely from going to to gonna, took place in the domain of morphology. While in the s the idea of a collaboration between reanalysis and analogy in grammaticalization took hold, more recently, scholars from totally different theoretical backgrounds have emerged who suggest that analogy is the fundamental motivation for grammaticalization, and reanalysis is irrelevant. In (i) and (ii) we will list brief versions of their claims. (i) Fischer (, , , ) seeks to locate grammaticalization in a ‘usage-based’ approach to the study of language. Based on a model of neuronal grammar by Pulvermüller (), Fischer assumes that not only language processing but also language acquisition is mainly based on analogy. In this view, analogy is not only the mechanism, but also the cause and motivation for language change. Grammaticalization itself is not a specific type of change, but the result of interaction of analogy with usage frequency (cf. Fischer : –), and it is essentially not directional. De Smet () takes the same ‘usage-based’ approach. However, as seen in Section .., while largely denying the validity of ‘reanalyis,’ he does not attribute change exclusively to analogy. (ii) For Kiparsky (), grammaticalization is ‘grammar optimization’ via analogical change. Since grammaticalization was originally conceptualized by Meillet () as the creation of ‘new’ categories, and analogy is based on the existence of an extant model, there is an apparent contradiction. This is resolved by Kiparsky () through the hypothesis that the model for grammaticalization, that is, constraints, patterns, and categories, are provided by Universal Grammar, that is, they need not be
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extant in the grammar of the language. Because of the constraints of Universal Grammar on optimization, analogical change is necessarily unidirectional. The type of analogical change instantiated through grammaticalization is labeled as ‘non-exemplar based’ (Kiparsky : –), in contrast to ordinary exemplar-based analogy, which can also lead to changes of different directionality. As can be seen, the claims in (i) and (ii) and the two concepts of analogical change are almost diametrically opposed and have little more in common other than their label. Fischer’s analogy is of the commonly known exemplar-based kind, while Kiparsky’s analogy is an extraordinary one which is non-exemplar based. Relatedly, Fischer’s model is usage-based while Kiparsky’s is based on Universal Grammar. And lastly, their respective concepts of ‘analogy’ lead to the assumption of non-directional change in the case of Fischer, and unidirectional change in the case of Kiparsky. 6.1.3 Summary Reanalysis and analogy have been proposed by many scholars as the main mechanisms of grammaticalization, sometimes one to the exclusion of the other, and sometimes as collaborating. Here is a nonexhaustive but hopefully representative list of stances with respect to the relationship between grammaticalization and these mechanisms. Some proponents are listed in brackets. A Grammaticalization is essentially based on reanalysis (e.g. Lord , ; Roberts and Roussau ; Eckardt ). B Grammaticalization relies on reanalysis, but analogy may collaborate in the process, via extension (e.g. Hopper and Traugott , ; Harris and Campbell Itkonen ; Traugott and Trousdale ). C Grammaticalization is essentially based on analogy (Fischer , , , ; Kiparsky ). D Grammaticalization may sometimes but does not always involve reanalysis and analogy (Lehmann ). E Grammaticalization may involve reanalysis, but analogy is a separate type of change (Heine and Reh ).
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F Grammaticalization often involves analogy, but reanalysis is irrelevant (De Smet , ). G Grammaticalization is a mechanism on its own, and analogy and reanalysis are of little relevance to it (Meillet ; the concept of reanalysis was not yet known at Meillet’s time; Haspelmath , where reanalysis is irrelevant, and analogy is not mentioned; Heine a—reanalysis and analogy both irrelevant). Some logical possibilities have not been claimed yet, for example, that grammaticalization equals analogy, or equals reanalysis. Both claims would be hampered from the start by the fact that grammaticalization has been conceptualized and often even defined as intrinsically unidirectional, unlike reanalysis and analogy. Also, analogy and reanalysis are not confined to grammar. Furthermore, it has also not been claimed yet that all grammaticalization must involve both reanalysis and analogy. To summarize, in modern grammaticalization theory, reanalysis has been the elephant in the room as the main mechanism, while proponents of analogy have emerged more recently. Much of the argumentation in the literature has taken place at a very abstract level, as also mirrored in this section. This reflects the difficulty in pinning down what is actually taking place in language change. Ultimately, in order to know what mechanisms are at work, one would have to be able to look into the mind of the speaker during language change, which is only a remote possibility in the near and mid-term future. This does not preclude that on the basis of purely linguistic arguments at some point a consensus can be reached about the main mechanism behind grammaticalization, but currently we are far from that.
6.2 The language system In historical linguistics, there has been a line of thought that looks to the language ‘system,’ or to language structures themselves, as the motivation or cause of language change in general. For example, according to Luraghi (: –), some scholars have claimed that languages change in order to preserve distinctions and distances between items in a language system, and others have claimed that languages are goal-directed systems in which change occurs to ensure the functionality of the system. In other words, languages are sets of
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correlated structures, and if the structures or their correlations are for some reason disrupted, or decline, or have been lacking in some aspect, language change will make up for the deterioration or the lack. This type of motivation for language change has also been called ‘internal,’ that is, inside of language and language structure. In contrast, there are possible ‘external’ motivations for change that come from outside language itself. Most prominent is language contact (see Chapter ), but there are also others, such as communication, social goals of the speaker, or cognition, which will be discussed in the following sections of this chapter. Internal motivations for language change in a slightly different sense are also mentioned prominently in the classic historical linguistics textbook by Hock and Joseph (). For example, a principle of “one meaning–one form” may be responsible for a development in which all word forms of the Modern English verb choose (choose, chose, chosen) came to have a word-internal /s/ throughout, instead of /s/ in some forms and /r/ in other forms in Old English. The process took place as analogical leveling of /r/ to /s/ (Hock and Joseph : ). Or, likewise, the emergence of the use of hopefully as a sentence adverb (e.g. Hopefully, I’ll be finished by tomorrow) may have been motivated by the parallel to the adverb happily that was previously used in that position (Hock and Joseph : ). Note that these types of analogical changes are not necessarily goal-directed. Nevertheless, they also refer to motivations for change that lie in language structure itself. When it comes to the phenomenon of grammaticalization, and the main stream of grammaticalization studies, however, the language system, or internal, structural motivations in general, have not played a prominent role in the discussion. In contrast, some proponents of grammaticalization have been explicitly critical. For example, Lehmann (: ) noted that “a considerable number of grammatical changes are quite superfluous from the point of view of the language system; that is to say, the change leads to a state that is maximally similar to the starting point. . . . This shows once more that system-internal explanations of linguistic change do not fit. There is much change just for the sake of change.” And Hopper and Traugott (: ) state that, “to assume that as an older system becomes eroded it may cease to function at an adequate level of communicative coherence and therefore must necessarily be revitalized . . . is to posit a stage of language such as is
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unknown, in other words it violates the uniformitarian principle and is not empirically supported by the data. Most emphatically, languages are not goal-oriented.” In other words, the idea that language systems are at any stage deficient is rejected on the basis of the observation that languages seem to perfectly meet their speakers’ needs at any historical stage of language development. Beyond that, the underlying idea of a ‘language system’ is also sometimes questioned, especially within frameworks that regard grammar as usage-based and therefore fluent or even ‘emergent’ (cf. Hopper and Traugott : , ). There are two exceptions to this indifference towards possible motivations for grammaticalization in language structure or in the language system. The most prominent one is the study of grammaticalization in the generative framework. This framework is generally concerned with language structure as the cause and the target of grammaticalization and will be discussed in some detail in Section .. The other exception in terms of a specific approach is the study of grammaticalization in the tradition of Danish structuralism (e.g. Andersen a, b, ; Nørgård-Sørensen et al. ; Nørgård-Sørensen and Heltoft ), which will be briefly discussed in this section. Other individual scholars holding a similar view are mentioned in “Further reading” below. The overarching idea about change in the Danish structuralist approach is that “all linguistic change, . . . is the product of multifarious grammar-internal conditions plus the social conditions” (Andersen a: ). Nørgård-Sørensen et al. () present a number of studies about grammaticalization changes within grammatical systems, especially morphological systems. For them, “the great majority of morphological changes are changes from one morphological system to another” (Nørgård-Sørensen et al. : xi). They coin the term ‘connecting grammaticalization.’ This term refers to the idea that “[m]orphological, topological and constructional paradigms very often connect to form complex paradigms, so-called hyperparadigms . . . , and grammaticalization processes include the formation, restructuring and dismantling of such complex paradigms” (Nørgård-Sørensen et al. : xii). One example is the parallel development of animacy as gender in the nominal domain, and the perfective–imperfective aspect distinction in the verbal domain in Russian as sketched out by Nørgård-Sørensen (: –). The development in the nominal domain started when, as a result of regular sound change, the nominative and the accusative
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of masculine singular nouns merged in Common Slavic. This led to an extended use of the genitive as the second argument (instead of an accusative) for the domain of individual-denoting nouns. Eventually, the choice of accusative or genitive for the second argument became an index of the animacy value of the noun. Decisively then, in the fourteenth century, all plural declensions of nouns, which were distinct until then, merged into one. This extended the genitive in second argument (accusative equivalent) function from specific masculine declensions to the entire noun lexicon. This in turn implied the spread of the animate/inanimate opposition to all nouns, that is, the establishment of animacy as a gender distinction. In parallel, in the eleventh century, a new suffix on verbs, -iva-/-ivaj-, developed that obtained the broader function of marking non-action, and began ousting other suffixes in this function. In the fourteenth century, the distinction of action/non-action was reanalyzed as change-of-state vs. non-change-of-state, that is, the modern perfective–imperfective distinction. This involved a conceptual reinterpretation of the action from an indivisible whole to a complex concept with two constituents, the activity and the state, linked by telicity, adding to the grammatical prominence of the activity/state distinction. Overall, then, the parallel changes in the verbal and nominal domain conspired to foreground an activity/potential actor (animate) versus state/non-potential-actor (inanimate) distinction in the language, and according to NørgårdSørensen (), they can be seen as one integral ‘reanalysis’ of major parts of the grammar. While grammar or ‘the language system’ as a motivation for grammaticalization is rather controversial, it should be less contentious that extant grammar serves as a constraint and a model for new grammaticalizations. Unless there is a severe disruption to language structure, most grammatical innovations adhere to the rules of extant grammar such as word and constituent order. Even under the influence of a contact language, when categories are ‘replicated’ from a model language, the category is usually replicated in a manner structurally compatible with the target language, for example by emulating already extant minor patterns in the target language (cf. Heine and Kuteva ; Chapter ). Likewise, it is only reasonable to assume that among many options available to express a state-of-affairs in a novel way, it is those that are supported by the extant vocabulary and grammar of a language that are more likely to be formed and eventually adopted.
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But beyond its ‘constraining’ influence, extant grammar most likely also serves as an analogical model. This can be seen by the fact that while theoretically we might expect that every language has one exponent for each cross-linguistically available grammatical category, in reality, speech communities tend to grammaticalize specific categories over and over, “neglecting” others. Furthermore, the categories whose grammaticalization is preferred may impact the mode of grammaticalization of other categories. For example, in the area of the verbal categories tense-aspect-mood, Bhat () described how languages may be either tense-, aspect-, or mood prominent. The not overtly expressed categories may be indirectly expressed through the wellgrammaticalized ones. In terms of grammaticalization, speech communities normally tend to maintain and only slowly change the typological profile of their language by renewing and extending extant categories rather than frequently abandoning extant categories and creating new ones instead. This might be due to the higher degree of attention afforded by speakers to the already extant categories whose expression is obligatory versus not yet grammaticalized categories (cf. research on thinking for speaking; e.g. McNeill ; Lai et al. ). Chafe () spoke of ‘florescence’ in languages. He suggests that, “[l]ike forests, languages may develop toward a climax stage where particular combinations of features, like plant communities, may flourish to define a particular language type. I think it is useful to think in terms of the florescence of linguistic features in this sense—the flowering of features that come to dominate the form a language takes” (Chafe : ). As examples, Chafe provided extremely elaborate pronominal prefixes, and noun incorporation in Iroquoian languages that are both the result of successive waves of grammaticalization. It is not hard to come by examples from other categories and languages as well (cf. Narrog ). In conclusion, there is a view of grammaticalization in which grammaticalization in essence is about grammatical paradigms, and in which the motivation for grammatical change has to be sought primarily in the grammatical system itself. Also, in this view, reanalysis and analogy as mechanisms of change neatly complement language structure as the motivation for change. Some of the major figures in grammaticalization studies have rejected this view at least partially, mainly on the grounds that for speakers of a language, grammar is at any point already completely functional. An alternative to viewing grammar as the motivation for grammaticalization is to view it as a constraint and
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a model. This is the view we take in this book. As Dahl (: ) put it, “the likelihood for a certain grammaticalization process to appear is at least to some extent dependent on structural properties of the language.” Further reading Vennemann () made a sophisticated case for language change as language improvement, and Kiparsky () for grammaticalization as grammar optimization. Fischer (, ) argues that the synchronic system motivates and determines the course of grammaticalization. Diewald and associates (Diewald , ; Diewald and Smirnova , etc.) are close to the group of Danish structuralists in considering paradigmatization as the essence of grammaticalization and in positing linguistic conditions as triggers for change.
6.3 Communicative needs or goals of the speaker One common conception about some types of language change in general, and grammaticalization in particular, is that the latter is a result of the communicative needs or goals of the speakers of a language. Both of the terms ‘communicative need’ and ‘communicative goal’ have been used. The term ‘goal’ seems to presuppose a more active role of the speaker, but a ‘need’ will only become effective in language activity if it is turned into a ‘goal,’ so we can consider them here as practically synonymic. If we conceive of this idea broadly, we can distinguish between (a) an internally oriented need for expression of the speaker and her thoughts, and (b) an externally oriented need to communicate successfully within the social context in which she uses language. Ultimately, these are two sides of one coin. First, as for (a) internal need, within the context of grammaticalization, Lehmann (: ) formulated this idea as follows: “Every speaker wants to give the fullest possible expression to what he means. The received grammatical devices are notoriously insufficient to adequately express what he wants to say.” Furthermore, “it is no exaggeration to say that languages change because speakers want to change them . . . they do not want to express themselves the same way they did yesterday, and in particular not the same way as somebody else did
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yesterday.” The roots of this idea can be traced back to Gabelentz (: ), who attributed language change to two major forces, a ‘drive towards ease’ (Bequemlichkeitstrieb), and a ‘drive towards clarity’ (Deutlichkeitstrieb). In this case, it is the latter that is referred to. A related idea is proposed by Heine et al. (: –). They argue that grammaticalization is the result of ‘problem solving,’ and that it is a creative process. Invoking the ‘principle of the exploitation of old means for novel functions’ of Werner and Kaplan (: ), Heine et al. () suggest that, [b]y means of this principle, concrete concepts are employed in order to understand, explain, or describe less concrete phenomena. In this way, clearly delineated and/or clearly structured entities are recruited to conceptualize less clearly delineated or structured entities, and nonphysical experience is understood in terms of physical experience, time in terms of space, cause in terms of time, or abstract relations in terms of physical processes or spatial relations. (Heine et al. : )
For example, future tense is a fairly abstract concept and in many languages across the globe it is therefore expressed and grammaticalized in terms of concepts of physical motion, that is, by means of movement verbs for ‘to go’ or ‘to come’ (see Kuteva et al. (: –) for examples). Heine’s idea is also directly connected to cognitive motivations (Section .), and will feature there again in more detail. Secondly, a presumptive (b) externally oriented need, namely to communicate more successfully in a social context, has been formulated by Haspelmath under the term ‘extravagance’: The speakers’ goal is not just being understood at the lowest possible cost, but rather being socially successful with their speech. . . . [S]ocial success can also be achieved by being extravagant, and I propose that this is the reason why some speakers introduce innovations. . . . [S]peakers not only want to be clear or “expressive,” sometimes they also want their utterance to be imaginative or vivid—they want to be little “extravagant poets” in order to be noticed . . . ” (Haspelmath : –)
Thus, speakers may choose a more ‘extravagant’ expression such as by means of instead of a simple preposition such as with, and if enough speakers copy this novel way of speaking, by means of will eventually be grammaticalized. In Haspelmath’s () model, grammaticalization is based on increasing frequency and habituation of an erstwhile lexical expression (see also Section .). While ‘extravagance’ is the motivation for starting the grammaticalization process, at the tail end the process of
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routinization leads not only to the loss of erstwhile extravagance but also eventually to the loss of phonological and morphological weight and semantic contents (Haspelmath : –). This will then prompt a new round of grammaticalization (see also Section . above on cycles). The idea of grammatical change as the indirect result of communicative goals of speakers has an intriguing theoretical background in Keller’s (, ) theory of the ‘invisible hand’ in language change. According to Keller, language change is neither ‘teleological,’ that is, driven by the purpose to achieve a specific goal such as language improvement, nor purely mechanical, that is, the result of random variation. It is a ‘phenomenon of the third kind,’ namely the unintended result of many intentional actions of individual speakers. For example, if a speaker chooses to use the relatively novel construction by means of instead of with to express an instrument or means, the motivation may be to be clearer, more expressive, or even to be extravagant in comparison to simply using with. This choice is goal-directed, that is, it serves to fulfill the speaker’s communicative purposes. On the other hand, the speaker does not have any intention to make by means of grammatical or to eventually make it a preposition. Thus, the grammaticalization of by means of is the unintended outcome of the speaker’s intentional actions. The idea of communicative goals motivating grammaticalization is in principle compatible with having ‘mechanisms’ to implement those goals but, as we have seen in the previous section, its main proponent Haspelmath (a) is sceptical of mechanisms. Haspelmath’s concept (a) of ‘extravagance’ and Heine et al.’s concept () of ‘problem solving’ have different presuppositions. Haspelmath’ idea of ‘extravagance’ will fit well in a scenario in which the concept to be grammaticalized is already grammaticalized but the speaker wants to express it differently in order to garner more hearer attention. It would also fit in particularly well with a model in which young adults rather than small children or adults are the instigators of grammaticalization (cf. Hopper and Traugott : ). In contrast, Heine et al.’s () concept would fit particularly well if the concept is not yet expressed, that is, if a new category is created. Another well-known potential motivation of language change in speaker-external, social communication needs is Grice’s () Cooperative Principle, which assumes that speakers communicate with a
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common purpose and adjust their contributions to conversation according to that purpose. This overall cooperative principle results in a number of maxims (Grice : ), which have been frequently adduced to explain language change via inferences. The whole of Section . is dedicated to this concept as applied to grammaticalization. Therefore, we will not go into details here. However, suffice it to state here that the idea of grammaticalization derived from the Cooperative Principle and conversational maxims can also be broadly understood as change based on communicative goals and needs. Finally, Andersen (: ), based on Jakobson () suggested six communicative needs that may result in innovations. These are, () reference precision, () emotive expressiveness, () aesthetic aptness, () conative (i.e. addressee-directed) effectiveness, () channel efficiency (i.e. communication as a connection), and () code conformity. The first three are what we have labeled as ‘internally oriented,’ and the others as ‘externally oriented.’ The idea of communicative goals and needs has not been without critics. The clearest rejection is formulated in Hopper and Traugott () as follows: Clearly “communicative need” is not a plausible motivation in most cases of grammaticalization, since not all languages express the same grammatical functions, and even less do they express the same grammatical functions in the same way. Furthermore, to assume that as an older system becomes eroded it may cease to function at an adequate level of communicative coherence and therefore must necessarily be revitalized (as suggested by Givón : cited in Bybee : ) is to posit a stage of language such as is unknown, in other words it violates the uniformitarian principle and is not empirically supported by the data. Most emphatically, languages are not goal-oriented. (Hopper and Traugott : )¹
However, this rejection seems to assume that speakers intentionally try improve or change languages, which are insufficient in one respect or the other. Very few proponents of language change based on the communicative needs or goals of the speaker would seem to claim that. Rather, the consensus goes in the direction of Keller’s theory of the ‘invisible hand.’ Language changes through the cumulative effect of local acts of communication by speakers who try to communicate successfully with local goals. Also, the idea of speakers trying to be ¹ Hopper and Traugott’s () critique seems to be simultaneously directed at structural motivation (Section .) and communicative goals or needs (this section).
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‘expressive’ is corroborated by the well-known high historical turnover in what is known as ‘boosters’ or ‘amplifiers’ such as very or terribly (cf. Peters ). The beauty of Keller’s (, ) ‘invisible hand’ is that it is basically agnostic with respect to more concrete motivations. In fact, basically an infinite number of communicative goals can be accommodated by the ‘invisible hand’ theory. It could be ‘extravagance,’ it could be ‘problem solving,’ but it could also be something totally different. For example, the speaker may want to squeeze in as much information as possible in the short time window of the hearer’s attention, thus eventually leading to shorter word forms. In this broader sense, the communicative needs or goals of the speaker are hard to pass over as potential motivations for grammaticalization.
6.4 Inferences and contexts Inferences, leading from one meaning to another, can be labeled both as ‘mechanisms’ and as ‘motivations,’ but the latter is more common in the grammaticalization literature. The concept of inferences is traditionally associated with the field of pragmatics (cf. Hopper and Traugott : –; Huang : –). Two theories have dominated this field in the past two decades: Neo-Gricean pragmatics and Relevance Theory. With respect to grammaticalization, the former has played a much more prominent role, especially through the work of Traugott, which culminated in the “Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change” (IITSC) model (Traugott and Dasher ). Accordingly, this model will be the main topic of this section. Then we will briefly deal with contexts of grammaticalization, and an alternative take from the vantage point of Relevance Theory. Note that the idea of inferences motivating grammaticalization rests on the assumption that the core of grammaticalization is semantic/functional change. Inferences operate in semantic change in general, for example also in lexical semantic change. But here we are interested in semantic change associated with grammaticalization. As already mentioned, the idea that inferences drive grammaticalization is mainly associated with the work of Traugott (; Traugott and König ; Traugott and Dasher ; Hopper and Traugott ; etc.). The original idea is that new grammatical meanings of some linguistic expressions are often due to ‘pragmatic strengthening.’
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‘Pragmatic strengthening’ means the strengthening (enhancement) of the ‘informativeness’ (cf. Levinson : –) of some linguistic expression through an additional inference associated with the expression. For example, the English conjunction while was originally purely temporal and meant ‘at the same time as.’ In contexts where the simultaneity of the two events connected by while was surprising or unexpected, an inference of concessivity would arise. () is an early example of an utterance where this inference is obviously present, that is, the hearer/reader can infer an adverse relationship that was not explicitly expressed by the speaker/writer. ()
Early Modern English (seventeenth century; quoted from the OED by Traugott and König : ) Whill others aime at greatnes boght with blod, Not to bee great thou stryves, bot to bee good ‘While others aim at greatness that is bought with blood, you strive to be not great but good.’
While being repeatedly used in such contexts then presumably led to the conventionalization of a concessive meaning of the connective. The idea of ‘pragmatic strengthening’ was further developed into the “Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change” model. This theory presupposes three different types of meaning and three heuristics for speakers that guide their choice of expression (cf. Traugott and Dasher : –). The heuristics are: The Q(uantity)-Heuristic: “Make your contribution as informative as required, and imply no more thereby,” (ii) The R(elevance)-Heuristic: “Say/write no more than you must, and mean more thereby,” and (iii) The M(anner)-Heuristic: “Avoid prolixity”; or: “Specially marked, complex expressions warn ‘marked situations’.” For example, if I use a longer and more elaborate expression, instead of an available shorter one, I might imply that I am conveying a specific meaning that is not explicit with the shorter expression.
(i)
As for the type of meanings, the first type is ‘coded meanings.’ These are the conventional meanings of a certain linguistic expression at a given time. Their opposite extreme are ‘utterance-token meanings.’ These are meanings that arise “on the fly” in individual utterances,
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that is, these are novel, spontaneous uses of some expression. In the middle of them are ‘utterance-type’ meanings. These are conventionalizations of novel uses or ‘utterance token meanings’ that are common in specific language communities, but can be canceled. For example, expressions of temporal precedence are prone to be reinterpreted, and given an additional meaning of concessivity or causality. This is the case with Modern English since, which has in some contexts, as in (), a purely causal reading, equivalent to ‘because.’ () Since I won’t be there to pick up my daughter tomorrow, I just wanted to say thank you now. No temporal reading is possible. In fact, the main clause I just wanted to thank you now even temporally precedes the first clause with since. However, the original meaning in Old English was a purely temporal one, ‘after,’ with the event in the since-clause preceding the event in the main clause. This meaning is still preserved in other contexts, especially when the events in both clauses are in the past, as in (). ()
I haven’t been able to score a single goal since the season started last fall.
Here, a causal reading does not make sense. In contrast, a sentence like () allows both interpretations for since, both ‘because’ and ‘after.’ ()
I haven’t been able to score a single goal since I had an ankle operation this spring.
Clearly, the difference between () and () is not a structural one, but results from additional inferences of causality between the two clauses that can be attributed to () but not to (). As a matter of world knowledge, we know that an ankle operation will cause a decline in sports performance, so both speakers and hearers may impute such a reading to the relationship between the two events. Among the heuristics, it is primarily the R-Heuristic “Say no more than you must, and mean more thereby” that drives the inference. This heuristic has stepped in place of the ‘Principle of Informativeness’ in Traugott’s earlier work. In the case of since, a speaker explicitly verbalizes only a temporal relationship but may in fact mean a causal relationship beyond that. The Q-Heuristic is a factor that delays change, while the M-heuristic is secondarily in play when the new use is especially noticeable or conspicuous (cf. Traugott and Dasher : ). In the case of since
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in () this is hardly the case, since for Modern English speakers, the causal use is already established. In terms of the “Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change” model, since has already reached the stage of ‘coded meaning.’ () is a possible early example from a time when the causal reading was presumably still unconventional, that is, probably an ‘utterance-token,’ and at best an ‘utterance-type’ meaning. () Old English (King Alfred’s Orosius, as quoted in Mitchell (: )) ϸa, siϸϸan he ire wæs and gewundod, he then, after/since he angry was and wounded, he ofslog micel ϸæs folces slaughtered much of-that troop ‘Then, since/after he was angry and wounded, he slaughtered much of that troop.’ A case parallel to ‘since,’ but where the causal relationship is not yet established even in Modern English, is after as in (). () After we read your novel we felt greatly inspired. (Hopper and Traugott : ) After in () can have a ‘because’ reading (Traugott and König : ). However, there is probably no larger community of English speakers for whom the causal interpretation is a coded meaning that cannot be canceled in specific contexts. For most communities of English speakers, the causal reading of after is either at the stage of ‘utterance token meaning,’ if the use is merely spontaneous, or of ‘utterance type meaning,’ if the use is to some degree established. There is considerable overlap between the model of change through invited inferences as presented above, and the ‘context-induced reinterpretation’ or ‘context extension’ model (Heine et al. ; Heine ) discussed in Section ... In the ‘context extension’ model, invited inferences operate at the stage of the ‘bridging’ context. They correspond to ‘utterance-token’ and ‘utterance-type’ meanings, such as in examples (), (), and () in contrast to the ‘coded’ meanings of the switch context, such as example (). The main difference between the two models is one of perspective: While the context extension model highlights and differentiates various linguistic contexts and the speaker’s cognitive processes, the Invited Inferences Theory highlights speaker–hearer interaction, and differentiates between the inferences
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involved. One can also say that the context extension model has the main function of identifying and comparing stages of grammaticalization across different languages, while the Invited Inferences Theory focuses on the development of individual forms or constructions. Despite a few quibbles with specific aspects of the Invited Inferences Theory (cf. Traugott a: –; also Kearns ), this model has been broadly accepted by scholars adopting the same Neo-Gricean approach to pragmatics. In contrast, it has been viewed rather critically from the perspective of Relevance Theory. Nicolle (, ) has levered some criticism against both Traugott’s IITSC and Heine’s context extension model. Decisively, for him, grammaticalization does not need a step by step process via generalization of inferences, or bridging contexts leading to the switch context. Nor are there different types of inferences necessary. All that is needed for a grammatical meaning to emerge is a ‘Privileged Interactional Interpretation’ that adds ‘procedural’ information to the lexical item’s ‘conceptual’ information. And this can happen spontaneously and directly. More recently, even the whole concept of conversational implicatures has been put into question (Lepore and Stone ). Traugott (a) herself has recently suggested further distinguishing different types of invited inferences: local inferences, discoursestructuring inferences, and turn-taking inferences that may be responsible for different types of semantic and functional changes, not only in grammaticalization.
6.5 Cognition and conceptualization While the idea of inferences being the driving force behind grammaticalization is mainly associated with the work of Traugott and associates, the idea that cognition is the driving force is mainly associated with the work of Heine and associates. In contrast to Traugott as a scholar of English language history, Heine and his associates studied a variety of African languages from a typological perspective. The fundamental observation was that the same source-target relationships in grammaticalization can be found in a variety of unrelated and otherwise structurally dissimilar languages. This could only be explained by common principles of human cognition driving grammaticalization irrespective of language family, language area, or the structure of the language where the change occurred.
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Many grammatical categories in the languages of the world are derived via grammaticalization from a very limited set of sources relating to basic human experience. In Section ., we have already given the example of possessive constructions from Heine (a). Comparative constructions are another one. Most expressions of comparison in the languages of the world have grammaticalized through one of the source schemas listed in (). X is the comparee, Y the predicate, and Z the standard of comparison (Heine a: ). () Source schema X is Y surpasses Z Y is Y at Z X is Y from Z Y is Y to Z X is Y, Z is not Y X is Y, then Z X is Y (like) Z X and Z, X is Y
Label Action Location Source Goal Polarity Sequence Similarity Topic
As can be seen in (), the schemas have to do with what one does, where one is located, where one moves from or to, and the like. They determine the particular linguistic shape a given comparative construction is going to take in a language. Many of them are shared with grammatical constructions in other categories, such as possession (as we saw in Section .) or tense-aspect (Heine : ). The first five schemas in the list are particularly common in the languages of the world, while the others are rather negligible. () and () are examples for the realization of the action schema in genetically unrelated languages. () is from a Niger-Congo (African) language and () from Thai. () Yoruba (Kuteva et al. : ) Ile mi kere ju tiwon House my small exceed theirs ‘My house is smaller than theirs.’ () Thai (Kuteva et al. : ) Khaw jaj kwaa phom he big exceed me ‘He is bigger than me.’
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Heine (a: –) notes that there is an areal bias in the distribution of source schemas, suggesting that language contact plays an important role in the “choice” of schema, but the important fact is that the source schemas seem to be in principle available to speakers of any language. More generally, beyond the expression of grammatical categories, Heine’s approach is based on the following five premises:² () The basic function of language is to convey meaning; () form and structure of language are not arbitrary but motivated; () ‘external’ explanations of language structure and change are superior to ‘internal’ motivations, since language use itself is externally motivated; () language is a product of history and can be explained with reference to that history; and () language change proceeds unidirectionally from the lexical to the grammatical. There are several ways to think about the relationship between language and cognition; for example language determines cognition, or language as an innate faculty, or that language equals cognition. Heine assumes that language merely reflects conceptualization, and this reflection also leaves its imprint on grammaticalization. At the core of grammaticalization is semantic change, which relies on semantic extension based on unidirectional ‘conceptual transfer’ from more concrete to more abstract meanings. Grammatical concepts are generally more abstract, derived, and relational, tend to have no meaning in themselves, that is, only in conjunction with other words; and they contribute to structure rather than to cognitive representation. Thus, grammaticalization can be seen as a creative process that serves to solve the problem of how to express the more abstract domains of grammar by making use of more concrete concepts. Common sources are from basic domains of human experience, such as body parts, location, movement, or action, and they come to express meanings in more abstract domains such as time and quality. For example, cross-linguistically, numerals are often derived from expressions for ‘one hand’ (five), ‘two hands’ (ten), and the expressions for individual fingers for numbers in between. Adpositions for ‘on’ or ‘above’ may be derived from body part nouns like ‘head,’ adpositions for ‘behind’ or ‘after’ may be derived from body part nouns like ‘back’
² The following paragraphs are based on Chapters , , and from Heine et al. () and Chapter from Heine (a).
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or ‘butt,’ adpostions for ‘under’ from landmarks such as ‘earth,’ and aspectual notions like inception, continuation, or result may be derived from verbs of motion such as ‘go’ or ‘come.’ Not surprisingly, then, the relationship between the source and target of concepts related through grammaticalization can often be described in terms of metaphor, especially of so-called ‘experiential’ metaphor, that is, the kind of metaphor that conceptualizes abstract concepts through concrete ones. Thus, ‘butt’ can be understood as a metaphor for ‘behind’ or ‘head’ as a metaphor for ‘above.’ On the other hand, the actual change from source to target meaning is assumed to be gradual and to take place in small contiguous (metonymic) steps. Heine et al. (: ) write that “[c]onceivably, metonymy is the more basic component of this process in that metaphor is grounded in metonymy.” However, metaphor may be “responsible for defining the direction of conceptual change” (Heine et al. : ). In this manner, Heine et al. assume that metaphor and metonymy are, as a rule, both involved in meaning change in grammaticalization. As an example, in the development of since from temporal to causal conjunction (cf. Section .), each step in the development from temporal, (), to ambiguously temporal-causal, (), to unambiguously causal, (), can be taken as a contiguous, metonymic extension of meaning. () I have done quite a bit of writing since we last met. () Since Susan left him, John has been very miserable. () Since you are not coming with me, I will have to go alone. Thus, the metonymic extension of meaning can be said to be more basic. However, when directly comparing the source meaning in () with the target meaning in (), a TIME-to-CAUSE metaphor can be identified in which a sequence of events in time is used to metaphorically refer to a sequence of events in a causal relation. While this metaphor is not found in the actual change, which is metonymic, it may nevertheless be a cognitively guiding principle, whose effects can be found in many languages across the world. In Heine’s model of grammaticalization, the second force that shapes the process besides conceptualization is communication. This includes the speaker–hearer relationship, but also cultural, religious, and sociopolitical factors (cf. Heine a: –).
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Further reading The role of metaphor in particular has been contentious in gramaticalization. Chapter of Sweetser () is a classic on semantic change in the English modals that is based on the concept of metaphor. Stolz () is a short monograph specifically on grammaticalization and metaphor. Among the founding figures of grammaticalization studies, besides Heine, Bybee especially entertained the idea of metaphor as an important mechanism of meaning change in grammaticalization (Bybee et al. : ch. ; Bybee and Pagliuca ; and elsewhere). Hoefler and Smith (), based on a model of ostensive-inferential communication, identify metaphor and reanalysis domain-general mechanisms that are more basic and ancient than language. They claim that these cognitive mechanisms are not only decisive for grammaticalization but can also provide a unified explanation for language change and the origin and evolution of language in general. In contrast, Waltereit (), for example, argues that only metonymy and not metaphor is relevant for grammaticalization, and Juge () even presents a strong invective against the idea of metaphor operating in grammaticalization. Langacker (, , and elsewhere) dealt with grammaticalization within his framework of ‘Cognitive Grammar,’ but mainly in terms of subjectification (cf. Section .).
6.6 Frequency of use and language processing Another classic approach to what drives grammaticalization is motivation in terms of frequency. This approach is mostly associated with the research of Bybee and associates. The following paragraphs are therefore based on Bybee (a, , ) unless otherwise stated. The basic idea is that grammaticalization is a process of ritualization crucially involving repetition (cf. Haiman ), also referred to as routinization (Detges and Waltereit ; Bybee a: , ). Ritualization in general, that is, as a cultural phenomenon, implies habituation, automatization, reduction of form, and emancipation, in short, the development of symbolic function. In the case of language change, and specifically grammaticalization, a certain pattern may start out semantically and functionally transparent (analytic), but through repetition it becomes ritualized and establishes itself as a conventional (synthetic) pattern of its own. Frequent repetition brings about five changes that are typically associated with grammaticalization:
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(i) (ii) (iii) (iv)
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semantic weakening through routinization (corresponding to habituation); phonetic reduction (corresponding to reduction of form); a higher degree of autonomy as a grammatical structure, that is, dissociation from the source (corresponding to automatization); loss of semantic transparency (corresponding to habituation): The internal structure of a grammaticalizing item becomes intransparent. Semantically, bleaching occurs, while it may simultaneously gain new pragmatic functions; and entrenchment in the language and preservation of structure (corresponding to automatization and emancipation).
In quantitative linguistics, usually two types of frequency are distinguished, type frequency and token frequency. Type frequency in the case of grammaticalization refers to the type and number of contexts in which a linguistic form can be used, including for example the number of verbs with which an aspect marker co-occurs. It corresponds to ‘context extension’ in the model of grammaticalization presented in Chapter of this book, and instigates grammaticalization. Token frequency refers to the frequency with which an individual form may be used. It becomes relevant when grammaticalization has kicked in. For one thing, high token frequency of one item may lead to its phonetic reduction, since if the same word is used twice or more in the same stretch of discourse in conversation, it becomes predictable and requires less pronunciation effort. For another thing, high token frequency also leads to loss in semantic substance (desemanticization; in Bybee’s writings the preferred term is ‘bleaching’). It also leads to the preservation of frequently used structural patterns, such as irregular verb forms, as a result of storage in memory. Another aspect of grammaticalization through high-frequency usage is ‘chunking’: The central noun or verb in a construction loses its verb or noun properties. Linguistic forms that frequently co-occur become a unit, and do not allow other forms to intervene. ‘Chunking,’ then, is the fusion of linguistic forms that frequently co-occur. With processing efficiency rising, the pronunciation of each form becomes shorter. In parallel, the independent meaning of each linguistic form co-occuring becomes weaker and a semantic-pragmatic interpretation gets attached to the whole unit. Very generally, in this approach, grammar is seen as crucially influenced by language processing in language activity. Those structures
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that are easy to process for hearers and speakers will grammaticalize more readily. As an example of grammaticalization involving high usage frequency, we give a short sketch of the development of the Old English verb cunnan to the Modern English modal can as presented in Bybee (a). Cunnan was originally a lexical verb with the meaning ‘know.’ It could already have verbal complements in Old English, denoting a ‘mental ability’ (as Modern English can in I can understand what you say). It then extended to general ‘ability’ in Early Middle English (as can in I can lift pounds), and finally to general possibility (‘root possibility’) (as can in Our service page can be accessed on any web browser). Each step of semantic generalization means more contexts of use (higher type frequency), involving more types of subjects and verbs in the complement with which the auxiliary can co-occur. For example, while mental ability and ability are basically restricted to human beings as subjects, root possibility has no such restrictions. Likewise, while mental ability is restricted to verbs of intellectual states and activities, skills, and communication, ability may include all kinds of activities and actions, while root possibility is compatible with basically all kinds of verbs. Examples () to () from Bybee (a) illustrate the gradual extension of uses. () is the lexical use in Old English, () the ability use with a mental verb, () the general ability use, both in Middle English, and () the general possibility use in Early Modern English. ()
Old English (Ags. Gospel of Matthew xxii) (Bybee a: ) Ge dweliað and ne cunnon halige gewritu ‘You are led into error and do not know the holy writings.’
()
Middle English (Chaucer: Monk’s Tale, ) (Bybee a: ) Ful wys is he that kan hymselven knowe! ‘Completely wise is one who knows himself!’
()
Middle English (Chaucer: Nun’s Priest’s Tale, ) (Bybee a: ) But I wol passe as lightly as I kan. ‘But I will pass by as lightly as I can.’
()
Early Modern English (Hawes: The Passetyme of Pleasure xvi. xlix) (Bybee a: ) No worldely thyng can be wythout stryfe. ‘No worldly thing can be without discord.’
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Bybee (a) notes a number of remarkable features of this development. First, the verb classes with which cunnan/can was compatible expanded gradually through similarity with those verbs that were already used with cunnan/can. There was no sudden leap. The same holds for subjects. Initially only compatible with human subjects, it came to be used with inanimate subjects that metonymically stood for humans, such as the body parts eyes and heart, and then finally extended to inanimate subjects. () is a Middle English example of wit standing metonymically for the person. () Middle English(Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde, Book IV, ) (Bybee a: ) As ferforth as my wit kan comprehend. ‘As far as my wit can comprehend.’ Secondly, cunnan/can also developed high frequency collocations such as can tell or can see in Middle English. The emergence of such high frequency collocations strengthened the entrenchment of can as an auxiliary and led to further desemanticization. Thirdly, in the general possibility use can was now also able to have stative predicates (cf. ex. ()) and passives as complements, further extending its contexts of use. Finally, there was also a loss of morphological and phonetic substance, as cunnan lost its final inflectional syllable that was still present in Old English and is further reduced to [kŋ] or [ŋ] in high frequency contexts in Present-Day English, such as after the subject pronoun I. Overall, the most salient feature of cunnan’s development is continuous desemanticization or generalization through habituation. Bybee’s approach is embedded in so-called Usage-Based Theory, an approach with the fundamental tenet that language structure emerges from language use. Grammaticalization is a central part of this approach. Within it, the mechanisms of frequency can explain the development of grammatical structure and meaning. Furthermore, since the mechanisms of frequency are based on universal properties of language processing of humans, it is the mechanisms that are universal. In short, it is the diachronic mechanisms that lead to the structures which are universal, and not the structures themselves. Although the frequency account of grammaticalization has been immensely influential, it has also been subject to some criticism. Heine et al. (: –) and Heine and Kuteva (: –) remark
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that often very frequent words do not grammaticalize while less frequent ones do. Furthermore, there are also so-called low-frequency grammaticalizations such as the ‘threaten’ and ‘promise’ proximatives in the European languages, and cases where the lexical word is more frequent than the grammaticalized ones (note also the English progressive at the first stage of its development as described in Section .. and by Kranich (a)). Mair () analyses some of the low frequency grammaticalizations, and observes that grammaticalization in written registers is generally low-frequency. Traugott (a: ) notes that frequency is unlikely to be a motivation for grammaticalization since () one would first have to explain the motivation for the rise in frequency, and () in actual historical change, frequency often rises after grammaticalization or does not rise at all. Finally, using a quantitative approach based on English text corpora, Saavedra (, chs , ) finds that there is a striking difference between the analysis of synchronic and diachronic data with respect to frequency. He finds substantial support for the claim that grammaticalization and token frequency are positively correlated in synchrony, as grammatical elements involve higher token frequencies than lexical ones. In contrast, when looking at grammaticalization diachronically, that is, as an ongoing process, there was no clear correlation, and what is more, many grammatical elements studied by Saavedra were less frequent than their lexical counterparts (Saavedra : –).
Further reading Notable publications besides the work by Bybee and associates based on or discussing the frequency approach to grammaticalization include Krug (), Hoffmann (), Pustet (), Peng (), Szmrecsanyi (), Schulte and Blas Arroyo (), and Saavedra (). Hawkins (, and elsewhere) is remarkable for developing a unique theory about how language processing determines language structure, whereby he also refers to grammaticalization. Ritualization is also referred to as ‘routinization’ (Detges and Waltereit ; Bybee a: , ), by which a linguistic sign sequence is made more frequent, thereby progressively ruling out alternatives and choices (Detges and Waltereit ).
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DISCOURSE
6.7 Discourse Discourse has been proposed as a driving force of grammaticalization on two different levels. For one thing, grammaticalized structures may develop out of discourse structures, in particular, conversational structures in spoken language. For another thing, ‘discourse’ can be taken in a very broad meaning, including the language-dependent social-cultural interaction at the level of a larger community of speakers. Section .. deals with the forces of discourse operating at the level of conversational interaction (or text construction), as has been the subject of research by several scholars, while Section .. takes a broad view of ‘discourse,’ particularly referring to the work of one scholar, namely Ariel (). 6.7.1 Grammaticalization from discourse structures At the most concrete level, grammaticalizations may be motivated by, and emerge directly out of conversational routines. Couper-Kuhlen () presents three concrete examples for the process. They have in common that grammaticalization is the integration or condensation of an originally bipartite structure in turn taking to a single sequence. Note that the examples are from contemporary spoken language and are not diachronic, and thus simply illustrate how a change might proceed diachronically based on synchronic observations. ‘Extraposition’ is a construction in which the nominal subject is filled in English by a placeholder subject it, which is followed by an evaluative adjective or noun and a complement clause presenting the proposition that is the subject of the evaluation. An example would be It’s sad having to spend my youth for people like this. Couper-Kuhlen (: –) presents a possible conversational precursor to this construction in conversation (). The example has been abbreviated. () Nan: They are so cute #yeah they really. they were just (.) ve:ry .hhhhh very very sweet with me: a:nd it was so funny in fact one of the kids came up to me. [ lines omitted] .hhhhh en then afterwards Ra:lph came up and he said (.)
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I:’d like (.) Nancy? he said I’d like to (.) take you over to Shakey’s and buy you a #bee:r. (.) uhhhh #huh [#huh.h] hhh The highlighted clause it was so funny refers forward to the following story about a particular student in the speaker’s psychology class that ends with the speaker’s laughter in the last line quoted here. According to Couper-Kuhlen (: ), the sequence represents a conversational routine consisting of two actions, namely (a) a prospective evaluation, followed by (b) the delivery of what is being evaluated. These two actions are not syntactically linked in (). However, they can be integrated syntactically, especially when a single situation is described. This is the case in (), where the two interlocutors discuss TV reporting in the aftermath of Robert Kennedy’s assassination in Los Angeles. ()
Nan: well I had turned it on when I first got u:p just to see: how thin:gs were: progressi:ng but the thing was so sad and all that horrible sad music they kept [ lines omitted] [.t.hhh we:ll ↑I think it’s sad that they don’t uh: .h allo:w-you know the families at least the decen[cy of hav]ing some privacy. Emm: [eeyah]
This integrated form yields the grammatical structure of extraposition. Couper-Kuhlen (: ) views it as the “coalescence and entrenchment of the more loosely organized ‘evaluative preface + telling’ conversational routine.” She provides similar examples for integration of concessive conversational routines into concessive clauses and a ‘recognition search sequence’ routine into left dislocation. In a metaphorical way of speaking these are ‘vertical-to-horizontal’ paths of grammaticalization. That is, text that is stretched vertically across a number of sequences gets integrated horizontally into just one sequence. The author admits that it is unclear whether this scenario of integration of bipartite structures is applicable to non-bipartite structures as well, or even to all bipartite structures, but at least it is a plausible avenue for grammaticalization of some structures.
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On a more abstract level than conversational routines, motivations for grammaticalization can also be sought in discourse strategies or rhetoric strategies. Detges (, ) and Waltereit (, ) propose discourse strategies as the driver of grammatical change, including grammaticalization. Their approach is inspired by Keller’s () ‘invisible hand’ theory of language change (Section .), according to which language change is the unintended consequence of intentional actions by speakers. In this case, speakers choose specific discourse strategies in order to speak successfully, and these strategies lead to change. As an example, Waltereit (, ) presents the development of the French adverb bien ‘well’ into a concessive conjunction as in (), a modal particle as in (), and a discourse marker as in (). () French (Waltereit : ) J’y ai participé, bien que je sois conscient du risque. ‘I took part, even though I am aware of the risk.’ () French (Waltereit : ) Vous avez bien reçu mon message? ‘You got my message, didn’t you?’ () French (Waltereit : ) GAS: non le problème oui c’est c’est la politique d’immigration ‘No the problem, yes, is the immigration policy’ CG: voilà oui d’accord bien non parce que votre formule elle peut être ambiguë oui elle peut être interprétée hein y en a plein qui disent le problème c’est l’immigration. ‘Right, I agree, well no, because what you say may be ambiguous: it may be read, well, many people say the problem is immigration itself’ As a concessive conjunction, bien que has scope over a clause (‘I am aware of the risk’), as a modal particle it has scope over the whole sentence (‘You got my message’) with the interactional function of “orientating the question towards a positive answer” (Waltereit : ). Finally, as a discourse marker it has a metatextual or interactional meaning and free scope extending over a relevant stretch of discourse. The development of a discourse marker is in the view of this book and of Waltereit (: ) himself not a case of grammaticalization (see Chapter ), so we focus here on the two other uses. The development as a modal particle, according to Waltereit (: ), is due to a strategy of scalar argumentation. A speaker claims that, contrary to
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what the hearer expects, a state of affairs is the case to a high degree, implying the weaker fact that the state of affairs is the case at all. () is a possible example for the genesis of the modal particle use from the thirteenth century. The speakers deny not having heard of Troy’s destruction by claiming they have heard ‘a lot’ about it. ()
Old French (Robert de Clari, La Conquête de Constantinople ) (Waltereit (: ) Et mesires Pierres respondi: ‘Ba!’, fist il, ‘de n’avés vous oï comment Troies le grant fu destruite ne par quel tor ?—‘Ba ouil !’, fisent li Blak et li Commain, ‘nous l’avons bien oï dire.’ ‘And Mylord Pierre answered: “Ba,” he said, “haven’t you heard about how Troy the great was destroyed and in which way this happened?”—“Of course,” said Blak and Commain, “we heard clearly/a lot about it”.’
As for the concessive use, bien was already used to concede a point in argumentation in Old French without being part of a conjunction, as in the example from a twelfth-century text in (). ()
Old French (Chevalier de la Charrette, , TFA) (Waltereit : ) Dahez ait qui vos oï onques, Ne vit onques mes, que je soie! Bien puet estre, mes je pansoie, Que le gué me contredeïstes; Bien sachiez que mar me feristes. ‘Cursed be whoever saw or heard you, even if it’s myself! It is well possible that you forbade me the ford, but I was deep in thought. You should know well that you did me wrong.’
Bien in () argumentatively strengthens the first proposition ‘It is possible that you forbade me [to cross] the ford’. However, it is overridden by mes ‘but’ in the following clause. That is, no matter how strong the force of the first proposition is, it cannot outweigh the force of the second proposition. This is essentially already a concessive construction, and repeated use of bien in initial position in the concessive clause will have established the association with concessive meaning. In fact, according to Waltereit (: ), bien was already established as a concessive conjunction in Old French in collocation with se ‘if ’ as se bien. Overall, then, for Waltereit (, ), grammar is diachronically derived from discourse structures, and the specific outcome of
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grammaticalization is determined by the discourse strategies for which a lexical (or already grammaticalized) item is used. Further reading Other notable contributions to the study of grammaticalization as motivated by discourse include Traugott (b), Haselow (), and Van Rompaey ().
6.7.2 Discourse as the arbiter In the case of Detges and Waltereit, discourse is conceptualized as driving grammatical change instead of other factors, whose validity is questioned by them, especially cognition. Ariel (), in contrast, acknowledges the role of cognition and inferencing, and instead locates discourse at a level superordinate to those other factors. For her, other factors ‘propose,’ and a certain type of discourse is the ‘arbiter’ between practically limitless choices of linguistic expression. That is, for Ariel, discourse is neither a ‘motivation’ nor a ‘mechanism’ but has a third role, presiding over other factors that have been identified as motivations and mechanisms. Since this idea is also highly relevant for the current chapter, we will discuss it here. Ariel () comes up with a model for grammaticalization in which all of the ‘driving’ factors from Sections . to ., that is the language system, communicative goals, cognition and inferences, frequency and discourse play a role. She views speakers’ communicative goals as “a most important impetus for the formation of discoursal patterns” (Ariel : ). In accordance with Keller’s invisible-hand theory of linguistic change (Section .), speakers act with communicative goals and local communicative intentions but not with the intention to create grammatical conventions. Instead, new grammatical conventions are the unintended side product of their actions. Cognition (Section .) through processes such as metaphor and metonymy and principles like iconicity, on the one hand, and inferences on the other hand (Section .) are identified both as mechanisms ‘proposing’ innovations (e.g. Ariel : ) and as the initial ‘filters’ in a ‘filtering chain’ (Ariel : ). New uses enter discourse and form new discourse patterns (Section .), but in order to actually get entrenched, they need to
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acquire saliency. The most common form of saliency is frequency (Section .). For Ariel (: ), the importance of repetition and frequency of use is also plausible in terms of a neural theory of grammar, since connections between memory units need to be strengthened through frequent firing. However, it is clear that there is no one-to-one relationship between frequency of words and grammaticalization (Ariel : ). Ariel (: –) also suggests that it is not always the best motivated pattern in terms of the speaker’s communicative goals that gets grammaticalized. Often, it is a relatively arbitrary pattern that happens to gain salience, for example because an influential speaker or an influential speech community or medium created a precedence and other speakers followed out of conservatism, and because of the mechanism of priming in discourse. Speakers may even change language by conservatively trying to follow what they perceive as the rules of a language (Ariel : ). The extant grammar of a language (Section .) is considered as another filter for possible new ways of expression. Yet other filters include culture and society (e.g. taboos, male bias, politeness), leading to different outcomes of grammaticalization in different languages. But even when there are no stark contrasts in terms of grammar or culture between two given languages the outcome may be different, just because of the coincidence of which pattern happened to become salient in the language in question. For example, the temporal conjunction while acquired concessive meaning in English while its German cognate weil ‘because’ acquired causal meaning. Both readings are cognitively equally plausible and corresponding implicatures are equally available in temporal uses, but one inference became salient in one language, and the other one in the other language. According to Ariel, the decisive factor is which reading first acquires the status of the ‘salient discourse pattern’ in a speech community, and this may be due to relatively arbitrary circumstances. Perhaps due to the fact that it was part of a publication not obviously related to language change or grammaticalization, Ariel’s () concept of grammaticalization has not received the response from the grammaticalization research community that it arguably deserves. Accordingly, there is also no corresponding critical feedback that we are aware of. Through her broad perspective Ariel () offers a comprehensive and unique view of the flow of grammaticalization. However, overall her model is not yet particularly well fleshed out.
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CONCLUSION
A potential weakness with respect to the topic of this chapter is the relative lack of explicitness about motivations, since for Ariel most of the potential ‘motivations,’ including discourse as her main focus, are in fact only ‘filters.’ Other concerns are the relative lack of concrete examples from grammar (most of Ariel’s examples are from the lexicon), and a lack of concrete examples for the stage of explicate inferences, which is crucial for grammaticalization in her model.
6.8 Conclusion In this chapter we have discussed the factors that are most commonly assumed to drive grammaticalization. They include so-called ‘mechanisms’ and ‘motivations.’ Reanalysis and analogy have been overwhelmingly cited as ‘mechanisms.’ Cognitive processes such as metaphorization and metonymization as well as inferences, frequency, and discourse have been referred to both as mechanisms and as motivations. The communicative goals of the speaker have only been named as a motivations. In fact, the communicative goals of the speaker, specifically embedded in an ‘invisible hand’ theory of language change as the unintended results of intentional actions à la Keller (), are the most broadly accepted ‘motivation,’ perhaps because they do not obviously compete with other proposed motivations. Other factors, especially the language system, frequency, cognition, and conceptualization (in particular metaphor) and inferences have been subject to controversies among their proponents. As we have seen in Section ., this is especially true for reanalysis and analogy, whose validity has been altogether denied by some scholars. However, all of these potential mechanisms and motivations are not necessarily mutually exclusive but may as well be complementing each other. In fact, they are so different from each other that there is no reason to assume that any of them logically excludes other ones. Each may have a role in a chain of events that leads to grammaticalziation, and moreover, the role and the weight of each factor may differ in each concrete case of grammaticalization. Here we present a rough outline of how these factors may collaborate. We assume that the starting point is the speaker (or writer), since there cannot be grammaticalization without speech production. We thereby take for granted that the speaker also acts as a hearer (or
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reader) in communication and her speech output is influenced by speech input. In some cases, a specific interpretation of the speaker’s speech input may be crucial for an innovative output, but nevertheless it can only be by her role as a speaker that she initiates change. The speaker has a large number of communicative needs, including the need to express some pre-linguistic concept verbally, at times the need to communicate a concept in a way that attracts attention, at times the need to express something only implicitly, at yet other times to be brief in his or her verbal expression, and, in most instances, to cooperate in conversation and conform to the norms of the speech community (cf. Section .). As we have seen in the previous sections, each of these potential needs has been claimed to potentially lead to change, and we assume here that this is indeed the case. The tools to respond to these needs are in the domain of cognition, pragmatic inferencing, and the processing of speech. While the need to express pre-linguistic concepts or express an extant linguistic concept more effectively has been associated mainly with cognitive processes, implicit expression and cooperation in conversation have been associated mainly with inferencing. Implicitness and shortening of speech signals are also associated with language processing. Frequency comes in when an innovation gains currency in a speech community. It is a mechanism rather than a motivation for change, but it obviously plays an important role in entrenching change in an individual speaker and in a speech community, and can even ‘drive’ further change, especially the kind of phonological and morphological changes that are typical for high-frequency grammaticalizations. We regard the extant grammar of the language in question and analogy not as a motivation for change but as potential constraints and models for the target of change. Clearly, most new patterns will adhere to the grammatical structure of the language. Among those patterns that are cognitively available to grammaticalize a category, those that already have related means of expression, lexical or grammatical, and conform to the grammar of a language are naturally more likely to prevail. Moreover, there is a strong tendency for speakers to repeatedly grammaticalize categories that are already grammaticalized in their language with different semantic nuances, taking extant structures as a model (Section .), or let grammaticalized categories extend further, rather than to constantly create entirely novel categories. After all, each language only grammaticalizes a small part of
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DISCUSSION POINTS
the cross-linguistically extant and cognitively available grammatical categories. As we have argued, a possible reason for the tendency to re-grammaticalize and extend extant categories rather than constantly creating new ones is that extant grammatical (and lexical) categories, unlike the non-existing ones, require the speaker’s attention when verbalizing events (‘thinking-for-speaking’). They thus constantly generate focus on the expression of the category. Culture and society are also likely to have the effect of narrowing down the potential sources and targets of change. This still leaves many possibilities to express a specific category, and the one that is actually chosen by speakers may indeed often be due to historical coincidence, namely, as suggested by Ariel (), the one that happens to be the first to become salient in the discourse of a speech community. As the areal nature of grammaticalization also shows, there is a strong tendency for speakers to imitate others and follow what they perceive as a norm. That is, once a pattern has reached a certain level of saliency, through whatever circumstances, it has a good chance to spread further. In any case, despite the fact that the motivations and mechanisms of grammaticalization are at the core of the phenomenon, the question of what drives grammaticalization is not really resolved, and despite some progress it is as controversial as ever. Due to the increasing availability of corpora, especially spoken language data, and improvements in the research methodology for spoken language, the trend is increasingly towards seeking motivations in frequency and discourse, but this does not necessarily mean that other factors are less valid. We have offered here an outline of how various factors driving grammaticalization may complement each other, but doubtlessly a lot of further research is needed in this area. Discussion points () In your opinion, what assumption do you have to make about a “language system” so that it functions as a trigger for language change? () Make a list of communicative goals or needs of speakers that are plausible to you. How may they lead to change in the way you speak? () Can you think of other examples of dialogue that may end up as one turn by a single speaker (Section ..)? What may or may not make them good candidates for grammaticalization?
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7 Grammaticalization in language contact
7.1 Grammaticalization vs. polysemy copying
7.2 A case study: Basque
7.3 Identifying contact-induced grammaticalization
7.4 Pidgins and creoles
7.5 Conclusions
Discussion points
As we saw in Chapter , ‘borrowing’ has traditionally been taken to be a ‘mechanism’ of change on a par with analogy and reanalysis. However, the effects of language contact on language change in general and grammaticalization in particular are far broader than just that, and deserve to be discussed in a chapter of their own. It has been widely assumed that there is a fundamental distinction between internal and external linguistic change, where the latter is influenced by language contact while the former is not. These two kinds of change tend to be conceived as somehow mutually exclusive. But as early as the nineteenth century, research on language contact has suggested that this assumption is in need of reconsideration, and it is by now fairly well established that multiple causation is a common phenomenon: Linguistic change may simultaneously be an internal and an external process. We saw in Chapters and that there are tools for identifying instances of grammaticalization even in languages for which no written documents exist for reconstruction. As we will see in the present chapter, reconstructions are also possible in cases where grammaticalization was induced by contact between different languages and
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dialects. However, the latter is faced with the following problem: How is it possible to separate phenomena that are due to language-internal development from those that are due to language contact? And perhaps more crucially, is it possible in the first place to establish that language contact was actually involved in a given case of linguistic change? There is so far no conclusive answer to these questions, and contact-induced grammaticalization is a notoriously controversial field, even in languages which dispose of appropriate historical records (see Matras : –). Nevertheless, there are some means of reconstruction that are of help in answering the questions, as we will see in this chapter. In the paragraphs to follow we will first look at one particular example of processes of contact-induced grammaticalization and propose a four-stage scenario taking care of the gradual nature of such processes (Section .). Section . then deals with one particular language to show what effects such processes can have for speakers to organize their discourses. Subsequently, a small set of criteria, or diagnostics, is proposed that may be of help in identifying instances of processes of grammaticalization arising in situations of language contact. Before presenting a number of cases of contact-induced grammaticalization, a note on the terminology to be used seems in order. Following Weinreich ([] : –; see also Heine and Kuteva ), the term (grammatical) replication is used when speakers create new grammatical meanings or structures in one language, called the replica language, on the model of another language, the model language. Phenomena relating to replication have also been referred to with terms such as ‘structural borrowing’ or ‘calquing.’ Replication thus contrasts with borrowing, whereby phonological substance or formmeaning units are transferred from one language to another.¹
7.1 Grammaticalization vs. polysemy copying In a circum-Alpine area between between northern Italy and southern Germany there are a number of languages which share the same kind of passive construction, called the Alpine ‘come’-passive, which is ¹ There are many alternative terminologies; for example, Thomason and Kaufman () and Thomason (: ) use borrowing, source language, and receiving language for both kinds of transfer.
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illustrated in () (see also Wiemer : ). Two of the languages, Italian and Ladin, are Romance languages while the other two, Pomattertitsch and Bavarian, are dialects of German. What the four passive constructions have in common is that they use essentially the same construction, consisting of the verb ‘come’ as an auxiliary with the main verb encoded as its complement in the past participle. () The Alpine ‘come’-passive a. Italian (Romance; Ramat : –)² Qui viene costruita la scuola nuova. here comes built the school new ‘Here the new school is being constructed.’ b. Ladin (Rhaeto-Romance; Ramat : –) Cô vain fabricheda la scuola nuova. here comes built the school new ‘Here the new school is being constructed.’ c. Pomattertitsch (Walser German; Giacalone Ramat and Sansò : ) Der salam chun röwä gässä. salami come:: raw eat:- ‘Salami is eaten raw.’ d. Bavarian (South German; Ramat : –) Då kummt de nei(e) Schul gebaut. here comes the new school built ‘Here the new school is being constructed.’ This situation raises the following questions: (a) Why do verbs for ‘come’ express the function of passive markers? (b) Why are there four languages or varieties spoken in the same general area employing the same construction? A general answer to question (a) can be provided on the basis of the discussions in the preceding chapters. Verbs commonly grammaticalize into markers for grammatical functions such as tense, aspect, and modality by being extended to new contexts where they take specific
² The glosses are ours, since Ramat () does not provide glosses.
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verbal complements (context extension; see Section .). This is also a way in which passive markers may arise, the English get-passive being a case in point (Haspelmath ; Givón and Yang ). In specific contexts, a verb may gradually turn into an auxiliary and its lexical meaning will disappear (desemanticization; see Section .) in favor of a grammatical function. As an auxiliary, it tends to lose salient morphosyntactic features that it had as a lexical verb (decategorialization; see Section .). Passive markers can be historically derived from a number of different verb types. The World Lexicon of Grammaticalization lists eight of them (Kuteva et al. ). One of these eight verb types consists of verbs meaning ‘come.’ But ‘come’-verbs are cross-linguistically not particularly widespread as a source for passive markers. It may therefore be surprising that within a relatively small area of south-central Europe there are four languages and dialects having ‘come’-passives. At first sight, there is also a plausible answer to question (b). Among the few languages that have been identified to have a grammaticalized ‘come’-passive, most are Romance, and they include Italian and Rhaeto-Romance languages. As the detailed study by Giacalone Ramat and Sansò (; see also Cennamo ) suggests, the rise of the ‘come’-passive in Italian can eventually be traced back to fourthcentury Latin. The use of the Latin verb venire ‘come’ was extended to specific types of verbal complements constructed in the past participle, and it developed across northern Italian vernaculars. The rise of ‘come’passives in Rhaeto-Romance languages may also be a result of this development. However, the presence of a ‘come’-passive in German dialects such as Pomattertitsch and Bavarian, as well as some other varieties of German spoken in the same area, is in need of explanation. To our knowledge, there is no history of such a passive in German nor is it found in German dialects outside the circum-Alpine area. The most reasonable hypothesis therefore is that the emergence of the ‘come’passive was the result of contact with Italian and/or Rhaeto-Romance languages. Further evidence in support of this hypothesis is the following: First, the two German dialects share essentially the same construction with their Romance neighbors. Second, this construction is also found in other Alpine German-speaking communities in the western region of the Canton of Fribourg, the whole German-speaking part of Valais, the Walser settlements in Italy and Ticino, and parts of the
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Grisons (Giacalone Ramat and Sansò : ). Third, given the rare occurrence of ‘come’-passives in the languages of the world it does not seem likely that speakers of these German dialects would have developed the passives independently of their Romance-speaking neighbors. And finally, the people of this circum-Alpine area between southern Germany and northern Italy are known to share a history of close contact over centuries (Ramat : –). We can thus safely conclude, following the authors cited above, that the grammaticalization of ‘come’-passives in these German dialects is the result of language contact. This observation is of interest for the following reasons: It suggests that grammaticalization is not inevitably a language-internal process but can be induced by contact with other languages or dialects. In fact, the Alpine ‘come’-passive is not an isolated case. Such cases of contact-induced grammaticalization have been documented in many languages across the globe (e.g. Aikhenvald ; Johanson , ; Heine and Kuteva , , ), and the present chapter is devoted to this issue. But our analysis of the Alpine ‘come’-passive raises the following question: Did speakers of German dialects such as Pomattertitsch or Bavarian really go through a process of grammaticalization to develop a ‘come’-passive or did they simply copy the use of the verb for ‘come’ as a passive auxiliary, or of the construction at large, from Italian and/or Rhaeto-Romance languages? In the latter case one would be dealing with an example of what is described in the relevant literature as calquing, structural borrowing, loan translation, or, more recently, as polysemy copying (Heine and Kuteva : –). Polysemy copying, whereby a combination of meanings of the model language is copied analogically, that is, ‘translated’ into the replica language, is in fact a ubiquitous phenomenon. It must have happened, for example, when French and German speakers replicated the structure of the English word skyscraper by designing a close to literal translation of the word, that is, French gratte-ciel (‘scratch-sky’) and German Wolkenkratzer (‘cloud-scratcher’). In a similar fashion, one is led to argue that the same must have happened when speakers of Pomattertitsch and Bavarian replicated the Romance ‘come’-passive by translating the construction word by word into their own dialects. There are reasons to argue, however, that there is a fundamental difference between the replication of lexical words or constructions and
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that of grammatical forms or constructions, in that the latter involves, as a rule, grammaticalization rather than polysemy copying. These reasons have been discussed in detail in Heine (); suffice it to summarize the two main reasons here. First, unlike polysemy copying, contact-induced grammaticalization is directional. For example, in situations of language contact, lexical structures frequently develop into grammatical structures, as has happened apparently in the case of the Alpine ‘come’-passive. A development from passive auxiliary to a lexical verb for ‘come,’ by contrast, has so far not been found—neither in language contact nor elsewhere. The second reason is the following: Unlike polysemy copying, contact-induced grammaticalization is a gradual process which goes through a number of stages before being completed. The Alpine ‘come’-passives surveyed above provide no evidence to substantiate this point because there is little information on their diachronic development. But there is a range of other cases which have been shown to lend support to this hypothesis. These cases are discussed in detail in Heine (). They primarily deal with the contact-induced rise of tense-aspect markers and of definite and indefinite articles. In accordance with the parameters proposed in Chapter , the grammaticalization process involved can be sketched as in (). ()
A scenario of contact-induced grammaticalization I At the initial stage, speakers extend the use an existing expression to render the meaning of a grammatical category that they are confronted with in their model language. This expression, in most cases but not necessarily a lexical expression, is now ambiguous between its earlier meaning and the one it acquires in its new context (cf. the bridging stage of the context extension model in Section .). II The expression is further extended to new contexts where the old meaning is backgrounded, making little or no sense (cf. the switch stage and the parameter of desemanticization). III The expression spreads to most of the contexts where the corresponding category of the model language is used, forming essentially a translational equivalent of the latter. It is now conventionalized, that is, it may no longer be conceived as being the same as the earlier expression (the conventionalization stage).
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IV In accordance with its new status as a functional category, the expression loses morphosyntactic features that it once had (decategorialization), and it may also lose part of its phonetic substance (erosion). To be sure, the possibility that a grammatical expression was transmitted from one language to another via ‘loan translation’ cannot be ruled out in some cases, but all cases that have been documented in some detail are in support of the scenario in (), which we adopt as the default hypothesis in the remainder of the chapter.
7.2 A case study: Basque Contact-induced grammaticalization can have remarkable consequences for the language concerned, as will be illustrated in this section with examples from Basque. The Basque language of northeastern Spain and southwestern France is not only a genetic isolate but has also been claimed to be a language that has remained largely unaffected by contact with other languages (cf. Trask : ). Research carried out in the course of the last decades shows, however, that this claim is in need of revision: The language has been influenced by neighboring Romance languages to the extent that its typological profile of discourse organization is no longer what it used to be a few centuries ago, and many of the changes involve contact-induced grammaticalization in some way or other (Hurch ; Haase , ; Jendraschek ). The main reason for looking at this language in more detail is that the linguistic history of Basque was affected by two different contact situations, with Spanish being the model language in Spain, while in France the model languages were Gascon and French. Each of the two situations had different effects on the language, and this fact is of help in reconstructing grammatical change in Basque. As the research cited suggests, one major driving force for speakers to change their inherited use patterns is that they aim to establish formulas of translational equivalence in relating the model languages Spanish, Gascon, and French to their own language Basque. These formulas tend to include features of the model languages, and once
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such formulas are used regularly and transmitted to following generations of speakers they may lead to change. Contact-induced grammaticalization in Basque affected all main domains of grammar. In the remainder of this section we are restricted to a few cases. For more examples see especially Hurch (), Haase (, ), and Jendraschek (). Change in the verbal system is manifested perhaps most of all in a series of contact-induced grammaticalizations, some of which exhibit a differential effect on the structure of the replica language Basque depending on whether the model language was Spanish or Gascon and French. One of the features where such a difference may be found can be seen in copular verbs. Spanish has two of them, namely estar ‘to be (localized in space or time)’ and ser ‘to be (inherently)’, while French has only one: être ‘to be’. In northern Basque of France, the Basque verb izan is used for both meanings, exactly like French être. In modern southern Basque of Spain, by contrast, the use of the verb izan corresponds to that of Spanish ser. But for contexts where in Spanish estar would be used, speakers appear to have grammaticalized the verb egon, historically meaning ‘wait’ or ‘remain,’ to a copular verb (Jendraschek ). A similar distinction is found with the following verbs: Spanish distinguishes between tener ‘to have (possess)’ (e.g. He has a red car) and haber, the transitive perfect auxiliary (e.g. He has left), while French uses avoir ‘to have’ for both. Jendraschek (: –) found that in the Basque variety that is in contact with French, ukan is used for both functions.³ In the Basque variety in contact with Spanish, by contrast, the verb corresponding to Spanish haber is the copula izan (see above). To form a possessive verb corresponding to Spanish tener ‘to have (possess),’ Basque speakers appear to have grammaticalized their verb eduki, originally meaning ‘hold (on to), contain.’ Note that, very much earlier, a similar process had happened in Spanish, in that the possessive verb tener can be traced back to the Latin verb tenere ‘to hold, keep.’ Table . summarizes the correspondences. A third example suggesting that Basque speakers used grammaticalization to establish a structural equivalence relation between their own language and the respective model languages is the following. Spanish ³ Ukan is one of the infinitive forms of izan, which we have encountered already in the preceding example.
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Table 7.1 Verbal correspondences between two Romance model languages and varieties of Basque (based on Jendraschek : ) Variety of Romance
Spanish
French
Romance
tener
haber
avoir
Varieties of Basque
eduki
izan
ukan
English translation
‘to have’
transitive auxiliary
‘to have’ + transitive auxiliary
has grammaticalized a construction containing the verb llevar ‘to carry’ to a kind of perfect progressive aspect (‘to have been doing’). The same grammaticalization from ‘carry’ (e.g. Basque daramatza-) to a perfect progressive is found in (southern) Basque. In contrast, French has not undergone such a grammaticalization process, nor have the northern varieties of Basque, which are in contact with French (Jendraschek : ). Progressive constructions are another area where language contact appears to have had a remarkable impact on Basque, and here again there appears to be a difference relating to the role of the model languages involved. In northeastern varieties of Basque, both French and the fellow Romance language Gascon provided a model. Gascon has grammaticalized a progressive aspect based on a locative construction of the form ‘X is at doing Y,’ illustrated in (). Basque speakers have done the same, apparently modeled on the pattern of Gascon. They used a nominalizer (-tze) instead of the Gascon infinitive marker and added the inessive () suffix -n on the main verb (subsequently grammaticalizing the progressive further into an imperfective; Haase : ), cf. (). () Gascon (Romance; Haase : ) èste a her quaucòm be at do: something ‘be in the process of doing something’ () Basque (Haase : ) kanta-tze-n dut. sing-- : ‘I sing.’ A different progressive construction arose in Basque varieties of Spain. Spanish has a progressive built on the grammaticalization of the verb
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for ‘go,’ as in (), and Jendraschek (: ) reports the same grammaticalization for the Basque verb joan ‘go’ (here: doa), cf. (). ()
Spanish (Jendraschek : ) El número de vascohablante-s va aumenta-ndo. the number of Basque.speaker- go: increase- ‘The number of Basque speakers is gradually increasing.’
()
Basque (Jendraschek : ) euskaldun-en kopuru-a gehi-tu-z doa. Basque.speaker-: number- increase-- go: ‘The number of Basque speakers is gradually increasing.’
The following example relating to language contact in France is about a periphrastic construction to express a causative function. It consists of a verb for ‘do’ as an auxiliary followed by the infinitival main verb, whereby the formula is [har ‘do’ + infinitive] in Gascon and [faire ‘do’ + infinitive] in French. Basque speakers seem to have replicated this construction to some extent by grammaticalizing their verb egin ‘do’ to a causative marker with the main verb used in a participial form, cf. (). ()
Basque (Haase : –) [ . . . ] ber-e-k lei[h]o bat-eta-(r)at jautz-i [eg]in [ . . . ] -- window one-- descend- do: ‘[ . . . ] they must take them (down) to a window [ . . . ]’
In a similar way to the verbal system, the noun phrase of Basque shows a series of contact-induced grammaticalizations, leading in the direction of what Haase (: ) calls a ‘Romance system.’ A paradigm case of grammaticalization is that from a numeral for ‘one’ to indefinite article—one that is common in many languages across the globe (cf. Section .; Kuteva et al. , > ), the English indefinite article a(n) being a case in point. This process usually involves the following stages of evolution (see Section .): ()
Stages of evolution of indefinite articles (Heine and Kuteva : –) I Numeral ‘one’ II Presentative marker (e.g. Once upon a time there was an old man.) III Specific indefinite marker (This morning I saw a black cat.) IV Non-specific indefinite marker (Draw a rabbit!) V Generalized article
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Basque speakers in France have developed such an article as a result of contact with Gascon, and later on with French, resulting in both cases in a Stage IV indefinite article (Haase : –). They did so via the grammaticalization of the Basque numeral bat ‘one.’ There is no information on when Stage II arose, but occasional uses of bat as a Stage III article are attested in . The grammaticalization as a Stage IV article is clearly a recent innovation, even if there were already incipient uses as early as . Being less grammaticalized than its equivalents in the model languages Gascon and French, the article bat has not reached the final Stage V: It is is not used in some contexts where in French or Spanish an indefinite article would be required. To conclude, contact-induced grammaticalization appears to have proceeded roughly along the lines expected for language-internal processes, even if it has not attained the same degree of development as the model languages. Another example involving noun phrase morphology is the rise of comitative-instrumental case polysemy in Basque based on the model of the three Romance languages. This example, relating to what has been called ‘secondary grammaticalization’ (see Section .), involves a well-known pathway leading from markers expressing a comitative function (‘(together) with’) to also encode instrumental participants (‘with, by means of’) (see Kuteva et al. , > ), the result being comitative-instrumental polysemy. Basque is a language rich in case inflections, distinguishing at least fourteen case suffixes, including both a comitative and an instrumental suffix, thus distinguishing the two functions by means of their case morphology. Like most other European languages (Heine and Kuteva : –), the languages with which Basque is or has been in contact, that is, Spanish, Gascon, and French, have a comitativeinstrumental polysemy, that is, Spanish con, Gascon dab, dambe, and French avec ‘with’ are used for both comitative and instrumental participants. Presumably based on the model of these languages, Basque is in a process of giving up this distinction: Wherever in the model languages a comitative-instrumental preposition is used, Basque speakers tend to use the comitative case suffix -ekin (or -ekilan) also for instrumentals. The instrumental case suffix -(e)z can still be found to some extent to denote instruments or means, as in (a). However, in most contexts it tends to be replaced by the comitative case, cf. (b),
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thereby replicating the polysemy of the comitative-instrumental preposition con of the Spanish model language (Hurch ), cf. (). ()
Basque (Hurch : ) a. kotxe-z car- ‘with a car’ b. kotxe-a-r-ekin car-the-r- ‘with the car’
() Spanish (Hurch : ) con el coche with the car ‘with the car’ Thus, it appears that in an attempt to establish equivalence with the model languages, the comitative-instrumental polysemy of the model languages is replicated in Basque by grammaticalizing the comitative to also refer to instrumental participants, with the earlier instrumental case gradually being given up. Another case of contact-induced grammaticalization in Basque involves a common pathway whereby noun phrases having nouns as their nucleus grammaticalize into adpositions, that is, prepositions or postpositions (cf. English in front of, on account of, etc.). In Basque, case relations are expressed primarily by an elaborate system of case suffixes. In the three model languages Spanish, Gascon, and French, by contrast, case relations are expressed overwhelmingly by prepositions. Apparently in an attempt to replicate the structure of the model languages, Basque speakers are gradually developing a set of postpositions via the grammaticalization of relational nouns. Thus, by grammaticalizing relational nouns such as buru ‘head’ or baita ‘interior,’ Basque is acquiring a set of complex postpositions modeled after corresponding complex prepositions in the Romance languages. For example, as demonstrated by Haase (: ), the Basque postposition -ri/-ra(t) buru-z (/ head-) ‘in the direction of’ is modeled after the Gascon preposition (de) cap a ((from) head at) ‘in the direction of’ (Haase : –). For a whole set of equivalences in such complex adpositions, see Haase (: ). Grammaticalization induced by contact with Romance languages has also affected the system of morphologically independent personal
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pronouns: It has filled a gap in the deictic paradigm by producing a new personal pronoun in Basque. While Gascon and French have third person pronouns (Gascon eth ‘he,’ era ‘she’; French lui ‘he,’ elle ‘she’), Basque has not. In order to develop an equivalent third person pronoun, thereby bringing their paradigm of personal pronouns in line with that of the model languages, Basque speakers are grammaticalizing their identity pronoun ber- ‘same, -self’ into a third person pronoun (Haase : –).⁴ That this is a process of grammaticalization is suggested by the fact that, first, this is a unidirectional development: Cross-linguistically there are a number of languages where intensifiers (‘-self’) or identity forms (‘the same’) have given rise to personal pronouns, while there is no evidence for a development in the opposite direction. Second, this development can be described in terms of desemanticization (see Sections . and .) whereby the specific intensifier or identity semantics is bleached out—with the effect that third person reference is the only semantic function that is left. In addition to the noun phrase and the verb phrase, contact-induced grammaticalization has also played a role in other domains of Basque grammar. Our final example is clause subordination, which has also been shaped to some extent by language contact (see Haase ; Jendraschek ). One of the linguistic features that has figured prominently in discussions on Europe as a linguistic area is the fact that forms used to introduce relative clauses may be the same as question words (Haspelmath b, ). For example, the English interrogative where in (a) has the same form as the relative clause and complement clause marker in (b). ()
a. Where do you work? b. I don’t know where you work.
The same phenomenon is found in most European languages and, as has been shown in Heine and Kuteva (: –), it is largely due to a general process of grammaticalization leading from question words such as ‘who?,’ ‘what?,’ ‘where?,’ etc. to complement clause and relative clause markers. These European languages also include the three ⁴ The ‘identity pronoun’ seems to largely corresponds to what König and Siemund () label as ‘intensifier’.
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Romance languages in contact with Basque, namely Spanish, Gascon, and French. And more recently, Basque speakers seem to have replicated this process (Hurch ; Haase ; Trask : ). In Basque, a finite relative clause precedes its head. There is no relative pronoun, but the verb takes a suffix marking it as subordinate. However, for some generations now, a new relativization strategy has been used in certain parts of the Basque-speaking area under the influence of Spanish. What happened is that the question marker zein ‘which?’ (also‘who?’ in places) was used as an equivalent of the Spanish interrogative pronouns and zein was grammaticalized to a relative clause marker (Trask : ). Relative clauses introduced by zein are documented in texts since the seventeenth century but then as a rule only in translations (Hurch : ). The new relative clause marker does not replace the earlier structure. Instead, zein is added to the existing relative construction (see also Trask : ), with the result that there is now double marking on post-nominal relative clauses as in ()—a case of what was described in Section .. as reinforcement. () Basque (Jendraschek : ) neska zein-i lore-a-k eman girl which- flower-- give dizki-o-da-n [ . . . ]. ::-:-:- ‘The girl to whom I gave the flowers [ . . . ].’ Basque as spoken in southwestern France apparently has gone one step further in having developed a fairly productive type of relative clause on the model of Romance languages. Thus, the construction in (), used in the written language, corresponds in its major properties to that of many other European languages: The relative clause is postnominal, has inflecting relative pronouns introducing the relative clause, and the pronoun is resumptive, signaling the head’s role within the relative clause. () Basque (Haase : ) Hiri bat ba-zen, zoin-tan ez town one -: which-: bait-zen eliza-rik. -: church- ‘There was a town where there was no church.’
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But it was not only relative clauses that were affected by the rise of the interrogative-to-subordination grammaticalization and the ‘Romance subordination type,’ as it tends to be referred to; Basque speakers in France have used a range of question words, such as non ‘who?,’ zer ‘what?,’ nun ‘where?,’ nola ‘how?,’ and zoin ‘which?,’ to replicate complement and adverbial clauses of Gascon and French (Haase : ). The innovations discussed in this section constitute only a part of all the contact-induced processes that Basque has undergone in the course of the last centuries. For more examples, see especially Haase () and Jendraschek (). Jendraschek (: ) concludes that Basque made few concessions on its typological characteristics but gained much in intertranslatability in the contact with Romance languages. In fact, there is clearly a movement away from discourse options and linguistic structures traditionally available to Basque speakers towards a Romance-type grammatical discourse organization, even if on the surface the two kinds of languages still show remarkable typological contrasts. The examples provided above may have shown that the grammatical development of the Basque language over the last centuries was shaped to quite some extent by contact-induced grammaticalization. As the available research findings suggest, speakers aimed at establishing formulas of equivalence between Basque and its three Romance model languages, changing inherited patterns of language use and norms in the direction of the model languages. These changes are most pronounced in the pragmatic domain of context extension (Section .), that is, in the manipulation of context in search for new discourse options that most appropriately match grammatical functions expressed in the model languages. With the rise of new functions emerging in new contexts, corresponding to functions found in the model languages, old functions are backgrounded and may eventually fall into disuse altogether (desemanticization; Section .). Most of the changes discussed here seem to be relatively new. But they did not all arise in Basque at the same time. Rather, they spread over quite a number of centuries. One major wave of replications had already taken place prior to . They involve the development from interrogative to relative pronouns as well as the rise of the indefinite article, of complex postpositions, and of the periphrastic tense-aspect constructions mentioned above. But most of the changes discussed are
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no older than two hundred years (Haase : ). This means that the changes have the appearance of weakly grammaticalized processes, some of which have not proceeded much beyond the bridging stage of context extension (see Section .). Little decategorialization has taken place so far, and we have found no traces of erosion in the studies on which the discussion in this section rests (Trask : ; also Hurch ; Haase , ; Jendraschek ). As argued in those studies, and crucially for the purpose of this chapter, the changes reported were contact-induced. Furthermore, the changes were essentially no different from grammaticalization processes in languages where no discernable effects of language contact can be found. This observation is in accordance with findings made in a number of other studies (e.g. Heine and Kuteva , , ), namely, first, that grammaticalization can be triggered or accelerated by language contact and, second, that contact-induced grammaticalization is not fundamentally different from language-internal grammaticalization.
7.3 Identifying contact-induced grammaticalization The observations made in the preceding section raise the question of how to establish that replication has in fact taken place—we drew attention to this problem in the introduction to this chapter. This question is the main subject of the present section. More specifically, we will be looking for answers to the questions listed in (). () Questions a. What evidence is there for contact-induced grammaticalization to have taken place? b. Which was the model language and which the replica language? c. Is it possible to prove that contact-induced grammaticalization has taken place? In the present section we will search for criteria to identify instances of contact-induced grammaticalization by looking at a range of documented case studies. More specifically, we will look for diagnostics that are suitable for reconstructing grammatical change in situations of language contact. Note that the diagnostics are not all independent of one
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another; rather, some of them are similar to others, with each highlighting a distinct analytic perspective. Question (a) is the subject of Section .., while Section .. is devoted to question (b). Question (c) must be answered in the negative and will be ignored below, for the following reason: The diagnostics are based on observations of established cases of language contact, and are therefore only probabilistic. None of the diagnostics is sufficient to ‘prove’ effects of language contact, but the more of them apply, the stronger the hypothesis on contact-induced grammatical change that can be formulated. The data to be discussed are taken from attested cases of language contact, and exemplification is kept at a minimum. For more details, see Heine (, ) and Heine and Nomachi (). They involve a set of two languages, namely a model language M and a replica language R. Note that M and R are not necessarily full-fledged languages; they can also be dialects or varieties of a language. 7.3.1 Evidence for contact-induced grammaticalization The present section proposes the following three diagnostics that can be of help in proposing a hypothesis on whether a given process of grammaticalization was induced by language contact: (a) genetic patterning; (b) rare grammatical category; (c) paired grammaticalization. These diagnostics are now looked at in turn. D: Genetic patterning. If two neighboring languages, M and R, share a grammaticalization process that is also found in languages closely related to M but not in languages closely related to R, then this situation justifies a hypothesis to the effect that there was contact-induced grammaticalization leading from M to R. This diagnostic is based on the observation that two languages in contact, M and R, share the same kind of grammaticalization which is absent in languages closely related to R but not participating in the contact situation. On the other hand, this very grammaticalization can be a general
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feature of the language group to which M belongs genetically and, hence, may also be found in other languages of that group. For example, Eastern Yiddish, a language historically derived from medieval German, has been spoken for centuries in a Slavic-speaking environment. Russian has a focus construction illustrated in (). As Prince () argues convincingly, Yiddish speakers have replicated this construction (cf. ()) by grammaticalizing the linguistic resources available in their own language. The similarities between the two constructions, referred to respectively as the eto- and the dos-constructions, are described by Prince (: ) as follows: “both are simple sentences (i.e. without subordinate clauses), each has an expletive NP in initial position, in both cases the expletive NP is the neuter demonstrative pronoun, and both are roughly translatable by an English it-cleft”. () Russian (Prince : ) Eto Leonid uvidel Eriku. this: Leonard:: saw Erica:: ‘It’s Leonard who saw Erica.’ () Yiddish (Prince : ) Dos hot Leyb gezen Erike-n. this: has Leonard:: seen Erica-: ‘It’s Leonard who saw Erica.’ This construction has no obvious analog in Germanic languages other than Yiddish, but there are analogs in other Slavic languages—hence, contactinduced transfer from Slavic languages such as Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and/or Polish to Yiddish is the most plausible hypothesis. The following example also relates to Germanic-Slavic language contacts. The German reflexive pronoun sich () is restricted to third person subject referents, cf. (a), while in the first and second person, object pronouns agreeing with the correponding subject pronoun are used, as in (b). () High German a. Er wäscht sich. he washes ‘He washes himself.’ b. Wir waschen uns. we wash us ‘We wash ourselves.’
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In the Slavic language Slovenian, by contrast, the same reflexive marker is used for the whole paradigm of person markers. Under the influence of Slovenian on German in Trieste, the Slovenian pattern of reflexive marking was replicated to some extent by German speakers (Morfill [] : ): The German reflexive pronoun sich was extended from third person to second and first persons in the singular and plural, that is, to the whole paradigm of person deixis, on the model of the Slavic reflexive marker se, cf. (). ()
German as spoken in Trieste, Slovenia (Morfill [] : ) Wir waschen sich. we wash ‘We wash ourselves.’
A similar example is reported by Thomason and Kaufman (: ), who observe that the Yiddish reflex six () of the German third person reflexive sich was extended to all persons and numbers under Slavic influence. This usage is uncommon in German but common in Slavic languages, hence it is suggestive of transfer from Slavic languages to German and Yiddish. Note that grammaticalization was restricted in these examples to the parameter of context extension (Section .), whereby the use of a given form was extended to new contexts—that is, grammaticalization did not affect the semantic, morphosyntactic, or phonological substance of the constructions concerned. The Finnic language Estonian has grammaticalized the verb tulema ‘to come’ to a modal auxiliary for the deontic necessity (‘must,’ ‘have to’), presenting the agent in the stative-locative adessive case, an oblique case form. Much the same is found in the Baltic language Latvian, which also has grammaticalized the verb for ‘come’ in its reflexive form to a modal auxiliary (nākties), also expressing deontic necessity, with the agent being encoded by means of an oblique case marker, the dative (Stolz b: –). The striking similarity between these two languages, as well as the fact that grammaticalization of verbs for ‘come’ to deontic modals appears to be cross-linguistically rare, can be interpreted meaningfully only by assuming that the constructions are historically related. Estonian, a Finnic language, and Latvian, a Baltic and hence, an Indo-European language, are genetically unrelated. Therefore, genetic relationship can be ruled out, and the only reasonable hypothesis is one in terms of contact. The following fact may serve as evidence that it was a Finnic language that provided the model: Finnish, a language closely related to Estonian,
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also uses the verb for ‘come’ as a modal auxiliary for deontic modality and an oblique case, the genitive, for presenting the agent, while in Baltic, such a grammaticalization is absent except for Latvian, that is, it is not found in Lithuanian another Baltic language. In view of this genetic patterning we follow Stolz in arguing that this as well is a case of contact-induced grammaticalization from a Finnic to a Baltic language rather than the other way round.⁵ D: Rare grammatical category. If two neighboring and genetically unrelated or only remotely related languages share the same kind of grammaticalization process which is cross-linguistically unusual, then there is some probability that this commonality can be accounted for with reference to language contact. In varieties of the Indo-Aryan language Romani spoken on the Balkans, Boretzky and Igla (: ) recorded a construction of the kind [‘It does itself to X’], where the experiencer is encoded as a dative participant [‘X’] and the verb phrase contains a third person subject referent and a reflexive pronoun. This typologically somewhat unusual construction has been grammaticalized to a volitive/desiderative construction meaning [‘X wants/desires to do’], cf. (). The same construction is found in other languages of the Balkans such as Serbian, Bulgarian, and Albanian, which are known to share a history of language contact with Romani. () shows the Bulgarian counterpart. () Southern Balkanic Romani (Boretzky and Igla : ) Na beš-el pes man.ge. sit- to:me ‘I don’t want to sit.’ (Lit.: ‘It doesn’t sit itself to me’) () Bulgarian (Boretzky and Igla : ) Ne mi se jade. to:me eat: ‘I don’t want to eat.’ (Lit.: ‘It doesn’t eat itself to me’) ⁵ The most plausible hypothesis is that this transfer proceeded from a Finnic to a Baltic language, that is, from Estonian to Latvian, rather than the other way round. But there is at least one more possibility for a contact explanation of this particular case, not mentioned by Stolz. According to this possibility, the model language was Russian, while Finnish, Estonian, and Latvian are the replica languages. The arguments in support of such a hypothesis would be: First, Russian has a pattern equivalent to the one that Latvian has for expressing the deontic necessity, and second, Russian is geographically contiguous with Finnish, Estonian, and Latvian, but not with Lithuanian (Östen Dahl, p.c.).
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A grammaticalization process of this kind is cross-linguistically not particularly common and genetic relationship does not offer a convincing explanation for this similarity: All languages concerned are IndoEuropean. We therefore follow Boretzky and Igla (: ) in hypothesizing that the Romani construction is due to contact-induced grammaticalization based on the model of other Balkan languages. Another example of a rare category is found in the contact between Italian and Maltese. Markers and constructions for deontic modality can have a number of historical sources (see Kuteva et al. ), but the following appears to be cross-linguistically rare, if not unique: In Italian dialects including Sicilian, though not in Standard Italian, a construction [tocca a X] ‘it touches X’ has been grammaticalized to a functional category of deontic modality, more precisely for ‘must,’ cf. (). This construction appears to have been replicated in Maltese, which shares a history of over years of contact with Sicily. Example () illustrates the corresponding construction of Maltese. Considering that two neighboring, genetically unrelated languages with a long history of contact show a grammaticalization process that is rarely, if at all, encountered elsewhere in the world, an explanation in terms of language contact would seem to be plausible (Haase ). ()
Spoken Italian (Haase ) Tocca a andare a vederlo. touches to go: to see.him ‘You should go to see him a bit.’
()
Maltese (Haase ) Imissek tmurlu ftit. touch::: go::::to: a.bit ‘You should go to see him a bit.’
The impression that may have been conveyed is that rare phenomena are particularly sensitive to contact-induced language change. This was in no way the intention for proposing diagnostic D. To our knowledge, there is no solid evidence in support of such a claim. What was intended, rather, is that the presence of ‘rare grammatical categories’ has a higher diagnostic value than that of other categories. D: Paired grammaticalization: If two neighboring but genetically unrelated or only remotely related languages share not only one but
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two grammaticalization processes for the same general grammatical function, then this fact provides evidence for contact-induced transfer. According to Boretzky and Igla (: ), speakers of Bulgarian varieties of Romani have grammaticalized a future tense construction, following the model of Bulgarian, by using the Romani verb kam ‘want’ plus the finite main verb, cf. (). The exact parallel in the Bulgarian construction is illustrated in (). () Romani varieties influenced by Bulgarian (Boretzky and Igla : ) ka(m) ker-av. want do-: ‘I will do (it).’ () Bulgarian (Boretzky and Igla : ) šte otida. want go:: ‘I will go.’ This parallelism on its own does not provide strong evidence in favor of a contact hypothesis since de-volitive futures, that is, future tense markers grammaticalized from verbs for ‘want’ (Dahl ), are crosslinguistically widespread, especially on the Balkans. But Boretzky and Igla demonstrate that there is additional evidence to establish that language contact must have been involved in this grammaticalization. For the negative future, Bulgarian speakers use a different construction, namely a possessive construction based on an auxiliary verb meaning ‘have,’ cf. (), and this again is exactly what is found in Romani varieties of Bulgaria, as illustrated in (). () Bulgarian (Boretzky and Igla : ) njama da otida. not:have to go:: ‘I will not go.’ () Romani varieties influenced by Bulgarian (Boretzky and Igla : ) naj/nane te ker-av. have:not that do-: ‘I will not do (it).’
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Thus, there are two parallel grammaticalization processes leading to the rise of future tense forms in two neighboring languages, involving exactly the same conceptual schemas and leading to the same affirmative/negative split situation of future tense marking. This situation is presumably unique in the languages of the world. Since Romani and Bulgarian are known to have had a history of intense contact, and since neither genetic relationship nor chance can serve as evidence to account for the similarity, it is strongly suggestive of contact-induced change. This hypothesis is further supported by the following observation. The grammaticalization of possessive constructions to future tenses is widespread in European languages but fairly uncommon elsewhere (see, e.g., Kuteva et al. ). It therefore seems plausible that speakers of Romani, a language of Indian origin, acquired it from the European language Bulgarian. 7.3.2 Diagnostics for determining the direction of transfer The diagnostics listed above can be of help to determine whether or not contact-induced grammaticalization has taken place (see question (a) above). Once this question is answered then the next question concerns the direction of the contact-induced transfer. This question was already addressed in some form or other in the preceding sections but in the present section we propose the following more specific set of diagnostics (see question (b)). (a) degree of grammaticalization; (b) frequency of use; (c) demographic variables. D: Degree of grammaticalization: If two neighboring languages have undergone the same process of grammaticalization as a result of language contact but one of the languages exhibits a high and the other a low degree of grammaticalization, then the former is likely to be the model language. A category that has been transferred from one language to another is as a rule—though not always—more grammaticalized in the model language than the corresponding category in the replica language. This can be illustrated with the example from northern Brazil given in Table .. The North Arawak language Tariana of northwestern Amazonia has an
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Table 7.2 Portuguese expressions grammaticalized by Tariana speakers on the model of evidential categories in Tariana (Aikhenvald : –, –; Heine and Kuteva , Table .) Tariana evidential category
Corresponding Tariana Portuguese expressions
Visual
eu vi ‘I saw’ eu tenho prova ‘I have proof ’ eu tenha experiencia ‘I have experience’
Nonvisual
eu escutei ‘I heard’ eu senti ‘I felt’
Inferred
parece ‘it appears, it seems’
Reported
diz que ‘it is said that’
obligatory paradigm of four clitics for tense and evidentiality, distinguishing between visual, non-visual, inferred, and reported evidence. Tariana speakers use Portuguese, the official language of Brazil, as an important lingua franca, and in their use of Portuguese, they tend to replicate their evidentiality system by drawing on lexical expressions of Portuguese, using them more frequently and grammaticalizing them into what appear to be incipient categories of evidentiality for which there is no equivalent in Standard Portuguese (Aikhenvald : –, –; cf. Aikhenvald ). The fact that Tariana Portuguese is presumably the only variety of Portuguese to have such a paradigm of four evidential structures can be accounted for meaningfully only with reference to language contact. Compared to the Tariana model categories, which are fully grammaticalized, the replicated categories in Tariana Portuguese are only weakly grammaticalized. In terms of the context extension model of Section ., expressions like eu vi ‘I saw’ do not appear to have proceeded much beyond the bridging stage II of extension, that is, they can still be interpreted with reference to their literal lexical meaning. Thus, grammatical replication must have proceeded from Tariana to Tariana Portuguese rather than the other way round. Rayfield (: ) provides another example from Yiddish speakers in Venice along the coast next to Los Angeles, most of them strongly bilingual in English. They created a future tense on the model of the English be going to future, using the Yiddish verb ge- ‘go’ as an auxiliary and the main verb in the infinitive. As is to be expected, the replicated future category is less strongly grammaticalized than its English model. In particular, it is not generally acceptable when the andative deixis (‘to move away from the speaker’) of Yiddish ge ‘go’ is violated, for
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example, when serving as an auxiliary for kumen ‘to come’ (i.e. ‘to move towards the speaker’), as in (). Thus, it does not seem to have proceeded beyond the bridging stage II of the context extension model in Section .. ()
Yiddish of Venice, California (Rayfield : ) All right, ge ikh kumen bald. all right go come: soon. ‘All right, I’m going to come in a minute.’
Thus, while in English it is possible to say I’m going to come in a minute, a Yiddish speaker at the meeting of a Yiddish cultural group in Venice was reproved for saying something like () because of the conflict of spatial deixis expressed by ge- ‘go’ and kumen ‘come.’ Thus, with regard to the parameter of desemanticization (Section .), the Yiddish future construction is less desemanticized—and hence, less grammaticalized—than the corresponding English be going to future since it has not lost its association with the andative meaning of ‘go.’ Relative degree of grammaticalization usually, though not necessarily, correlates with the relative age of the categories in question. Contact-induced transfer implies that a model category is older than the corresponding replica category in that it already existed prior to language contact, while the replica category is, at least to some extent, a product of language contact. Now, older categories may have properties that bear witness to their age, such as showing a higher degree of erosion (see Section .). Accordingly, in language contact between Mayan and Mixe-Zoquean languages in the Mexican state of Chiapas, Zavala () noted that since there is more phonological attrition, that is erosion, in the relevant material of the Mayan languages, there is reason to argue in favor of a transfer from Mayan to Mixe-Zoquean languages rather than the other way round (Gast and van der Auwera : ). D: Frequency of use. The category of the model language tends to be used more frequently than a corresponding category of the replica language. According to this diagnostic, differences in the relative frequency of use may provide evidence to determine the direction of contact-induced transfer, based on the following observation: A grammaticalization process in the model language is generally older than a corresponding
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process in the replica language. Therefore, the former is likely to be more strongly grammaticalized and to be used more frequently than the latter. For example, English has fully grammaticalized, obligatory plural marking on nouns. English is a secondary lingua franca for speakers of the Austronesian language Tigak of Papua New Guinea, which does not have obligatory plural marking on nouns. But under the influence of English, plural marking on nouns appears to have risen in Tigak. Jenkins (: ) found in her transcribed Tigak material that young educated Tigak increase the use of their overt plural morpheme, using it with percent of all Tigak plural nouns whereas traditional, conservative Tigak speakers use the plural marker with only percent of plural nouns.⁶ This change appears to be restricted to the grammaticalization parameter of context extension (Section .) but does not have any further effect on the structure of Tigak. In a similar fashion, Turks in Germany have been found to use their conjunction ve ‘and’ and their plural marker much more frequently than Turks in Turkey, and Johanson (: –) takes this to reflect German influence, drawing attention to the fact that Turkic languages that have been influenced by Indo-European languages generally show an increased frequency of use of conjunctions. Thus, frequency of use may also offer a clue for reconstructing directionality in contact-induced grammaticalization. Obviously, this diagnostic may not apply to a situation where the model language and the replica language share a long history of intense contact. In such a situation, the replica language can have grammaticalized the category in question to the extent that there no longer is a difference in the frequency of use. D: Demographic variables. If in a given situation of language contact some process of grammaticalization is restricted to or less pronounced in one social group of speakers of one language while the other language does not show such a restriction, then the former is likely to be the replica language and the latter the model language. Language contact in general and contact-induced grammaticalization in particular affect certain social or demographic groups more than others. Accordingly, social groups that are more strongly affected by ⁶ There are unfortunately no details on what these figures exactly refer to.
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contact are likely to show more pronounced effects of contact-induced change. Linguistic effects of language contact can be restricted to, or be especially intense in a social group having had some formal education, people of some particular profession, such as traders, or people of the upper class rather than of lower classes, etc. Or contact may be a recent phenomenon that has affected only younger speakers, or younger people earlier than older speakers. Accordingly, contact-induced grammaticalization can be restricted to or be more pronounced in certain social groups that can be shown to have been exposed to contact more than other groups,⁷ and appropriate sociolinguistic information may assist in formulating hypotheses on directionality in contact. Aikhenvald () in particular has demonstrated that sociolinguistic factors, especially demographic variables such as age, sex, profession, social status, provide clues for identifying instances of grammatical replication (see also Heine and Kuteva : –). One of the examples volunteered by Aikhenvald (: ), is the following: The North Arawak language Tariana of northwestern Brazil is in close contact with Portuguese, the official language of Brazil, and has been influenced by the latter in various ways. In Portuguese, but not in Tariana, interrogative pronouns are also used as relative clause markers—we had a similar example from Basque in Section .. Tariana speakers have also grammaticalized their own interrogative pronouns to markers of clause subordination on the model language Portuguese, retaining their own relative construction and simply adding their interrogative pronoun (e.g. kwana ‘who?’). As Aikhenvald points out, it is young speakers of Tariana that have innovatively created this new structure, and the structure seems to be confined to this demographic group. Since Portuguese does not have such a sociolinguistic restriction on the use of its interrogative-derived relative clause markers, the direction of replication must have gone from Portuguese to Tariana. As we saw above (under D), the situation on the island of New Ireland in Papua New Guinea also illustrates this factor. The Austronesian language Tigak does not have obligatory plural marking on nouns, but under the influence of English, which has obligatory plural marking and is a secondary lingua franca for Tigak speakers, educated young Tigak increase the use of their overt plural morpheme (Jenkins ⁷ We are grateful to Brian Joseph (p.c.) for reminding us of this point.
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: ). Thus, once again, it is one particular segment of the population that provides clues for identifying directionality in ongoing processes of contact-induced change. The catalog of diagnostics presented in the preceding sections is meant to provide some guidelines on how to identify instances of contact-induced grammatical replication. As noted above, these guidelines are not based on exceptionless generalizations, they merely rest on probabilities derived from a larger number of studies on contactinduced grammatical change (see especially Aikhenvald ; Heine and Kuteva ). The greater the number of diagnostics that apply, the stronger the hypothesis on language contact that can be proposed. As Kuteva () has demonstrated, it is possible to use a combination of these diagnostics in cases where a single criterion might not be very revealing.
Further reading Diagnostics of contact-induced grammaticalization have been proposed in Heine (, ) and Heine and Nomachi (). The role played by grammaticalization in areal linguistics, and in particular in areal diffusion is discussed, e.g., in Stolz (b), Kuteva (b, ), and Heine and Kuteva (: –; ).
7.4 Pidgins and creoles Pidgins are languages that have a reduced lexicon and grammatical structure, resulting typically from extended contact between groups of people with no language in common. Creoles typically evolve from pidgins by being learned by children as first languages, thereby acquiring an extended lexicon and grammar. As a result, creoles are in a number of ways indistinguishable from other languages. This general characterization is not meant to do justice to the wide social and linguistic space covered by the terms ‘pidgin’ and ‘creole,’ which are commonly subclassified into jargons (‘unstable’ or ‘rudimentary pidgins’), stable pidgins, expanded pidgins, pidgin/creoles, etc., nor to the rich literature that exists on these languages (see Further reading). Pidgins and creoles arise in complex socio-cultural situations. They are commonly believed to be the pronounced or ‘extreme’ result of
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language contact, and they have been the subject of a range of discussions on issues such as first and second language acquisition, language simplification and language mixture, and language genesis. The linguistic factors leading to the rise of these languages are also complex, but grammaticalization appears to have been a major force in the evolution of both pidgins and creoles; see Bruyn (a, b, , ), Heine (, ), Romaine (), Heine and Kuteva (: –, : –), as well as the contributions in Baker and Syea () for details and generalizations. The present section is restricted to demonstrating that grammaticalization processes can also be commonly observed in pidgins and creoles. Overall, these processes are in accordance with processes that are described elsewhere in this book. At the same time, it has been argued that, due to the special sociolinguistic conditions characterizing the development of pidgins and creoles, these processes are not exactly the same as those found elsewhere in languages (see, e.g., Keesing : ; Bruyn ). There are in fact some features of grammatical change that have so far not been encountered in non-pidgins and non-creoles. Arguably the most spectacular observation on the modern pidgins and creoles is that they are young languages: They arose, as far as we know, in the course of the last four centuries, and some are less than years old. This fact can be held responsible for a number of special hypotheses, especially the ones listed in (). ()
Some hypotheses on grammaticalization in pidgins and creoles a. It is shaped by language-external factors. b. Its processes must have taken place more rapidly than elsewhere. c. It is more advanced in creoles than in pidgins. d. Its processes are on the whole less advanced than elsewhere.
We will now review these hypotheses in turn. As we saw in the preceding sections of this chapter, (a) is not really a characteristic of pidgins or creoles; rather, language-external factors can be identified more generally in situations of intense language contact. There is in fact empirical support for (b), as the case of Kenya Pidgin Swahili may show. This pidgin presumably emerged around the end of the nineteenth century in up-country Kenya as a result of the
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British occupation of the country.⁸ The pidgin fell into disuse towards the end of the twentieth century. When the pidgin was documented in the early s (Heine , ; Heine and Kuteva : –), it had already developed a range of new grammatical categories by extending the linguistic resources that it had inherited from coastal Swahili to new contexts suggesting new grammatical meanings (see Section .). For example, the use of the verb toka ‘come from,’ illustrated in (a), was extended from nominal to verbal complements and developed into an immediate past tense auxiliary, as in (b). () Kenya Pidgin Swahili (Heine and Kuteva : ) a. Mimi na-toka taun. I -come.from town ‘I am coming from town.’ b. Mimi na-toka andika barua. I -come.from write letter ‘I just wrote a letter.’ Grammaticalization in Kenya Pidgin Swahili affected all major structural domains, and it was generally in accordance with major pathways of grammatical change. For example, in a number of languages across the world, including English (that), demonstrative pronouns were grammaticalized to relative clause markers (see Kuteva et al. , > ). This development also took place in Kenya Pidgin Swahili, where the distal demonstrative ile ‘that,’ illustrated in (a), was grammaticalized to a relative clause marker, as in (b). () Kenya Pidgin Swahili (Heine : –) a. wewe hapana ona daraja ile? you see bridge that ‘Don’t you see that bridge?’ b. paka wewe na-fika katika mahali ile nyang’ao until you -arrive in place game ya kila kabila na-patikana. of each tribe -be.available ‘until you arrive at a place where there are wild animals of any kind’ ⁸ Kenya Pidgin Swahili, historically derived from Swahili varieties spoken natively along the East African coast, appears to be extinct by now.
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Thus, in accordance with (b), Kenya Pidgin Swahili underwent a number of grammaticalizations within a period of roughly eighty years since it emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century. Such speed in grammatical change is presumably hard to find in languages other than pidgins and creoles, where such changes normally take centuries to materialize. A similar development took place in the English-based creole Sranan of Suriname (Bruyn a, b, ). Sranan arose in the late seventeenth century on the plantations of Suriname, which was made a British Colony in , and in , Dutch became the colonial language. Probably around the end of the seventeenth century, the demonstrative disi (or diesi) ‘this’ (< English this) developed into a relative clause marker within the short period of half a century. An example from the eighteenth century is provided in (). ()
Sranan (English-based creole; Bruyn a: ) Hoe fa mi zel fom wan zomma diesi manner beat . person no doe ogeri. do harm ‘How would I beat someone who didn’t do any harm.’
But in accordance with the hypothesis in (c), the process in Sranan is clearly more advanced than in Kenya Pidgin Swahili. First, disi underwent a further grammaticalization, namely one from relative clause marker to adverbial clause subordinator. In the second half of the eighteenth century, if not earlier, its use was extended to introduce temporal, causal, and concessive clauses, as can be seen in (), where it serves as a temporal conjunction. ()
Sranan (English-based creole; Bryun : ) ary fadom trange disi mi de na gron. rain fall.down strong be at ground ‘Rain fell heavily when I was in the fields.’ (Source from )
And second, the clause subordinator disi underwent erosion (see Section .), being reduced to di in the course of the nineteenth century, even if the reduced form is already attested earlier, as example () shows.
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() Sranan (English-based creole; Bryun : ) di ju brokko mi nefi, ju musse gi mi wan break knife must give a so srefiwan. so same.one ‘Since you’ve broken my knife, you must give me a similar one.’ (Source from ) Considering their short history, (d) is to be expected in pidgins and creoles: Grammaticalization processes are on the whole less advanced than in other languages. Grammatical functions are predominantly expressed by lexical items, particles, and clitics and fairly rarely by affixes—that is, there is a relatively low degree of decategorialization (see Section .) in pidgins and creoles. For example, in coastal Swahili, from which Kenya Pidgin Swahili is historically derived, verbal negation is expressed by the circumfix h- . . . -i, as shown in (). Speakers of Kenya Pidgin Swahili have replaced the circumfix by extending the use of the interjective particle hapana ‘No!’ to that of a general marker of verbal negation, as the corresponding utterance in () shows. () Coastal Swahili (Bantu, Niger-Congo; Heine and Kuteva : ) h-a-sem-i kitu. --say- thing ‘He doesn’t say anything.’ () Kenya Pidgin Swahili (Heine and Kuteva : ) Yeye hapana sema kitu. s/he say thing ‘He doesn’t say anything.’ In the introduction to this section we noted that pidgins and creoles are commonly assumed to be ‘extreme’ results of language contact. However, once they evolved as languages of their own, language contact may no longer play any significant role in their further development. In fact, many of the grammaticalizations that have been identified—including processes presented above—were possibly not affected by contact. Rather, these processes could as well be the result of internal developments whereby speakers of pidgins and creoles exploited the linguistic resources available to them to create new forms of expression via grammaticalization. Unfortunately there is little detailed information
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for most of the languages in question about how exactly grammatical change proceeded. Nevertheless, there are also documented cases where grammaticalization in pidgins and creoles apears to have been contact-induced. In concluding, one example may suffice to demonstrate this. Like other Eastern Oceanic languages, the Kwaio language of Solomon Islands has a deictic distinction between andative (kau ‘thither’) and venitive (mai ‘hither’) directional forms, illustrated in (). ()
Kwaio (Eastern Oceanic, Austronesian; Keesing : ) ngari-a kau ngari-a mai take-it thither take-it hither ‘take it (away)’ ‘bring it’
As is argued convincingly by Keesing (), this distinction was replicated in Solomons Pijin, the English-based pidgin used by Kwaio speakers, by grammaticalizing (‘calquing’) the Solomons Pijin verbs go and kam, respectively, cf. (). ()
Solomons Pijin (Keesing : ) tek-em go tek-em kam take- thither take- hither ‘take it (away)’ ‘bring it’
Further reading Many studies on grammaticalization in pidgins and creoles have already been mentioned in the preceding sections; they include in particular Boretzky (), Mühlhäusler (), Romaine (), Holm (, ), Adone and Plag (), Arends et al. (eds.) (), and Mufwene (). More detailed information on grammaticalization in pidgins and creoles is found in Adone and Plag (), Bruyn (a, b, ), Romaine (), Heine (), and Heine and Kuteva (: –).
7.5 Conclusions The discussion in the preceding paragraphs takes issue with assumptions surfacing in some of the linguistic literature. In particular, there is the assumption made implicitly or explicitly in some linguistic studies that grammatical structure, or syntax, cannot be ‘borrowed,’ that is,
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CONCLUSIONS
transferred from one language to another. For example, Sankoff () concludes that “[w]hether or not ‘grammar’ or ‘syntax’ can be borrowed at all is still very much in question. . . . many students of language contact are convinced that grammatical or syntactic borrowing is impossible or close to it” (Sankoff : ; see also Silva-Corvalán ). We consider this to no longer be an issue considering that there is by now abundant evidence to demonstrate that parts of both grammar and syntax can be ‘borrowed’ or, as we will say here, replicated, and the present chapter provides further evidence in support of these observations. More specifically, it has been argued or implied that if a certain grammatical change has been shown to have taken place in one language without external motivation, then this makes it unlikely that this very change could have been externally motivated in another language (e.g. Lass ). It would seem that this assumption is in need of reconsideration. There are many examples to show that one and the same kind of change can have happened internally in one language while in another language, contact must have been involved (Thomason and Kaufman : –). For example, there are reasons to assume that the English de-volitive future tense, using will as an auxiliary (e.g. Jane will be here soon), evolved largely language-internally. At the same time, such a future tense has also been shown to arise as a result of language contact. Thus, Balkanists have demonstrated that the development of the devolitive futures characterizing the languages of the Balkan Sprachbund, such as in Greek, Tosk Albanian, Romanian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Croatian, was—at least to some extent—the result of language contact (see Heine and Kuteva : –). As we argued in the present chapter, grammaticalization does not behave intrinsically differently in situations of language contact from grammaticalization not affected by contact. But contact can have a reinforcing, or even a triggering effect on changes to happen, as the Basque example in Section . may have shown. The case of Basque is also well-suited to showing another effect that contact-induced grammatical change can have. As a result of contactinduced grammaticalization, speakers adapt their discourse patterns and grammatical constructions to those of another language with which they are in contact. They create formulas of equivalence (Heine ), thereby achieving a higher degree of intertranslatability and structural similarity. Thus, there is reason to assume that the languages involved become typologically increasingly alike.
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On the other hand, the following example from Basque suggests that the situation can be more complex (see Haase : for more details). At some earlier stage, Basque speakers were using hi (‘you, singular’) as a second person singular pronoun and zu (‘you, plural’) for second person plural. The neighboring Romance languages Gascon and French have a second person singular distinction between an informal/ familiar form and a formal/polite form, e.g. French tu (‘you,’ singular) vs. vous (‘you,’ plural). In an attempt to replicate the polite form they recognized in their Romance model languages, Basque speakers did what the speakers of the model languages had apparently done centuries earlier, namely extend the meaning of their plural pronoun zu to uses as a polite second person singular pronoun. Unlike their model languages, however, Basque speakers developed a new plural pronoun, namely zu-ek, consisting of the old second person plural pronoun zu and the plural marker -ek added to it. At the same time, the meaning of the Basque pronouns changed: hi became restricted to highly familiar second person reference while zu turned into the general marker of second person address, and zu-ek is the form for second person plural. The result is that there is no longer structural isomorphism between Basque and the Romance languages: Neither does the meaning of hi clearly correspond to the modern reflexes of Romance tu, nor does zu correspond to either tu or vous. Instead, zu can be used for both in many contexts. What this example suggests is that speakers aiming to establish intertranslatability and structural isomorphism with their model language or languages may actually achieve the contrary: Instead of creating a structural one-to-one correspondence between the model and the replica language, they can end up with a situation where the grammatical categories in the languages in contact are less equivalent than they used to be prior to language contact. More generally, this example is meant to show that more research is needed to reconstruct all the motivations that language users have when they change their discourse options in the direction of another language (see Chapter ). In spite of such observations, all the evidence that is available on contact-induced grammatical change, such as the one presented in the present chapter, suggests, first, that grammaticalization is a ubiquitous phenomenon in situations of language contact and, second, that it does not seem to behave intrinsically differently from grammaticalization not involving contact.
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DISCUSSION POINTS
Further reading On the distinction between internal and external processes of grammatical change, see, for example, Thomason and Kaufman (), Thomason (: ), Johanson (, ). Case studies of contact-induced grammatical change are found in a number of collected volumes on language contact, especially in Aikhenvald and Dixon (eds.) (, ). The relation between language contact and grammaticalization is discussed in particular in Aikhenvald (, , ); Heine (), Heine and Kuteva (, : –, : –), and Heine ().
Discussion points
() Why do you think would borrowing or replicating grammatical patterns be more difficult than borrowing from the lexicon of another language?
() What do you think might be the advantage of replicating a grammatical pattern from a neighboring language instead of simply borrowing it?
() What might be the conditions for a clear case of borrowing and replication in a pidgin and a creole language?
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8 Grammaticalization and language typology
8.1 Typological features guiding grammaticalization
8.2 Grammaticalization as a possible explanation for typological features of languages
8.3 Conclusion
Discussion points
Language typology can be defined as “the study of structural differences and similarities between languages. . . . . [It] is the study and interpretation of linguistic or language types” (Velupillai : ). The relationship between grammaticalization and language typology has already been referred to at several points in this book. Recall, for example, the typological patterns emerging as a result of grammaticalization (Section .). In this chapter we will provide a more systematic view of the issue, exploring how typological features may influence grammaticalization, on the one hand (Section .), and how grammaticalization may lead to the formation of typological features, on the other (Section .). The issue of reconstruction is primarily related to the latter, that is, the case when principles of grammaticalization can inform reconstruction of the typological features of a language. On the other hand, reconstruction making use of grammaticalization may also refer to typological features of language that guide grammaticalization. 8.1 Typological features guiding grammaticalization In Chapter , we addressed the question what may motivate or ‘drive’ grammaticalization. Typological features of language would fall into
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the basket of potential structural motivations (Section .). We concluded then that while structural motivations are controversial, extant language structures surely guide the course of grammaticalization. Many of these structural properties can be typologized and are therefore potential material for the influence that typological features of a language may exert on grammaticalization. Park () compared the grammaticalization of verbs in three Tibeto-Burman languages with typologically divergent features, namely highly inflecting Hayu, isolating Burmese, and in-between Tibetan, concluding that both similarities and differences between the languages are due to their respective typological features. That is, for Park (: ) “grammatical structure is a better predictor of grammaticalization patterns than is genetic affiliation.” The reason is simply that “structures that are available in a language are utilized in the tailoring of new features” (Park (: –). How does this come about? First, as seen in Chapter , motivations for grammaticalization itself must be sought in cognition and synchronic language activity. This is a point readily acknowledged by scholars who engaged in the study of the relationship between synchrony and diachrony. For example, Greenberg (: ) suggested that “ . . . there is a gradual process by which innovations originating in discourse ultimately become established as part of the system of language.” Or, Hawkins (: ) considers grammars as the “conventionalizations of the same processing mechanisms that psychologists find evidence for in experimental and corpus data.” When it comes to the shape that new grammaticalizations take, or the paths through which they grammaticalize, it is only reasonable to assume that extant language structures, including typologically relevant structures, play a role as speakers can utilize existent channels of expression more efficiently than creating entirely new ones. It is difficult, if not impossible, though, to demonstrate a clear cause–effect relationship between older structures and the form of emerging structures, since one-to-one replication of an older structure would be a rarity. The extent to which features of grammaticalization are analyzed as being influenced by typological features will also depend on the definition of grammaticalization adopted. Especially, the more grammaticalization is reduced to a universal essence, the less room there is for typological variation. Himmelmann (: ), for example, claims that “a grammaticisation process can be defined as a process of context
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expansion” on the three levels of (a) host class formation/expansion, (b) syntactic context expansion, and (c) semantic-pragmatic context expansion. This definition intentionally excludes typological factors from grammaticalization, which are viewed as epiphenomenal. Likewise, in generative approaches to grammaticalization as well (Section .), grammaticalization tends to be reduced to an essence that is universal and therefore less amenable to typological influences. As we saw, Roberts and Roussou (: ) regard grammaticalization “as the diachronic development of lexical heads into functional heads,” and van Gelderen () conceptualizes grammaticalization as change from lower head to higher head (‘Late Merge’) or from Spec to Head. There might be typological variation in the heads that are the sources and the targets of change, but the essence will remain unaffected. However, while acknowledging that the essence of grammaticalization is on the functional side, we have also kept the formal side of the process within the scope of this book. Recall that the process of grammaticalization can be divided into the four basic aspects discussed in length in Chapter , and listed here again in (). ()
a. extension (or context generalization)—use in new contexts; b. desemanticization—loss (or generalization) in meaning content; c. decategorialization—loss in morphosyntactic properties characteristic of lexical or other less grammaticalized forms; and d. erosion (or “phonetic reduction”)—loss in phonetic substance.
While the pragmatic-semantic processes (a) and (b) are essential for grammaticalization, the structural processes given in (c) and (d) may follow. If there is typological variation in grammaticalization, it may in principle affect all aspects of grammaticalization. There is no reason to exclude some aspect a priori. However, if functional change is the essence of grammaticalization and other aspects follow in the order given above, we may assume that the magnitude in which typological variation in grammaticalization occurs is reversely (d) > (c) > (b) > (a). That is, the formal reductive changes should be most susceptible to variation. So, we start with examples of how phonological and morphological aspects of grammaticalization may be influenced or guided by the corresponding typological features of a language or a group of languages. A well-known example of that is the claim that grammaticalization in tonal, isolating languages, like the Sinitic languages does not lead to reduction of syllables. Ansaldo and Lim (: ) suggest that
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“[s]trongly isolating languages typically do not allow yesterday’s syntax to become today’s morphology . . . syllable boundaries are discrete and phonotactic constraints rule out reduced syllables of the kind observed elsewhere, the material available for reduction is not easily found at the morphological level.” However, even in these languages grammaticalizing words tend to undergo subtle changes in pronunciation. The authors demonstrate that in two morphologically strongly isolating and tonally complex Sinitic languages spoken in Singapore, namely Cantonese and Hokkien, function words show vowel/syllable reduction and erosion typical of grammaticalization. It is just the extent of reduction that is much smaller. Bisang (, , ) claims a number of constraints on grammaticalization in Sinitic languages, which stand representatively for the East and mainland Southeast Asian languages. Besides the small extent of changes in phonology and morphology, these also include the lack of obligatoriness of grammatical categories; that is, the lack of grammatical paradigms in general. Likewise, Ansaldo et al. () claim that “elaboration of morphological structure only happens in a certain type of languages.” That is, “the formal aspects of canonical grammaticalization do not happen in [East and mainland Southeast Asian] languages.” Bisang () goes one step further and argues that different processes are at work in grammaticalization: In European languages like English or German “explicitness-based maturation” usually takes place. “Explicitness-based” is a term coined by Dahl () and stands for the accumulation of grammatical material that was absent at an earlier stage in the grammar of a language. In Sinitic and many other East and mainland Southeast Asian languages, by contrast, “economy-based maturation” dominates in processes of grammaticalization. In these languages, little grammatical material is accumulated, leading to a reduced coevolution of meaning and form, and high relevance of discourse and pragmatic inference. Grammaticalization in turn influences extant structures, thus potentially leading to a cycle in which structures of a specific type are recreated. In contrast to the “isolating” languages of East and mainland Southeast Asia, Narrog et al. (; also Narrog and Ohori ) point out that morphological parameters of grammaticalization seem to apply particularly well to Northeast Asian languages like Korean and Japanese, and potentially to the so-called Transeurasian languages in general, which tend to be agglutinating. Similarly Mithun ()
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emphasizes the relatively high degree of morphological complexity as a product of extensive grammaticalization in North American languages. On the other hand, the fact that morphological complexity is the result of grammaticalization also points to the fact that there is a two-way relationship between grammaticalization and typological features, that is, typological features do not unilaterally determine features of grammaticalization. In Indo-European languages, the inflectional endings on verbs and nouns that modern European languages have still preserved (but to a good part already lost) are likely to be a remnant of grammaticalization in head-final proto-Indo-European (cf. Dahl : ). Besides phonological and morphological typological features, there are also synchronic semantic and syntactic features of languages that may guide grammaticalization. First, as discussed in more detail in Section ., in head-final languages grammaticalization is more likely to lead to bound morphemes than in head-initial languages because of the tendency for postposed rather than preposed morphemes to become bound. Second, Bisang (, , ), also counts the following among the constraints on grammaticalization in Sinitic languages: (i) lack of clearly determined semantic domains; (ii) existence of rigid word-order patterns within which lexical items grammaticalize, and pervasiveness of inference, which enables language users to encode and decode the function of a specific item in a specific semantic context; and (iii) lack of grammaticalization chains (i.e. continuous grammaticalization from one category to the next). Similarly, Xing (, ) proposes that while in European languages, chain-like developments along the schema A > AB > B may be common (cf. Heine : : xAb > aBc > bC),¹ in Chinese languages, older meanings and functions are typically retained, leading to “clines of semantic accretion” of the type A > AB > ABC.² According to Ansaldo et al. (: ), “widespread polyfunctionality undermines the semantic dimension of canonical grammaticalization in [East and mainland Southeast Asian] languages.” Therefore, none of Lehmann’s () commonly cited six parameters of grammaticalization applies except syntagmatic variability (see Section .). But even this parameter, according to Ansaldo et al. (: ) may be dubious: “An aspect of grammaticalization in this area ¹ The letters “x, a, b, c, d” stand for specific meanings and functions. Uppercase letters signify focal senses and lowercase letters non-focal senses. ² See also the concept of ‘persistence’ in Section ..
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may be the loss of autonomy, or constructionalization, but even this is undermined by polyfunctionality and lack of obligatory marking.” Morphologically highly complex languages again seem to be at the other end of the spectrum. For example, according to Esseesy (: ) “there appears to be no typological limit found on the evolution of meaning and form in Semitic of the type described in Bisang’s () study.” Something similar can be said of North Caucasian languages (Arkadiev and Maisak ), Oceanic languages (Moyse-Faurie ), Northeast Asian languages (Narrog et al. ), Iranian languages (Haig ), and most North and South American languages (Mithun ; Aikhenvald ). Another way in which extant typological structures guide new grammaticalizations is the renewal and structural elaboration of extant grammatical functions. Ideally, every language would have just one exponent for every cross-linguistically available grammatical category. In reality, in any given language, expressions for specific categories may be grammaticalized copiously, while other categories are not grammaticalized at all. These categories may then be expressed indirectly through other categories, lexically, or not at all. As a result, a certain set of categories is grammaticalized over and over in waves or cycles (cf. Section .). Those dominant categories may further impact the way other categories are grammaticalized. In the area of tense-aspect-mood (TAM), Bhat () suggests that languages tend to be either tense-, aspect-, or mood prominent, and the not overtly expressed categories are often indirectly expressed through the well-grammaticalized ones. In terms of grammaticalization, we can surmise that languages tend to maintain this typological profile by repeatedly grammaticalizing their preferred category rather than grammaticalizing the “neglected” ones. Bhat (: ) even suggests different paths of grammaticalization for each type of language: “[L]anguages that give greater prominence to aspect than to tense develop a perfective form from an earlier perfect construction and an imperfective form from an earlier progressive construction, whereas languages that give greater prominence to tense than to aspect develop past and present forms directly from their perfect and progressive constructions respectively.” Furthermore, “ . . . aspect-prominent and mood-prominent languages show distinct tendencies of change when they develop temporal distinctions. In the case of aspect-prominent languages, we generally find a two-way past/non-past distinction or a
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three-way past-present-future distinction developing from an earlier perfective-imperfective distinction. . . . In the case of mood-prominent languages, on the other hand, the general tendency is to develop primarily a future/non-future distinction” (Bhat : –). A related phenomenon is known under the term ‘florescence.’ Chafe (: ) defines it as follows: “[l]ike forests, languages may develop toward a climax stage where particular combinations of features, like plant communities, may flourish to define a particular language type. I think it is useful to think in terms of the florescence of linguistic features in this sense—the flowering of features that come to dominate the form a language takes.” Some features of Iroquoian languages serve as examples. First, Northern Iroquoian languages especially can have an elaborate inventory of up to ~ pronominal prefixes. Besides singular, plural, and dual number distinctions in the first and second persons of both agents and patients, Cherokee has even an inclusive– exclusive distinction and gender distinctions with third persons (cf. Chafe : ). This elaborate pronominal prefix system is described (reconstructed) by Chafe as the result of not one but successive waves of grammaticalizations. Secondly, Iroquoian languages are characterized by noun incorporation of a wide range of categories, for example animals, foods, and body parts. Even whole events can be incorporated into nouns as verb roots. In this case as well, interlanguage comparison suggests that these incorporations developed not at once but successively, newer incorporations following older ones. They also range from productive to idiomatic. In languages such as English or German, the relatively large variety of modal and semi-modal verbs may stand for the same phenomenon, although surely not with the same abundance. Historically speaking, there was a wave of emergence of the modals from Old to Middle English, and another wave of emergence of the semi-modals from Middle to Modern English. The prior emergence of one or two auxiliary verbs that pioneered this move seems to have drawn others along the same path, and the modals as extant structures probably induced the later development of the semi-modals. Krug () explained the development of the semi-modals in terms of a ‘gravitational model,’ which operates on the principle that “larger masses (in our case highly frequent emerging auxiliaries) attract smaller masses (in our case less common constructions)” (Krug : ). Based on frequency and similarity, Krug (: ) calculated to what extent
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specific semi-modals are influencing others. More generally then, grammatical items and constructions with low frequency change in analogy to high frequency items and constructions. Type frequency determines the influence of a group of items on other items outside that group. This was already noted by Paul (: ), who writes that “ . . . all that part of language which lacks the support of an environing group, or which enjoys it only in a limited measure, proves, unless impressed by repeated usage intensely upon the memory, not strong enough to withstand the power of the larger groups.”³ Bybee and Thompson (: ) likewise suggest that, “high type frequency ensures that a construction will be used frequently, which will strengthen its representational schema, making it more accessible for further use, possibly with new items.” In contrast to type frequency, token frequency may determine the item or construction with the biggest influence within a specific group. In this manner, the dominant structural and functional types of a language offer well-trodden paths for new grammaticalizations. Dominant structural and functional types that grammaticalize repeatedly are highly diverse across different languages. They include the extensive range of aspectual and actional categories that is grammaticalized across Turkic languages (Johanson and Csató ), hundreds of instrumental affixes in many North American languages such as Kutenai (Mithun ), applicative prefixes in Papuan languages (Klamer ), bodypart nouns in South American (Zariquiey ) and Caucasian languages (Arkadiev and Maisak ), or serial verbs in West African, Sino-Tibetan, and in Oceanic languages (Lord , ; Park ; Hwang ; Moyse-Faurie ). On the other hand, forces influencing grammaticalizations are not restricted to extant language- or language-area-specific structures. DeLancey (: ) suggests that “a function which is important enough, cross-linguistically, that in [a] language which does not formally express it with dedicated grammatical machinery, any construction or lexical means which expresses a related function is a likely candidate for grammaticalization.” He labels this kind of cross³ In the German original Paul (: ), this reads as ,“Alles dasjenige aber, was die Stütze durch eine Gruppe entbehrt oder nur in geringem Masse geniesst, ist, wenn es nicht durch häufige Wiederholung besonders intensiv dem Gedächtnisse eingeprägt wird, nicht widerstandsfähig genug gegen die Macht der grösseren Gruppen.”
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linguistically salient function as a ‘functional sink.’ For example, the formation of adjectives is based on the function of noun modification, which is universal, even if adjectives as a part of speech are not. Certain nouns or verbs may be drawn into this functional sink, eventually leading to the development of a new category adjective in a given language. In the domain of grammar, Thornes () claims that such a functional sink is at work in the grammaticalization of causative constructions in Northern Paiute. In his view, causative is a grammatical function with a high communicative need that is usually available in some form in any language, even in the absence of grammatical means. Because of the frequent need of expression, it attracts lexical materials to grammaticalize. In summary, structural typological features seem to perpetuate themselves horizontally, so to speak, across languages and vertically across the history of individual languages. Very generally, we may assume that, unless there is some disruption, the typological morphological tendencies of a language result in the extant morphological types as target structures; that is, for example in languages with agglutinative morphology, grammaticalization is more likely to lead to affixation than in isolating languages.
Further reading The claim about the singularity of features of grammaticalization in Southeast Asian languages has not gone undisputed. Ansaldo and Lim () showed that some phonetic reduction does take place. Arcodia (), taking examples from aspect markers in North Chinese dialects, argues against all the alleged distinctive features except reliance on pragmatic inference. Dahl () suggests that under careful consideration of the data, the differences in grammaticalization between languages in Southeast Asia and, for example, Europe may not be as large as they appear to be. Robbeets () argues in favor of genealogically motivated grammaticalization.
8.2 Grammaticalization as a possible explanation for typological features of languages Grammaticalization can also serve at least as a partial explanation for certain typological features of languages. At least four cases of this kind have been put forward. First, grammaticalization has been proposed as
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a partial explanation for some implicational universals. Secondly, grammaticalization has been proffered as a (partial) explanation for the order of affixed material. Thirdly, grammaticalization has been given as an explanation for cross-linguistic types of the expression of certain grammatical categories, and lastly, grammaticalization has been seen as instrumental in creating so-called analytic (vs. synthetic) language structures. 8.2.1 Grammaticalization and word order With respect to the first case, Lehmann (: ) suggested that the process of grammaticalization can be taken as a causal factor for some of Greenberg’s implicational universals of word order (the numbers refer to the numbering of the forty-five universals proposed in the seminal paper of Greenberg (b); SOV = subject–object–verb, VSO = verb–subject–object. The numbering refers to that of the listing in Greenberg (b)). . In languages with prepositions, the genitive almost always follows the governing noun, while in languages with postpositions it almost always precedes. . Languages with dominant VSO order are always prepositional. . With overwhelmingly greater than chance frequency, languages with normal SOV order are postpositional. . In languages with dominant order VSO, an inflected auxiliary always precedes the main verb. In languages with dominant order SOV, an inflected auxiliary always follows the main verb. The above generalizations can all be explained by the fact that when lexical heads of complex constructions grammaticalize, they usually remain in their original position. For example, relational nouns grammaticalize to adpositions (, , ), and verbs grammaticalize to auxiliaries () and remain in their original position. However, Lehmann (: ) does not consider grammaticalization as the ultimate cause or motivation for the order and relationship between elements of the sentence. Instead, it is a channel of change from the lexical to the grammatical category, because “the specific function common to the syntactic relations of a relational noun to its complement and of an adposition to its complement, and the specific function common to the syntactic relations of a verb to its object and of
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an adposition to its complement, are concepts not inherent in grammaticalization, but are, instead, a presupposition for these constructions to be connected by grammaticalization.” Thus, Lehmann argues that grammaticalization does not serve here as a full explanation for the change. Relatedly, Greenberg himself () referred to grammaticalization within a four-part approach to diachronic typology, which consists of the following elements (AN = adjective–noun, NA = noun–adjective, OV = object–verb, VO = verb–object). (i)
The dynamicized state-process model: Synchronically, there are certain states within a specific typology, within a specific language; e.g. OV (vs. VO); AN (vs. NA) etc. The typology describes the process by which the language changes from one state to another. In order for this model to lead to interesting generalizations, a ‘strong connection’ must hold, i.e. it must be possible to move from one state to another within that typology. (ii) The dynamicized state-process model of an elaborate (or: sub-) typology: This model looks at intermediate states between the main states in a typology; and tries to find generalizations about the diachronic relationship between these states. (iii) Intragenetic comparison: comparison within one genetic language group. (iv) Intergenetic comparison: comparison between two or more genetic language groups.
Within this approach, Greenberg (: , –) primarily saw a significant role for grammaticalization in intragenetic comparison, where grammaticalization theory provides knowledge about the directionality of change, but secondarily also in intergenetic comparison, where grammaticalization theory does the same on a larger scale. Greenberg was mainly interested in how grammaticalization interacts with global constituent order and word order changes to come up with detailed variations in word order within one language, and counterexamples to implicational universals. In the reconstructed stages of word order development in Ethiopian Semitic languages in (), as an example of intragenetic comparison, the highlighted part of the chain constitutes a violation of implicational universal above.
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Pr/NG/NA ! Pr/NG/AN ! Pr/GN/AN ! Pp/GN/AN (Greenberg : ; A = adjective, G = genitive; N = noun, Pr = preposition, Pp = postposition)
This violation can be explained through the interplay of principles of grammaticalization, on the one hand, and global constituent order and word order change in this language, on the other. Noun–adjective order is the type of word order that is the least stable and the most susceptible to change. It will change first, followed by noun–genitive order, while grammaticalization from relational noun to adposition will take the most time, and therefore adpositions will lag behind, leading to the apparent violation of universals. Lehmann (: –) also discussed the role of grammaticalization in this type of historically conditioned intra-language (and intragenetic) variation. However, he argues that not constituent order and word order (within the clause), but the area on the borderline between syntax and morphology should be at the center of the study of grammaticalization and linguistic typology. According to him, high-level syntax like constituent order is often pragmatically and not grammatically determined. Pure meaning (semantics) and expression (phonology) are also excluded because it is the combination of meaning and form that is typical for language. The lexicon (lexical typology) is not regular enough. Indeed, as predicted by Lehmann (), the study of the role of grammaticalization in the development of constituent order and word order (within the clause) has remained at the fringe of typologically oriented research in grammaticalization. 8.2.2 Grammaticalization, the suffixing preference, and morpheme order A second case in which grammaticalization is at least partially responsible for typological structures is the order of affixed material. There are at least two related topics in linguistic typology, namely the suffixing preference, and morpheme order in complex words. To start out with the former, there is an overall tendency in languages to prefer suffixes over prefixes, therefore called suffixing preference, as has been wellknown for a long time. As Bybee et al. () demonstrated, this tendency even holds in the majority of head-initial, especially SVO, languages. Table . shows the overall preference for suffixation,
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Table 8.1 Prefixing versus suffixing in inflectional morphology (Dryer : ) Number of languages
Little or no inflectional morphology Predominantly suffixing
Moderate preference for suffixing
Approximately equal amounts of suffixing and prefixing
Moderate preference for prefixing
Predominantly prefixing
Total
irrespective of basic word order, according to cross-linguistic data by Dryer (). Although the discussion on the suffixing preference has continued, Bybee et al. () is probably still the most detailed study on the extent of the suffixation preference and its causes. The authors give an overview of the suffixation preference, overall and by word order type, investigate a number of psycholinguistic (processing) and phonological factors possibly leading to the suffixing preference, and find that none of these factors can account for it. They conclude that the “fossilized syntax hypothesis” explains the suffixing preference best (Bybee et al. : ). The “fossilized syntax hypothesis” goes back to the idea by Givón () that “yesterday’s syntax is today’s morphology.” It says that “the position of an affix is the same as the position of the non-bound lexical or grammatical material from which the affix developed” (Bybee et al. : ). It is this idea of fossilized syntax that led to the revival of interest in grammaticalization since the s. A remarkable fact about fossilized syntax is that it does not necessarily reflect normal word order. The prevalence of suffixed person endings even in SOV languages, where subjects precede verbs, is the most salient example for that. As a response to this apparent divergence between word order and morpheme order, it has been hypothesized that unstressed pronominal subject pronouns postposed to the verb, rather than pronouns in their normal position, get grammaticalized (cf. Bybee et al. : ). Further research has shown that within person paradigms, there is a prefixing preference both for very small and very large paradigms, while medium-size paradigms are predominantly suffixing (Cysouw ). Cysouw concludes that
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“[t]he big riddle of the suffixation preference thus actually consists of various smaller-scale riddles concerning different kinds of affixation asymmetry” (Cysouw : ). Mithun () likewise suggests that the ultimate answer to the suffixing preference must be sought in the history (i.e. in the grammaticalization) of the individual morphemes that as an aggregate make up the suffixing preference. In general, the position of a bound morpheme with respect to the lexical stem should reflect the order of the erstwhile independent word vis-à-vis its host, unless one can make the well-founded assumption that a morpheme changed its position after grammaticalization. While Harris and Campbell (: –) refer rather abstractly to cases where reanalysis in grammaticalization-like changes led to a change in position, these cases should be considered as exceptional, since bound morphemes are far less mobile than independent ones. However, a change of position of a bound morpheme becomes more likely if the morpheme goes through a clitic stage. Comrie (: –, : –) suggested that the position of clitics is freer than that of other bound morphemes, and that for prosodic reasons, clitics may follow rules differing from those for independent words. Thus, if a clitic stage is involved in the grammaticalization of a morpheme, the likelihood that morpheme order does not reflect erstwhile word order increases. In any case, it does seem that grammaticalization is the most important mechanism behind the suffixing preference. Of course, grammaticalization as such usually cannot explain why an element is in a position before or after a lexical stem at the time when it grammaticalizes. Beyond the phenomenon of the suffixing preference, morpheme order among affixes in morphologically complex languages is also an intriguing problem that is not fully resolved. But grammaticalization appears to be at least one important motivation, as has been shown by Mithun () in her study on the Navajo verb. We have provided the details in Section . (Figure .). Recall that one important generalization in morphology that was violated by the Navajo morpheme order was that inflection should occur ‘outside’ derivation in a given word. This generalization is graphically represented in Figure .. As a result of consecutive grammaticalization, it can happen that a newly evolved derivational suffix is separated from the root of that word by an inflectional suffix which was already part of the word, thereby resulting in a violation of the typological principle captured in Figure ..
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Inflectional prefixes
Derivational prefixes
ROOT
Derivational suffixes
Inflectional suffixes
Figure 8.1 Inflection outside of derivation (Mithun : )
In such a case, thus, grammaticalization has created the structure [ROOT–Inflection–Derivation] which is at variance with the typological generalization of Figure .. Hence it is grammaticalization that explains morpheme order best. Also, in contrast to the case of the suffixing preference, in the case of morpheme order, grammaticalization appears to be the immediate cause. According to Mithun (: ), the same generalization holds even more in general. She concludes that “to a significant extent, the order of affixes within words reflects their historical order of attachment. Those affixes closest to the root were generally grammaticalized earlier than those on the periphery of the word.”⁴ On the other hand, conflicts between general rules of morpheme order and order of grammaticalization are sometimes subsequently resolved by reordering mechanisms such as externalization of inflection (cf. Haspelmath b). Mithun (: –) provides an example from the Eskimoan language Yup’ik. In this language, derivational suffixes are placed next to the verbal or nominal root and they are followed by inflectional suffixes in accordance with the typological generalization of Figure .. Now, some derivational nominalizers, such as Yup’ik -ller- ‘the former’ (noun), evolved into inflectional mood suffixes. For example, the nominalizer turned into the past contemporative marker -ller- ‘when (in the past).’ The contradiction with canonical morpheme order was resolved when the erstwhile nominalizer moved from close to the root to the right periphery of the word, thereby restoring the order [ROOT– Derivation–Inflection] in accordance with Figure .. Mithun (: –) also found a similar development in the Iroquoian language Cherokee. In this language, [e]arlier derivational instrumental suffixes, whose ultimate source can be traced to verb roots meaning ‘use’, evolved into inflectional infinitive markers, and in the ⁴ In a similar fashion, Bybee et al. (: ) conclude that, “[w]e would expect grams that are older—ie., that have undergone more development—to be closer to the stem, more fused and shorter or more reduced in segmental material than younger grams of equal relevance.”
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process shifted their position outward, across a number of other derivational suffixes, to take their place within the inflectional aspectual paradigm. (Mithun : )
According to Mithun (: ), this shift “did not involve a simple one-stage hop across morpheme slots, but rather a reinterpretation of the boundary between derivation and inflection.” In Bari, an Eastern Nilotic language of Southern Sudan, a similar development took place on the level of clausal morphosyntax. In this language, the basic word order is subject–verb–object (SVO) with tense markers placed between subject and verb. The basic position of adverbs is clause-initial, cf. (). But when the adverb dé ‘then, afterwards’ was desemanticized and turned into a future tense marker (FUT) it was moved from the clause-initial position to the tense slot between subject and verb, cf. (), thereby restoring the canonical order of clauses. ()
Bari (Eastern Nilotic, Nilotic; Heine and Reh : ) a. dé nan kɔn . . . then I do ‘I shall do . . . then’ b. nan dé kɔn . . . I do ‘I shall do . . . ’
Examples as the above suggest that typological constraints, like the arrangement of affixal morphology or clausal constituent order, can be violated by grammaticalization processes, but at least in some languages, or in specific structures, speakers seem to make an effort towards undoing the violation and restoring the canonical order of meaningful elements. Clarifying the conditions under which this happens in certain languages and structures and not in others would require a larger scale investigation. Overall, though, in the case of morpheme order, grammaticalization appears to be an immediate cause and can therefore serve as a valid explanation. 8.2.3 Grammaticalization and expression types of grammatical categories The third area in which grammaticalization has been found to motivate typological patterns is grammaticalization as the source, and hence also
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explanation for cross-linguistically recurring types of expression of certain grammatical categories. Many linguistic categories are crosslinguistically expressed by a limited number of structural types. These structural types in turn are the product of grammaticalization. Furthermore, the source and the degree of grammaticalization of these structures can explain at least some of their morphosyntactic and semantic features. Especially prominent research linking typological patterns with grammaticalization is associated with Heine (b; Heine and Kuteva ) and Bybee (; Bybee et al. ). In the following, we present a number of examples. Indefinite articles: According to Heine (; Heine and Kuteva ), about percent of all indefinite articles cross-linguistically are derived from the numeral ‘one.’ This explains some positional tendencies of indefinite articles, the fact that they are often confined to singulars, and the following implicational hierarchy for their application: mass noun > plural noun > singular noun (see Section . for more details). Possessive Constructions: Heine (a) identified the eight crosslinguistic source schemas for possessive constructions see Section .). The source schemas in Section ., () can account for some characteristics of specific possessive constructions, such as why they often have non-verbal, or copular-like, predicates, or how the possessor is encoded in a specific language, that is, as a comitative, locative, etc., or why they frequently have locative morphology, etc. (cf. Heine a: –). Furthermore, these constructions often undergo a development at the end of which, () the possessor precedes the possessee; () the possessor has properties of a subject, and the possessee has properties of a clausal object; () the possessor is definite and the possessee is indefinite. Therefore, possessive constructions often display ‘hybrid’ properties between source and target structures depending on the stage of development. In this manner, grammaticalization as a process can account for the properties of these constructions. Future: In her analysis of the cross-linguistic polysemy of future morphemes, Bybee () found that the polysemy can be explained
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by reference to their diachronic evolution, which takes place in the form of paths, such as from movement (‘go’ or ‘come’) to intention, then to prediction, the core future meaning, and further to other meanings such as supposition or imperative, as in Figure . (see Section . for concrete examples). movement
characteristic behavior
intentionm
desire
intentiond
prediction
intentiono
supposition
imperative
obligation
Figure 8.2 Paths for the development of future morphemes (Bybee : )
According to Bybee (: –), these paths of development are explanatory because they explain () why it is difficult to find a single abstract meaning for a polysemous morpheme (like many future morphemes), () the cross-linguistic similarities of grammatical meanings by similar paths of development and principles of historical change, and () differences between morphemes in different languages with reference to different lexical sources and different extent of change along the universal paths of change. Furthermore, () they make it possible to predict possible combinations of meanings, and () they allow the reconstruction of the lexical sources of grammatical morphemes, and () they suggest processes in synchrony that are probably instrumental in explaining the changes and the nature of meaning. Passives: According to Givón (, ), six common types of passive constructions can be identified. () the adjectival-stative passive (e.g. the English common passive); () the reflexive passive (e.g. the English get-passive); () the serial-verb adverse passive (e.g. in Chinese); () the VP-nominalization passive (e.g. in the Amerind language Ute); () the left-dislocation-cum-impersonal-passive (e.g. in Kimbundu); () the zero-anaphora passive (e.g. in Sherpa). ()–() are so-called promotional passives (i.e. the erstwhile object is promoted to subject), while ()–() are non-promotional. Note that the concept of passives applied here is fairly broad, and not every study of passives would include the same range of constructions. In any case, the
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concrete structural properties of these passive structures in individual languages can be explained by the degree to which they have grammaticalized to more prototypical passives. For example, non-promotional passives can become eventually promotional as subject properties gradually shift to the object-patient. Similarly, oblique agents may eventually be added. In this way, types of passives and their morphosyntactic features can be explained with reference to their source construction and their degree of grammaticalization. Overall, then, grammaticalization cannot only account for the shape that grammatical categories take in specific languages, but in some cases even for their specific grammatical features. 8.2.4 Grammaticalization and the cycle of synthetic vs. analytic expression of categories Lastly, grammaticalization plays a decisive role in the change from synthetic to analytic structures, and back to synthetic structures over longer periods of time. Analytic structures are structures in which each grammatical category is expressed by a separate word, while in synthetic structures, grammatical formants are affixed to or even fused with lexical stems. For example, the simple future of chanter ‘to sing’ in French is chanterai (sing..) ‘I will sing,’ which is considered as ‘synthetic,’ while the newer and more colloquial expression je vais chanter (‘I am going to sing’) is considered as ‘analytic.’ Inflections are typical synthetic structures, and their loss in many European languages in favor of analytic grammatical expressions compared to older Indo-European languages alerted linguists from the nineteenth century on to this issue (cf. Ledgeway ). Thus, changes between analytic and synthetic are a traditional and long-standing topic in language typology (cf. Kastovsky ; Ramat ). They have already been alluded to in the section on concrete grammaticalization cycles (Section .). However, in accordance with the tradition in linguistic typology, a much wider perspective, namely in terms of changes in the typological profile of a language or language groups as a whole can also be taken. And grammaticalization is instrumental both in the emergence of grammatical categories from the lexicon, usually starting out as ‘analytic’ structures, and in the agglutination or even fusion that may or may not follow (cf. Section .), and that leads to ‘synthetic’ structures. For example, with respect to Semitic
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languages, Esseesy () notes that “[g]rammaticalization has been shown to facilitate the change from the direction of synthetic to analytic in several Semitic languages . . . and facilitates the transition from one state to another and in some cases perhaps back in a cyclical fashion.” Or, referring to Iranian languages, Haig () also emphasizes the role of grammaticalization in cyclical typological change, suggesting that “the history of grammaticalization can to some extent be seen as the gradual re-acquisition of lost morphological categories.” Haspelmath () coins the term ‘anasynthetic spiral’ for this large-scale cyclical change. He defines anasynthetic change as, a change whereby a new analytic construction arises that competes with an earlier synthetic pattern and grammaticalizes, eventually becoming the primary expression of its meaning, and thus ‘synthetic again.’ (Haspelmath : )
Going back to the French expressions of future as an example, Latin had a ‘synthetic’ future of the form cantabō ‘I will sing’ based on the verb stem canta- sing. The newer synthetic future of French, chanterai, developed out of the ‘analytic’ Latin construction cantare habeō (to.sing have.I) ‘I have to sing.’ This is replaced again in Modern French by the new analytic construction je vais chanter (I go to.sing), that at some point may fuse and become synthetic as well. The image is that of a ‘spiral’ (von der Gabelentz []; Meillet []) rather than a cycle, because none of the newer constructions is really identical to its predecessor. Again, the driving force behind this is grammaticalization, while grammaticalization itself is, of course, driven by something else, that is, not the diachrony, but synchronic motivations in communication and cognition (Chapter ). The application of labels such as ‘analytic’ or ‘synthetic’ to languages as a whole is controversial. Note that even in languages that have comparatively little agglutinative or inflecting morphology such as English or Mandarin Chinese, one can still find such structures (e.g. the English past tense went for go, or plural mice for mouse). Haspelmath (: ) suggests that the best historical cases that can be made for the change, namely from Latin to Romance and from Ancient Egyptian to Coptic, are under conditions of intense language contact (see Chapter ). On the other hand, the renewal of synthetically expressed categories through analytically expressed ones is nothing specific to these language groups (cf. Ledgeway : ), and the occurrence of ‘anasynthetic’ change in specific categories in a specific language should be
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much easier to demonstrate. However, its observation in actual historical data is actually often fraught with difficulties. The development of inflections in particular usually seems to take a longer period of time than is available through historical records even in well-documented languages. Cross-linguistically the origins of flectional/fusional patterns are mostly unknown (cf. Haspelmath : ). Clear examples like that of the French future above are not easy to come upon. Based on historical data from Iranian languages, which are relatively well documented, Haig (: ) concludes that “inflectionalization is evidently a process that requires millennia, not centuries, to achieve.” That is, historically observing an entire process of inflectionalization from lexical item to inflectional ending, and then even its repetition starting out from an analytic structure would require a time-depth of data that extant historical records of languages do not afford us. Thus, Haig writes that “the assumed final stage of grammaticalization, namely into full-fledged inflection, is an exceedingly slow process indeed, taking millennia before all traces of the lexical, or at least noninflectional, origins of grammatical formatives are lost” (Haig : ). This may be one reason why even in Indo-European languages, which have been the cornerstone of grammaticalization research, only few inflectionalizations have been observed historically. It goes without saying that the situation becomes even more difficult when historical records are not available. For example, with respect to Australian languages, Mushin () points out that, “[f]ew grammatical categories are regularly marked by forms whose lexical source is still available as a free form. . . . It is therefore challenging to find clear comparative evidence of contemporary bound affixal forms that in some languages may retain features of their lexical origins.” Often, the best that comparative evidence can provide is to identify different stages in the process of grammaticalization of the same categories in related languages, that is, reconstruction through intragenetic comparison. The slow pace of the genesis of inflections contrasts with a potentially rapid pace of their decay. With respect to the Iranian languages mentioned above, Haig () suggests that, “[i]nflectionalization is evidently a process that requires millennia, not centuries, to achieve, though paradoxically, its loss can be quite rapid, even catastrophic.” Profound changes in the typological profile of a language are more likely to be brought about by intense language contact than by the primarily language-internal changes that are at the core of the idea of
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CONCLUSION
an anasynthetic spiral. But under conditions of language contact as well, grammaticalization plays an important role, as seen in Chapter . So, overall, the traditional analytic–synthetic cycle or spiral in the development of languages, or at least of specific language categories, is due to loss on the one hand, which can be very rapid, and grammaticalization on the other hand, which can take a long time, millennia in the case of inflections. Intense language contact, as for example in pidgin and creole languages, can accelerate grammaticalization, and potentially also the formation of ‘synthetic’ structures (cf. McWhorter ).
8.3 Conclusion This chapter has dealt with cases where typological features of language apparently influence grammaticalization paths on the one hand, and cases in which grammaticalization plays a crucial role in creating typological features on the other. We have seen that variation in grammaticalization due to the grammatical features of a language is most obvious with respect to phonological and morphological aspects of grammaticalization, but can also extend to syntax and semantics. The most well-known case in which typological features of a language constrain morphological and phonological grammaticalization is the tendency of isolating languages not to develop affixal material and grammatical paradigms (Bisang , , ; Ansaldo et al. ). However, the extent to which grammaticalization in these languages differs from that found in other languages may not be as great as is sometimes thought (cf. Dahl ). On the semantic and syntactic side, it seems that there is generally a tendency in languages to follow established grammaticalization paths and renew or elaborate on already established grammatical categories rather than to create entirely new structures and categories. A salient departure from this tendency towards conservatism is most likely to take place under intense language contact, as has been demonstrated clearly in Aikhenvald’s () analysis of Amazonian languages. As for the case of grammaticalization creating language structures of typological relevance, it has been found that the order of grammatical morphemes can be explained by their position at the time of their grammaticalization. This seems to hold for morphologically bound as
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well as non-bound morphemes. Second, commonalities and divergences in the coding of grammatical categories across languages seem to be motivated to a large degree by grammaticalization. Thus, as Bybee (: ) puts it, “grammaticalization has great potential for explaining the similarities as well as the differences among languages.” A third area where grammaticalization strongly contributes to typological features of languages is the cycle—or spiral—between analytic and synthetic language structures as it clearly takes place in the life of specific categories in specific languages, but perhaps even at the level of overall structure of a specific language. This cycle/spiral feeds on the mechanisms of grammaticalization. A complicating factor in documenting full cycles or spirals is that while the decay or disappearance of extant morphological marking can be very quick, its development may take a very long time, especially when it comes to full-fledged morphologization such as inflectionalization. Lastly, grammaticalization is an important player when languages develop new categories or a new typological profile under intense language contact. There is a strong tendency for languages in contact to adopt features from each other and thus develop a similar typological profile.
Further reading For modern introductions into language typology featuring both grammaticalization and morphological structures, see Whaley (), Song (), Veluppilai (), and Moravcsik (). For thoughts on the relationship between reconstruction and typology, see Comrie (, ). Features of grammaticalization in specific areal and genetically defined language groups are discussed in Part V of Narrog and Heine () and in Narrog and Heine () overall. For an example of a whole morphosyntactic cycle leading from synthetic via analytic to polysynthetic structures in the development from Early Egyptian to Coptic, see Hodge ().
Discussion points () What do you think are the typological features of Modern English or another language that you know well that may ‘guide’ future grammaticalizations?
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DISCUSSION POINTS
() What categories would you consider ‘florescent’ in Modern English or another language that you know well? () What do you think are the potential advantages and disadvantages in speaking of a ‘cycle’ versus a ‘spiral’ in grammaticalization? What could be a problem when applied to languages as a whole?
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9 Theory-specific approaches
9.1 Generative grammar
9.2 Functional Discourse Grammar
9.3 Variationist Theory (sociolinguistics)
9.4 Cognitive Grammar
9.5 Construction Grammar
Discussion points
The majority of research in grammaticalization is not strongly tied to a specific theoretical framework. Nevertheless some significant influences can be identified, as we saw in previous chapters. These are, especially, influences from functional linguistics, cognitive linguistics, descriptive linguistics, pragmatics, usage-based grammar, study of language processing, and linguistic typology. Individual researchers usually approached grammaticalization based on one or more of these frameworks rather than the others, leading to sometimes considerable differences in their view of grammaticalization. Still, these generally-speaking cognitivefunctional backgrounds were typically compatible with each other, leaving more common ground than fundamental differences. This common ground for example includes the notion that it is often useful to explain synchronic language states with reference to diachrony, or that diachrony is even implicit in synchrony, and that semantic-pragmatic rather than formal factors are pivotal in grammaticalization. In this chapter, we will briefly discuss approaches to grammaticalization in which the framework within which grammaticalization is studied leaves a stronger imprint on the view of grammaticalization than is commonly the case. In some approaches, there is still plenty of common ground with the “main stream” of grammaticalization studies,
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GENERATIVE GRAMMAR
but in other approaches the contrast is more pronounced and reaching a common ground requires more negotiation. We start by discussing grammaticalization in generative grammar (Section .), proceed to grammaticalization in Functional-Discourse Grammar (Section .), grammaticalization in variationist studies (Section .), grammaticalization and Cognitive Grammar (Section .), and finally to the relationship of grammaticalization to Construction Grammar and constructionalization (Section .).
9.1 Generative grammar Generative grammar is based on a linguistic theory that is outwardly in stark contrast to the cognitive-functional background of most grammaticalization studies. First, the ultimate object of study is the internal language system of the individual and its acquisition. This results in a strict separation of synchrony and diachrony, and a focus on synchronic states of language. Diachronic aspects have generally been relegated to the periphery of the study of language, and language change was often understood as basically random and without directionality (cf. van Gelderen c: ). Moreover, syntax is the core object of study, and semantics-pragmatics are regarded as secondary. Furthermore, generative grammar has no reason to be interested in cognitive, functional, or discourse factors as an explanation for change since the syntactic structure in a specific model of syntax itself is already taken as an explanation. Nevertheless, there are some striking and obvious overlaps between empirical observations in grammaticalization studies and structural descriptions in generative grammar, which eventually led to a rise in interest in grammaticalization, enhanced by the rise of minimalism. Among them is the idea of change from lexical to grammatical, and the possibility to generalize across languages, especially in terms of unidirectionality. As described by van Gelderen (c), pioneering work in the early s (e.g. Abraham , ; Roberts ; van Gelderen ) was followed by a notable surge in research activities in the s. The distinctive feature of generative grammar vs. some other syntactic frameworks is that it centrally posits hierarchical, that is, non-relational, constituent structures in the clause. That is, sentence structure is analyzed as hierarchical tree structure of lexical and functional phrases. The higher nodes in the tree are occupied by functional
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phrases built around functional heads, while the lower nodes are occupied by lexical phrases built around lexical heads. The general consensus description of grammaticalization in generative grammar, then, is essentially a ‘climbing up’ the tree by a category that was initially merged lower in the tree structure to a higher position. That is, a lexical category can become the realization of a functional (grammatical) category, or a functional category located lower in the tree can become the realization of a functional category located higher in the tree. In the former case, one can speak of the “creation of new functional material” (Roberts and Roussou : ). Note that when a word or morpheme climbs up a tree it also means it acquires a wider scope. This is at first glance a contrast to Lehmann’s ( []) idea of reduction of ‘structural scope’ as a parameter of grammaticalization (cf. Section .). However, as we saw in Sections . and ., ‘structural scope’ refers to an entirely different concept of morphosyntactic structure, and would be better labeled ‘structural size.’ In order to eventually ‘climb,’ a linguistic item merged lower in the tree must have a feature that was checked at a position higher in the tree. That is, this item originally instantiated features at two or more positions in the tree structure, and underwent Move in order to check a feature at a higher position. If reanalysis (or grammaticalization) takes place, the same feature is merged directly in a higher position. This observation has been formulated as ‘structural simplification’ by Roberts and Roussou (), and as ‘economy’ by van Gelderen (). Van Gelderen () distinguished two Economy Principles, namely () the Spec to Head Principle (Head Preference Principle), and (), the Late Merge Principle. These are motivated by the theory-internal assumptions that () checking between two heads is more economical than checking between a specifier and a head, and () merging is more economical than moving, since merging is required anyway, but moving comes at an additional cost. With respect to ‘structural simplification,’ the structure resulting from grammaticalization is always simpler than the erstwhile structure if the erstwhile structure implied feature syncretism (i.e. realization of two or more features in one item). The (secondary) grammaticalization of the numeral classifier ge as an indefinite determiner in colloquial Mandarin Chinese (Wu ; Chapter ) may serve as an illustration. Example () shows ge as a numeral classifier, attached to a numeral. Example () represents the outcome of this change, namely ge as an unambiguous indefinite
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determiner. In this position it cannot be quantified by a numeral. Also note the co-ocurrence with a different classifier ping that is occupying the kind of position that originally ge had. ()
Mandarin Chinese (Wu : ) Wo you liang-ge pinguguo. I have two- apple ‘I have two apples.’
()
Mandarin Chinese (Wu : ) Ta he-le ge san-ping jiu. he drink- three- wine ‘He did a drinking of three bottles of wine.’
According to Wu (: –), ge as in () occupies the position in the DP as indicated in the structural tree in (). That is, originally, ge is merged as the head of a classifier phrase in ⁰.¹ Ge as an indefinite determiner in () occupies the position as indicated in (). The realization of D in D⁰ cannot be the result of Move since ⁰ is realized as ping ‘bottle’. () represents an intermediate stage of change at which ge was still base-generated in the P and had to move to D⁰ position via Num⁰. ()
DP D′ D0
NumP
Ø
Num′ Num0
ClP
(yi)/er/san ‘(one)/two/three’ Cl0 ge
Cl′ NP N0
¹ Note that this analysis presupposes that Mandarin Chinese already has a DP structure, which is not uncontroversial.
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()
DP D′ D0
NumP
Ø
Num′ Num0
ClP
(yi ‘one’)
()
Cl′ Cl0
NP
ge
N0
DP D′ D0
NumP
ge
Num′ Num0
ClP Cl′ Cl0
NP N0
While the description of the basic mechanism of grammaticalization as upward reanalysis in a hierarchical clause structure is uncontroversial within the framework, the way it is theoretically framed and motivated differs to some extent from researcher to researcher. Roberts (Roberts and Rousseau ; Roberts , and elsewhere) emphasizes that grammaticalization is parameter change, that is, change in the features
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GENERATIVE GRAMMAR
associated with a specific lexical or functional item in the lexicon. Van Gelderen () emphasizes that grammaticalization is associated with language acquisition. Innate principles of economy cause the language learner to reanalyse items in the lexicon. More recently, Van Gelderen (c: –) has described grammaticalization in terms of feature economy: Since Chomsky (), features in generative grammar are distinguished into interpretable and uninterpretable ones. Interpretable features remain visible after checking and cannot be deleted, while uninterpretable features can only be checked once (cf. Van Gelderen : –). Now, it is more economical for an item to have uninterpretable features, so items develop towards having uninterpretable features. For example, the French negation particle pas was initially a noun with the meaning ‘step’ and generated (merged) as a complement in the VP. When used for negation together with the negation particle ne it moved to the Spec of NegP and was reanalyzed as being generated (merged) there. But it still had an interpretable feature. Finally it was reanalyzed as being generated (merged) in the Head of NegP. At this point, negation became an uninterpretable feature.
Further reading Van Gelderen (c) contains a list of prominent publications on grammaticalization by generativists up to the point of publication. Additionally, in an earlier attempt to explain language change in terms of generative grammar, Lightfoot () applied the framework of principles and parameters to it, claiming that language learners initiate change by selecting specific structures from a genetically encoded finite set of language structures. Change in this framework is viewed as abrupt and catastrophic. See Hopper and Traugott (: –) for a critique. Haspelmath () was an early attempt to point out commonalities between grammaticalization theory and generative grammar. Fischer and Rosenbach () offer a discussion of formal vs. functional approaches to grammaticalization. Osawa has argued in a number of publications (e.g. Osawa , ) that grammaticalization is an instantiation of category maturation, that is, an emergence of functional categories heading their own projections. Van Gelderen’s more recent research on grammaticalization has been focused on cyclicity in grammaticalization (e.g. Van Gelderen a, ).
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9.2 Functional Discourse Grammar Hierarchical clause structures are not an exclusive domain of formal grammars. Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG; formerly ‘Functional Grammar’, FG) distinguishes four levels of grammar, the phonological level, the morphosyntactic level, the representational level, and the interpersonal level, each of which is in turn organized into layers. Each layer maximally has the following structure: () π v: [head (v)Φ]: [σ(v)Φ])Φ V is the variable of the relevant layer, which is restricted by a head and (optionally) further by a modifier σ. Head and modifier both take the variable as their argument. Finally, π (also optional) is an operator specifying the layer and Φ a function relating the layer to other units (Hengeveld and Mackenzie : ). Central to grammaticalization is the Representational Level, which consists of the hierarchical arrangement and the realization of semantic categories. This is a purely semantic level which corresponds to syntactic realizations via encoding rules. The layered structure of the Representational Level is given in () below in linear order (as an alternative to a tree structure representation): () The Representational Level (Hengeveld and Mackenzie : ) (p1: [(ep1: [(e1: [(f1: [(f2)n (x)Φ . . . (x+n)Φ] (f)) . . . (f+n)(e)Φ]) . . . (e+n)[Φ]] (ep)) . . . (ep+n) [Φ]] (p)) The outermost layer is the proposition (p), which recursively contains episodes (ep), which in turn recursively contain States-of-Affairs (e). These contain Configurational Properties (f) that can further contain descriptions of Individuals (x) and Lexical Properties (f) (Hengeveld and Mackenzie : , , ). Also, as mentioned in (), every layer can have one or more operators, that is, exponents of grammatical categories specifying the layer. In contradistinction to recent models of generative grammar, there is no hierarchical relationship between elements of the same layer. Now, within this model, Hengeveld claimed as early as that “diachronic developments in the field of operators tend to follow the direction [from lower layer to higher layer]”² (Hengeveld : ). ² According to the model of Functional Grammar of that time, this was represented as “π > π > π > π,” whereby π = predicate operator; π = predication operator; π = proposition operator; π = illocution operator.
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To our knowledge, this is the first time that a mechanism of grammaticalization was formulated within a specific theory of syntax. Note that the direction of change posited, and empirically observed, is the same as in generative grammar (Section .), namely towards a higher layer and towards wider scope. As formulated in FDG, grammaticalization involves an increase in unidirectional scope at both the representational and the interpersonal level (cf. Hengeveld : –). Hengeveld (: –) furthermore suggests that grammaticalization, and thus category climbing across layers, may also occur on the interpersonal level, and from the representational to the interpersonal level. Accordingly, there is an interesting third kind of scope increase in this model, namely when a marker jumps from the representational to the interpersonal level in a process that does not require gradual grammaticalization (Hengeveld : ). In the terminology of the present book, this process is treated as ‘cooptation’ (Chapter ). Since FDG is also mainly concerned with synchronic issues, research following up on the observation in Hengeveld () has not been copious but includes Boland (), Hengeveld (), and Hengeveld et al. (), all primarily dealing with change in the area of tense, aspect, and modality (TAM). These are categories for which FDG has traditionally made fine distinctions (cf. Dik a). Different types of tense, aspect, and modality are located at different layers of the clause. For example, phasal aspect is located at the layer of Configurational Properties (f; also labeled as ‘Situational Concept’ layer), event quantification and relative tense at the State-of-Affairs layer (e), and absolute tense at the Episode layer (ep). The predicted direction of change in the tense/aspect domain is then from phasal aspect to event quantification and relative tense to absolute tense, that is from narrower to wider scope. This is what has been actually found historically in a number of languages. Hengeveld (: –) provides the example of the Spanish haber ‘have’ + past participle construction. This construction underwent a development in three stages that can be schematically represented as in (). ()
Stage I
Stage II
Stage III
category
resultative
perfect
past
TA distinction
phasal aspect relative tense
absolute tense
layer
f
ep
e
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More generally, Hengeveld (: ) posits the pathways of grammaticalization represented in (). The units of the representational level have already been discussed, except that “f” has been renamed as “f c,” that is, ‘configurational property’ in . The abbreviations at the Interpersonal Level are M = move, A = discourse act, C = communicated content, R = referential act, and T = ascriptive act. The bold letters indicate the path of haber in Pensinsular Spanish from f¹ (fc) to ep as sketched out in (). () Lexicon
Lex
Interpersonal level
M
←
A
←
C
← R
←
T
Representational level
p
←
ep
←
e
← fc
←
f
Lexicon
Lex
Lex
Lex
Lex
Lex
Lex
Lex
Lex
Lex
Hengeveld (: ) succinctly describes the meaning of the representation in () as follows: Lexical items may enter the system at any point, but once this point has been selected they cannot move down to a lower point on the interpersonal or representational scale. Items can move up from the representational level to the interpersonal level at any point, but once they have entered the interpersonal level they cannot move down the interpersonal scale. (Hengeveld : )
With respect to the categorical change of items in grammaticalization, Hengeveld (), based on Keizer (), proposes a change from lexeme (modifiable, can be focused) to lexical operator (not modifiable, but can be focused) to operator (not modifiable, cannot be focused). Contentive change does not have to be paralleled by categorical change.
Further reading Hengeveld et al. () contains a number of case studies and theoretical discussions of grammaticalization within this framework.
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VARIATIONIST THEORY
(SOCIOLINGUISTICS)
9.3 Variationist Theory (sociolinguistics) The topic of researching grammaticalization in sociolinguistics differs from the other topics in this chapter in that the grammatical analysis of the phenomena in question is not affected, as it is affected when choosing a generative framework or an FDG framework, for example. Sociolinguistics also shares with the main stream of grammaticalization studies an emphasis on the study of language use. However, the sociolinguistic study of grammaticalization highlights different factors of change compared to grammatically motivated research. When speaking of the “sociolinguistic study of grammaticalization” we do not intend to conceal the fact that this approach is not yet very well established. This may primarily be due to the fact that historically oriented sociolinguistics has been overwhelmingly concerned with phonetic and phonological change, but also to the fact that important proponents of grammaticalization theory did not have sociolinguistic aspects of change on their agenda. Nevertheless, sociolinguistics offers a complementary perspective on grammaticalization that deserves more attention than it has so far received. According to Nevalainen and Palander-Collin (), from the perspective of a sociolinguistic approach to language change, grammaticalization is no different from other types of change. A primary focus for historical sociolinguistics is the diffusion of change in a specific community of speakers. Diffusion usually takes the shape of an S-Curve, that is, starting slowly, then accelerating, and finally plateauing off when the new linguistic convention is established. A change is considered as completed when reaching a frequency of percent of the competing variant forms. Some changes may take several generations, and the progress can be studied on a contemporary community of speakers by slicing the community into generations. In other cases, a whole community of speakers may adopt the change across generations. Factors that are of particular interest include the age of the speaker, their gender, and their social rank and professions in correlation to their adoption of the new linguistic convention. For example, Nevalainen () in a study of the spread of the adverbial suffix -ly on intensifying adjectives in adverbial function (e.g. extreme/extremely, exceeding/exceedingly) in fifteenth- to eighteenth-century English, showed that -ly adverbialization accelerated in literate social ranks,
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and the eventual social stigmatization of the bare forms through social evaluation led to broad adoption of the marked adverbialized forms. ‘Variants,’ such as extremely vs. extreme in the example above, are central elements within this concept of change. The variant is also at the center of variation theory, an approach within sociolinguistics that has particular affinity to historical change in general and grammaticalization in particular. According to Poplack (: ), key concepts of variation theory are: (i)
the linguistic variable, that is, different ways of saying the same thing; (ii) the variable context, that is, the specific domain in which variants alternate without change in representational meaning; (iii) the principle of accountable reporting, which means to cover not only cases in which the forms of interest materialized but also cases where they did not although they might have. For variation theory, characteristic for any language change, including grammaticalization, is that a specific variant extends its use in a certain context while another variant retreats. In traditional grammaticalization theory, this kind of variation has been known under the label of ‘layering’ (cf. Section .). Nevertheless, it is rarely studied systematically, because the emphasis tends to be just on the element (or the ‘variant’) that successfully grammaticalized at the expense of the others. In studies based on variation theory, layering takes center stage. Furthermore, detailed quantitative analysis provides evidence with respect to which factor significantly contributes to the choice of one variant over others. Constraints on variant choice are ranked, and this ranking is understood as the ‘grammar’ determining surface realization of the variable (Poplack : ). As an example, be going to has grammaticalized as a future variant in English, but in Present Day English it is still competing with will, with which it now shares the variable context of expressing future. While the choice between be going to and will has been traditionally attributed to semantic nuances such as temporal proximity, certainty and willingness, a multivariate analysis of the factors contributing to variant choice reveals a slightly different picture. Namely, the strongest effects on variant choice can be attributed to specific collocations (cf. Torres Cacoullos and Walker , ). For example, will has a very low
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(SOCIOLINGUISTICS)
likelihood of occurring vs. be going to in questions, and with second person subjects. Both factors are combined in example (). ()
a. What are you gonna/going to do? (likely) b. What will you do? (less likely)
On the other hand, will has carved out a niche in collocation with never, with which it is much more likely to co-occur than be going to, and in fixed discourse formulas as in (): () I’ll tell . . . / I’ll pay . . . / I’ll ask . . . / I’ll call . . . In contrast, be going to is much more likely to occur in the complement of cognition verbs with a first person subject, such as I think . . . Overall, then, it is clear that both will and be going to are very much entrenched in specific contexts, which explains the equilibrium between the two variants, instead of the relatively newer be going to wiping out the older will. Sticking with the concept of future, Poplack and Malvar () and Poplack () analyze the rise of the Portuguese periphrastic future based on the verb ir ‘go’ at the expense of the synthetic future and the haver + infinitive construction. () shows each form: () Portuguese future forms a. cantarei ‘I will sing’ (synthetic future) b. hei de cantar ‘I will sing’ (haver-periphrasis) c. vou cantar ‘I will sing’ (ir-periphrasis) According to the authors, unlike English be going to and French and Spanish go-futures, the Portuguese ir-periphrasis practically obliterated the competing variants (note, though, that the present tense can still be used with future reference). It did so by entering through proximate future contexts. Furthermore, a multivariate analysis of the factors contributing to the choice of future variant shows that in each language, specific variants are preferred in different contexts, thus contributing to the spread or non-spread of the new future form. For example, while the Portuguese ir-periphrasis became entrenched in proximal future contexts at an early stage, this was not the case with the French allerperiphrasis. The upshot of this is, while in grammaticalization studies it is often emphasized that expressions for certain categories crosslinguistically have the same etymological sources, the actual process of change and the end state in relation to other variants of the category can be quite different. Specific functions and meanings of the lexical
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item may remain as constraints in specific languages to varying degrees, and specific forms may remain, as they are strongly associated with specific contexts. Variation theory offers the tools to bring different processes of grammaticalization and factors involved in them to light. Further reading Other relevant papers by the authors already cited above include Torres Cacoullos (), Poplack and Torres Cacoullos (), and Poplack et al. (). Poplack () contains a list of prominent contributions to the study of grammaticalization in a variationist framework up to the point of publication. There is a strong connection between Variationist Theory and corpus linguistics (see Section ..; Mair ), since variationist studies of grammaticalization rely on corpora, on the one hand, and variationist methodology is an obvious way to make use of historical corpora, on the other. Studying grammaticalization with the help of historical corpora in the context of register variation (e.g. Biber ; Biber and Gray ) is another useful application of sociolinguistic methods to grammaticalization and language change in general. Variation of grammaticalization in varieties of English (e.g. Kortmann and Schneider ) (or other languages) is yet another type of variation that can be studied with corpora.
9.4 Cognitive Grammar Cognitive Grammar may not be a major grammatical framework currently, and the relationship between grammaticalization and cognition has already been reflected throughout this book without referring to this specific framework. Nevertheless, the Cognitive Grammar framework offers a unique view of the relationship between cognition and grammar, and the analysis of grammaticalization in this framework warrants some attention because it is unique but nevertheless ties in well with the overall directionality of semantic change in grammaticalization that we have identified in Chapter . For Langacker (, , , ), grammaticalization is a semantically-driven process and the result of schematicization and especially subjectification, partially corresponding to the concepts of abstraction and part of discourse orientation in Sections . and . of this book, respectively. In Cognitive Grammar, linguistic expressions
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are viewed in terms of construals involving a conceptualizer (speaker) and an object of conceptualization (an event). A construal is conceived of as subjective if the conceptualizer’s perspective is reflected but not explicitly put ‘on-stage’ in a linguistic expression. Subjectification, then, has been characterized as “the realignment of some relationship from the objective to the subjective axis” (Langacker : ), but later re-defined as “a gradual process of progressive attenuation,” in which “an objective relationship fades away, leaving behind a subjective relationship that was originally immanent in it” (Langacker : f ). By means of illustration, Figure . represents the gradual subjectification, and grammaticalization of the lexical verb go to the future marker be going to/gonna in English. (a)
(b)
(c)
objective scene
objective scene
space (source)
mental
mental tr
tr
tr objective scene space
t tr mental (target)
tr t
T C
t
T
T C
C
(d)
(e) objective scene mental
(f ) objective scene
tr
objective scene tr
tr
t
t
t
T
T
T
C
C
C
Figure 9.1 Grammaticalization of be going to in Cognitive Grammar (Langacker : )
Diagram (a) in Figure . represents the starting point of the development and (f) the end point. “C” is the conceptualizer, that is, the locus of conceptualization and language production. The object of conception is circled by the dashed line. The part of the event that is
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profiled by the linguistic expression is highlighted with bold lines. The circle marked as “tr” is the ‘trajector,’ the focused particiant, “t” is the conceived time, that is, the time of situation as it is described while “T” refers to the ‘processing time,’ that is, time as the medium of conception. At the starting point (a), which may be a sentence like Sean is going to New Hampshire, the trajectory moves in physical motion across space from an unspecified current location to the profiled destination (New Hampshire). This spatial movement is mentally tracked by the conceptualizer. Beyond the physical motion, the construction also refers to a ‘mental’ relationship of intention between the subject and the event, which is indicated by the double-dashed arrow in the upper square of the diagram. Starting from the source construction, through (b) to (f), step-wise the more concrete and physical aspects of the event fade from the construal. In (b) and (c), the spatial movement is fading, and what remains is the mental aspect, that is, the intention of the trajector, the subject to perform the event, as in the sentence Sean is going to graduate. The event could entail physical spatial movement (diagram b) or not (diagram c). In a next step, represented in diagram (d), the intention can be removed from the trajectory and attributed to some external force, that is the conceptualizer herself, or a third party, as in the sentence, Sean is going to graduate—his mother is determined. In diagram (e), even the mental aspect of the event, that is, some force of intention is removed, and the projection is purely temporal. A sentence such as Sean is going to graduate on Sunday, I hear would be a possible example. The last stage of development depicted in diagram (f) shifts the profile to the projected event per se. According to Langacker (: ), this is a stage not yet reached by English be going to/gonna. In this way, the grammaticalization of be going to is characterized by conceptual ‘attenuation.’ Through this process, the meaning shifts from a more concrete one to a ‘schematic’ one devoid of details. Therefore, ‘schematicization’ takes place. Langacker has also labeled the conceptual attenuation as a kind of semantic ‘bleaching’ (cf. Section .; Langacker : , : ). The lexical sources of grammatical categories, such as go in this example are often frequent, basic, and general. Langacker () calls them ‘conceptual archetypes.’ Finally, the grammaticalized item is ‘transparent.’ While the lexical verb go requires an animate, volitional subject, the future marker be going to/
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gonna is compatible with any kind of subject, including expletives such as it or there as in It’s gonna be great. Overall, for Langacker, grammaticalization is a reductive process leading to reduction and erosion at several levels of grammar. Conceptually, it is characterized as a progression from specific content to mental operations applicable to any content (Langacker : , ).
Further reading Langacker’s approach to grammaticalization is not only unusual in being largely identified with subjectification but also in that his own writing is entirely from a synchronic perspective. Athanasiadou et al. () is a collection of papers that assembles the most prominent authors following the Langackerian perspective on subjectification and grammaticalization, namely Frank Brisard, Tanja Mortelmans, Péter Pelyvás, and Satoshi Uehara. Narrog (b) points out a number of problems occurring when the Langackerian concepts are applied to actual historical change, and in Narrog (b) the subjectivity and subjectification concepts of Langacker are compared to those of other proponents of subjectification.
9.5 Construction Grammar While the relationship between grammaticalization theory and generative grammar (Section .) is problematic from the outset because of the starkly different theoretical backgrounds but actually reveals surprising commonalities, just the opposite is the case with the relationship between grammaticalization theory and Construction Grammar. The theoretical background in cognitive-functionalist grammar is essentially shared, but some of the basic tenets when it comes to actually analyzing phenomena of grammaticalization seem almost irreconcilable. Furthermore, constructionalization theory has not only been suggested as a framework within which to study grammaticalization but also as an alternative framing of the same processes that have been traditionally known as grammaticalization. That is, processes traditionally labeled or conceived of as grammaticalization, would now be conceived of in terms of ‘constructionalization.’ In that case, the relationship of grammaticalization to Construction Grammar
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would strictly speaking not be a topic for the current chapter, but instead for Chapter , where we discuss processes adjacent to grammaticalization, such as lexicalization and degrammaticalization. Construction Grammar is a framework that analyzes language as the inventory of symbolic combinations of form and meaning, that is, ‘constructions.’ This inventory consists of symbolic units of all sizes, from clauses down to the equivalents of traditional morphemes. That is, both lexical and grammatical units of language are essentially the same kinds of ‘constructions.’ As Trousdale (a: ) states, constructions in this framework are “form-meaning pairings at different levels of abstractness and atomicity that are organized in a taxonomy; thus, there is no substantial difference between the lexicon and the syntax.” Furthermore, while constituent structure and hierarchical clause structure are in principle compatible with Construction Grammar, in contrast to most modern structuralist frameworks of grammar, hierarchies have been used only for describing relationships within the inventory of constructions, and not for describing clause structure. In contrast to traditional descriptive grammars, the emphasis in Construction Grammar has been on identifying and describing individual constructions, especially of the kind that are difficult to capture in traditional phrase structures, that is, idiomatic structures, and not on systematically describing the grammar of any language. The ‘grammar’ of any language would in fact be a very large catalogue of constructions, including what has traditionally been treated as the ‘lexicon.’ This has a number of ramifications for Construction Grammar’s relationship to grammaticalization. First of all, while for grammaticalization, the distinction between lexical and grammatical, and less vs. more grammatical, categories is definitional, the denial of such a distinction is programmatic at least to some versions of Construction Grammar. Thus, Noël (: ) submits that “grammaticalization, as a change from lexical to grammatical, is not an issue in Construction Grammar: construction grammatical units can by definition not become more grammatical.” Secondly, when Construction Grammar is applied to diachrony as the study of ‘constructional change’ (Hilpert a) or ‘constructionalization’ (Traugott and Trousdale ),³ its scope “goes beyond ³ According to Traugott (), constructionalization involves changes in both form and meaning whereas constructional change involves changes in form or meaning but not in
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grammaticalization,” as Hilpert (a: ) puts it. Some phenomena that are not typically in the scope of grammaticalization include: (a) lexical change; (b) any kind of word order change, while grammaticalization is restricted to word order change involving substantive material; (c) all the processes adjacent to grammaticalization to be discussed in Chapters and . It will depend on the specific concept of Construction Grammar and constructionalization if grammaticalization and any of the changes in (a) to (c) are classified as specific sub-categories of constructionalization, or if simply all changes are lumped together as individual instances of constructionalization. For the purposes of this book, however, it is more interesting to consider the question whether phenomena traditionally associated with ‘grammaticalization’ should at least partially remain so, or should better be reconceptualized as ‘constructionalizations.’ Hüning and Booij () believe that the latter is the case, and provide a few examples of change that seem to be particularly suitable to illustrate the claim. These include the Dutch and German nouns hoofd and Haupt ‘head,’ respectively, in compounds, the German suffix -fähig derived from the lexical adjective fähig ‘able,’ and the Geman prefix stock-, derived from the noun Stock ‘stick.’ These lexemes and morphemes are all involved in word formation, a tricky area for the study of grammaticalization and lexicalization since it is variously associated with one or the other. To take stock- as an example (Hüning and Booij : –), it was originally involved in noun + adjective compounds, where the compound expressed the meaning ‘as [adjective] as a stick’; for example stocksteif ‘as stiff as a stick.’ In the sixteenth century, formations with stock- became suddenly very productive in German and extended beyond the literal meaning ‘stick’ to a general intensifying meaning; for example stockalt ‘very old’ or stockblind ‘very blind.’ Furthermore, a
both—a terminological distinction not made by Hilpert (a). Since all symbolic combinations of form and meaning are constructions, one could argue that ʽconstructionalizationʼ should more appropriately be called ʽre-constructionalizationʼ as it involves the transition from one kind of construction to another rather than from non-construction to construction.
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subclass of compounds developed in which stock- was not only intensifying but also pejorative in combination with mental attitudes, for example stockkonservativ ‘conservative to the core.’ With respect to the central element Stock/stock-, this development exhibits some important characteristics of grammaticalization: (a) context extension of the erstwhile noun to a number of adjectives with which it could not associate in this position; (b) desementicization of Stock ‘stick’ to an intensifier; and (c) decategorialization of the noun to a prefix, as stock- in the compounds does not exhibit any noun characteristics. However, later the productivity abated, and in Modern German, only very occasionally new compounds are formed with stock-. Synchronically in Modern German, one would therefore be inclined to consider formations with stock- as lexicalized. For Hüning and Booij (: –) both the terms grammaticalization and lexicalization are misleading. Instead, stock- has undergone constructionalization across four constructional schemas: ()
(a) General schema for endocentric compounds < [[a]Xi + [b]Yj]Yk $ [kind of semj related to semi]k > (b) Schema for comparative (elative) adjectives < [[a]Ni + [b]Aj]Ak $ [as semj as semi / very semj]k > e.g. schneeweiss ‘as white as snow,’ stocksteif ‘as stiff/rigid as a stick’ (c) Schema for elative compounds with stock< [[stock] + [b]Aj]Ak $ [very semj]k > e.g. stockalt ‘very old’ (d) Schema for adjectives with stock- denoting a human trait or behavior < [[stock] + [b]Aj]Ak $ [very/extremely/too semj // semj to the core]k > e.g. stockkonservativ ‘conservative to the core’
The existence of the schemas (a) and (b) preceded the formation of compounds with stock-. That is, German already had productive patterns for endocentric compounds in general and for compounds with comparative adjectives in particular. First, the compounds with comparative meaning evolved in analogy to extant compounds, then the compound schema with stock- developed a life of its own in (c), when the pattern developed a general intensifying meaning. In a further step,
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the narrower sub-schema in (d) developed that remained the only productive formation pattern for some time. Hüning and Booij (: –) suggest that terms like grammaticalization and lexicalization would not appropriately describe the development since they presuppose that an independent element stock with intensifying meaning enters the compound. However, there is no such independent element, and instead the intensifying meaning is only obtained in certain contexts, namely with certain adjectives. Scholars of grammaticalization and lexicalization might immediately counter that context is an essential element for both processes (cf. Chapter of this book, with respect to grammaticalization). Also note that the concept of a construction as a unit for grammaticalization was in no way alien to the study of grammaticalization (cf. Noël : –). However, while the notion of ‘construction’ was flexibly used by many authors, it was not the fulcrum of the analysis. In any case, the decisive claim for scholars of constructionalization necessarily has to be that the concept of constructions captures essential parts of change that are not captured by reference to context, as applied in grammaticalization or lexicalization studies. In contrast, scholars of grammaticalization have pointed out features of grammaticalization that are not covered by a constructionalist approach and that would suggest the framework of grammaticalization theory is in fact more appropriate to study phenomena traditionally associated with grammaticalization. These include (cf. Heine et al. ): (i)
The distinction between lexical and grammatical categories. Even if this distinction may be gradual, there is plenty of evidence that it is real and has manifold effects in grammar. Furthermore, even morphologically dependent affixes can be shown to have a meaning/function on their own, and not only in constructions. (ii) It can be shown that semantic change accompanying shifts from the lexical to the grammatical cannot be entirely reduced to effects internal to constructions. (iii) Grammaticalizations can be generalized typologically and reveal universal processes in language change. (iv) While constructionalization is explained with reference to frequency of use, increasing schematicity and productivity of constructions, and analogy, it can be questioned if any of these factors is really a motivation for speakers to initiate change the
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way that the communicative goals or cognitive and pragmatic factors adduced in grammaticalization studies are. (v) Most of the criteria and parameters of grammaticalizaton, such as the ones discussed in Chapter , are not immediately applicable to constructionalization, and therefore constructionalization might be less suitable for reconstruction. While grammaticalization theory and Construction Grammar and its concept of ‘constructionalization’ seem to be wide apart, there have also been attempts for intermediate approaches, for example, treating change in constructions within grammaticalization theory, or trying to retain certain features of grammaticalization within Construction Grammar. As for the first approach, Noël (: –) suggests that in order to treat constructional change within a theory of grammaticalization, (a) the construction must be grammatical, and (b) the construction must undergo the type of change that is typical for grammaticalization. Himmelmann (: ) attempts a definition of grammaticalization that includes both the terms ‘construction’ and ‘grammaticizing element.’ Van Bogaert () may be a good example for this type of approach. The author discusses the developing parenthetical use of complementtaking mental predicates such as I think as “constructional grammaticalization.” According to her, decategorialization takes place, the whole class of verbs undergoes the change, token frequency has risen significantly, and thus the change displays the hallmarks of grammaticalization. Major aspects of the grammaticalization of a construction include that () the construction becomes more general and schematic/abstract, () the construction becomes more productive, and () the elements of the construction fuse and become intransparent (Van Bogaert (: –). Similarly, Narrog (d) provides an analysis of the grammaticalization of the Japanese future marker -(a)m-/-(y)oo, which is complemented by a description in terms of constructionalization. This description sheds additional light on the change in the constructional contexts in which the marker has been used. As for the second approach, that is, analyzing grammaticalization within Construction Grammar while to some extent retaining the concept of grammaticalization, Gisborne and Patten (: ) suggest that, in that case, Construction Grammar needs to allow for a counterpart to the distinction between lexical and grammatical, or even to the concept of less vs. more grammatical. This is possible if a shift
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from lexical to grammatical and to more grammatical is re-cast as a shift from more substantive to more schematic constructions. Trousdale (a) is an attempt to provide a framework for this kind of approach. For him, the general features of constructions relevant to language change are (a) generality, that is, the schematicity of the semantics of a construction, (b) productivity, that is, the ability to sanction less schematic constructions, and (c) compositionality, that is, the extent to which the meaning of a construction is derivable from its components. The features of the change traditionally identified as grammaticalization, then, are (a) an increase in generality, (b) an increase in productivity, and (c) a decrease in compositionality of a construction. In conclusion, Construction Grammar is a rapidly evolving framework of grammar that shares the same cognitive-functional theoretical background with mainstream grammaticalization theory but has come up with assumptions about grammar that are basically incompatible with the notion of grammaticalization. There have been attempts both to accommodate constructions within grammaticalization theory and to integrate and somehow retain grammaticalization as a concept within Construction Grammar, and it remains to be seen what further development Construction Grammar will take. For the time being, though, it seems appropriate to keep these two frameworks apart.
Further reading Hilpert (a) and Traugott and Trousdale () are seminal monographic studies applying Construction Grammar to diachronic issues. These three authors have also published a number of other important papers on the topic (e.g. Traugott a, , b; Hilpert , b; Trousdale , ; Traugott and Trousdale ). Other important contributions include Rostila (), Bergs and Diewald (), Diewald (), Bisang (), Fried (), de Smet (), Gisborne (), Patten (), and Barðdal et al. (). Börjars et al. () and Heine (a) are critical reviews of Traugott and Trousdale (). Trousdale () and Heine et al. () are discussions of the relationship between grammaticalization and constructionalization, the former from the perspective of Construction Grammar and the latter from the perspective of grammaticalization theory.
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Discussion points () Do you think that any of the frameworks presented here is (or are) difficult to reconcile with the fundamental ideas about grammaticalization as presented in first five chapters of this book? () Which of the frameworks, in your opinion, will add the most value to the approach to the study of grammaticalization presented there? () Both the generative and the Functional Discourse Grammar framework associate grammaticalization with expansion of scope, and development towards ‘higher’ levels of grammars. What do you think might be the motivation for this development from the perspective of the speaker?
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10 Beyond grammaticalization
10.1 Lexicalization
10.2 Degrammaticalization (anti-grammaticalization)
10.3 Exaptation/regrammaticalization
10.4 Other -izations
10.5 Conclusion
Discussion points
There are a number of diachronic processes besides grammaticalization that bear some semblance to or have some relationship with grammaticalization. Many of them have been discussed quite controversially and have sparked a fair amount of research literature. We will introduce each of the most important of them in a section of their own: Lexicalization (Section .), anti- and de-grammaticalization (Section .), and exaptation or regrammaticalization (Section .). The remaining concepts receive a brief description in a section dedicated to other “-izations” (Section .). “-Ization” is a deliberate new word formation, tongue in cheek, alluding to the fact that not every label necessarily means a different process, but sometimes is just a matter of excessive terminology. At the end of Section . the reader should know by which process a new word like “-ization” is derived.
10.1 Lexicalization To start with, lexicalization can be simply defined as a process by which linguistic units enter the lexicon that previously had a different status, for example, as phrases (cf. Wischer ; Lightfoot ). So, we may
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in the first place think of syntactic combinations of two or more words that become one lexical unit, such as Modern English tomorrow from the Middle English preposition to ‘at, on’ and the noun morrow ‘morning,’ or similarly Modern German heute ‘today’ from Old High German hiu tagu ‘this day,’ and secondarily of morphological combinations between lexemes or lexemes and affixes that fuse into one word that eventually becomes indistinguishable; for example infamous from in- (negative prefix) and famous, which is still fairly transparent, or Modern English near from the comparative form (adding the suffix -er) of Old English nēah ‘nigh, near’ (cf. Brinton : ), which has become entirely intransparent for contemporary speakers. Dong (: –) presents a number of easy to understand examples of lexicalizations from the combination of words in Chinese language history. Hòuhuǐ in Modern Chinese is a verb meaning ‘regret’. However, originally it consisted of two words, the adverb hòu ‘later’, and the verb huǐ ‘regret’, as in (): () Ancient Chinese (Dong : ) hòu jiāng huǐ zhī Yíng suō zhuǎn huà, advance retreat turn change later will regret it ‘Times change, and later you will regret it.’ (fifth century , Guoyu) According to Dong (), the first lexicalized uses of hòuhuǐ can be found in the seventh century, when the position of negation (bù) before hòu and huǐ instead of in between them, as in (), indicates that they have become a unit. () Middle Chinese (Dong : ) Fū jī shì bù xiān, xiǎn bù hòuhǔi important thing not first few not regret ‘If the important things are not prioritized, few will not regret it (later)’. (seventh century , Jinshu) Presumably the frequent collocation of ‘later’ and ‘regret’, as in (), led to the lexicalization. () Ancient Chinese (Dong : ) Zù ér hòu huī, yì wú jí yě do and later regret also not reach ‘If you do [something] and regret [it] later, you will also not come up.’ (> ‘It is too late to regret an act already done.’) (fifth century , Zuozhuan)
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The new lexical item was even borrowed into Japanese in the twelfth century as the totally inseparable word kōkai, illustrated in (). ()
Modern Japanese (NKD , : ) Kōkai~si-na.i zisei=no tukuri-kata regret~do-. life= create-method ‘How to create a life without regret.’
In this example from Chinese, grammaticalization is clearly not involved, and lexicalization looks like something totally unrelated. However, there are other changes that seem to have properties of both lexicalization and grammaticalization. They include the formation of complex adpositions, and of complex predicates, as well as nominal affixes in word formation. Brinton (a), investigating the properties of composite predicates in English, argues that some of them might be lexicalizations and others grammaticalizations. Consider lose sight of as in () and take a look at as in (). ()
Don’t lose sight of who you are.
()
Take a look at Vancouver’s changing skyline.
Are both expressions lexicalizations, or only one of them, or none of them? In order to enable well-informed decisions about classifying a change as ‘lexicalization’ vs. ‘grammaticalization,’ Brinton and Traugott () proposed a more detailed definition of lexicalization, as in (), and a list of features of lexicalization vs. grammaticalization as in Table . (next page). ()
Lexicalization: “the change whereby in certain linguistic contexts speakers use a syntactic construction or word formation as a new contentful form with formal and semantic properties that are not completely derivable or predictable from the constituents of the construction or the word formation pattern. Over time there may be further loss of internal constituency and the item may become more lexical.” (Brinton and Traugott : )
There is no space to explain and discuss each of the features, not all of which are equally important. However, as can be seen, about half of the features listed here are shared between the two processes. Among those distinguishing them, Brinton and Traugott (: –) consider ‘productivity’ to be the most important.
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Table 10.1 Features of lexicalization vs. grammaticalization (Brinton and Traugott : ) Lexicalization
Grammaticalization
Gradualness
+
+
Unidirectionality
+
+
Fusion
+
+
Coalescence
+
+
Demotivation
+
+
Metaphorization/metonymization
+
+
Decategorialization
+
Bleaching
+
Subjectification
+
Productivity
+
Frequency
+
Typological generality
+
Now, Brinton (a) argues that lose sight of is a lexicalization, because it is not part of a productive pattern. Only two other composite predicates are formed on the same pattern: lose count (of), and lose track (of). Also the meaning is non-compositional and idiomaticized (interestingly, these concepts are not listed among the distinguishing criteria by Brinton and Traugott ), since it usually means ‘forget about’ or ‘not keep fresh in one’s mind,’ as in (). Furthermore, the possibilities of collocation are rather limited. Lose has become fixed to sight of and vice versa. In contrast, Brinton (a) considers take a look at as a grammaticalization, since the verb take is a highly productive so-called light verb (a verb with reduced, generalized lexical meaning) that can be used with many other nouns in the same pattern, and it also seems to have an aspectual function, signaling a bounded activity. Not everybody might agree with Brinton’s (a) analysis. Presupposing that productivity is the decisive criterion, the take a [noun] at pattern is indeed more productive than the lose [noun] of pattern. An exact number is not provided but let us assume that there are a hundred instances of take a [noun] at pattern, that is, there are a hundred different nouns with which take a [noun] at is used, versus only three of the lose [noun] of pattern. This is indeed a much higher frequency, but it is dwarfed by the productivity of markers or
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constructions in the verb phrase that are generally considered as part of grammar, for example the modals or semi-modals, which can be applied to practically any verb in the lexicon. Likewise, the light verb take has a very generalized meaning but it still has every property of a lexical verb. Restrictions to the form of the verb and the noun in this construction (e.g. ?A look has been taken at . . . , *He takes looks at . . . ) can be ascribed to a process of idiomatization that can indicate lexicalization as well. In short, one can also make a good case that take a [noun] at is simply a frequent lexical pattern. Another prominent take on lexicalization vs. grammaticalization is by Lehmann (, ), for whom two criteria are distinctive:¹ () grammatical forms are ‘regular’ while lexical forms are ‘idiosyncratic,’ and () grammatical forms are ‘analytic’ while lexical forms are ‘holistic.’ ‘Regular’ is close to Brinton and Traugott’s () ‘productive,’ but it is actually more complex, since for a form to be regular, we would expect it to be not only formed productively, but also be predictable in its meaning and form, that is, the opposite of ‘idiosyncratic.’ ‘Analytic’ refers to the fact that something is formed compositionally and transparently. Lehmann’s criteria reveal a different perspective on lexicalization. Brinton and Traugott’s () is primarily diachronic, focusing on grammaticalization vs. lexicalization as a historical change, while Lehmann’s starts from synchrony, characterizing a construction as the result of either of the two processes. Different perspectives can in fact have a large influence on how a change or process is classified. Word formation, an in-between area between the grammar and the lexicon, is also ambiguous when it comes to its dynamic and diachronic aspect. English noun suffixes like -hood, -ship, and -dom (cf. Trips ; Haselow ), or German counterparts like -tum, -heit, -e, and -t (Lehmann ; Lightfoot , ) are a case in point. Lightfoot () and Habermann () investigated the German suffix -heit, cognate of, and used similar to English -hood, derived from a West Germanic noun *haid denoting meanings such as ‘way, appearance, characterstic, rank’. Lightfoot () concluded that it displayed both features of grammaticalization and lexicalization, and Habermann (: ) suggests that “[e]ven though ¹ For Lehmann, lexicalization and grammaticalization have in common that they are reductive changes, leading to a loss of the autonomy of a linguistic sign and lower complexity (cf. Chapter on criteria of grammaticalization).
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new word-formation elements enrich a language’s lexicon, the process of lexicalization is inextricably connected with grammaticalization”. We will look into the case of -heit in a little more detail. As a suffix, -heit roughly means ‘characteristic of ’ or ‘quality of,’ although the concrete meaning may vary from word to word. It became especially productive in Middle High German. () shows a few nouns in Modern German that are formed on -heit. () Modern German Kindheit ‘childhood’ (< ‘child’ + -heit), Gesundheit ‘health’ (< ‘healthy’ + -heit), Krankheit ‘illness’ (< ‘ill’ + -heit), Vergangenheit ‘past’ (< ‘passed’ + -heit), Feinheit ‘detail’ (< ‘fine’ + -heit), Menschheit ‘humankind’ (< ‘human’ + -heit) Taking Lehmann’s perspective with an emphasis on the resulting construction, we can make a strong case for lexicalization. Essentially, -heit contributes to the formation of lexical items, and does not realize a grammatical category like tense or definiteness. It is not a regular process, since nouns that are formed on -heit are synchronically already determined lexically in Modern German. -heit can be applied to nouns, adjectives, and verb participles but it is probably applied to less than percent of the entire noun, adjective, and verb inventory. Spontaneous formations are possible but in many cases are blocked by already existent other formations (hart ‘hard’ > Härte ‘hardness’/*Hartheit) or are semantically incompatible (verdammt ‘damned’ > ?Verdammtheit ‘damnedness’). The formations are also only partially analytical, since some nouns have developed an idiosyncratic meaning that cannot be derived solely from its parts. Arguably this is the case with Feinheit, Kindheit, and Menschheit in (). Feinheit is simply ‘detail’ rather than the ‘property of being fine,’ Kindheit is not ‘the quality/ property of being a child’ but ‘the time during which a human is a child’ and Menschheit ‘humankind’ rather than ‘the quality/property of being a human.’ Krankheit is not an exact counterpart of Gesundheit since the latter has more abstract meanings. In fact, every instance of -heit above is rendered differently in English, pointing to the fact that even in two closely related languages like English and German the means of word formation can vary widely and be largely idiosyncratic. Furthermore, -heit’s regularity or analyticity have not increased historically, except for the medieval times in which -heit was particularly productive. However, -heit is still more regular and analytical than most other
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nominal affixes (such as -e in Härte ‘hardness’ or -t in Flucht ‘flight/ escape’), making it more ‘grammatical’ than those. From Brinton and Traugott’s () diachronic perspective, however, one can make a much better case in favor of grammaticalization. Decisively, -heit has decategorialized from original noun to affix, has adopted an abstract subjectified meaning of ‘quality/property of ’ and is fairly productive and frequent, in comparison with many other nominal suffixes. Note, though, that this productivity still bears no comparison with regular grammatical categories—articles as markers of definiteness for example, can be applied to the vast majority of nouns as can temporal, aspectual, or modal categories to verbs. Lastly, -heit does not realize a specific grammatical category and thus lacks ‘typological generality.’ One could argue, though, that -heit is simply a nominalizer and by that virtue realizes a grammatical category. Indeed, Brinton and Traugott (: ) suggest that those nominal affixes that do not change category are lexical while those that do are grammatical. In the case of -heit this would lead to an odd split between -heit being a lexical suffix when suffixed to nouns, as in Kindheit, and a grammatical suffix when suffixed to adjectives as in Feinheit. In any case, processes of word formation do not render themselves to simple classifications in terms of lexicon vs. grammar. Different perspectives will lead to different conclusions. Wischer (: ) poignantly says that affixes as the above, although they “are not grammaticalized from a synchronic point of view, diachronically . . . as long as they have their origin in independent lexemes, have run through a process of grammaticalizaton.” From yet another viewpoint, recall that we also cited fusions of lexemes and affixes as lexicalizations at the beginning of this section, for example infamous and near. The classification of lexicalization or something else may differ when we view a change either from the perspective of the newly formed word as a whole, or from the perspective of its components. Modern English near as a word is a lexicalization of Old English nēah ‘nigh, near’ and the suffix -er. However, if we focus on the comparative suffix -er, we are dealing with a ‘fossilization’ of the suffix rather than a ‘lexicalization.’² Similarly, if we focus on the ² The term ‘degrammaticalization’ has also been used for fossilizations in lexical items (cf. Brinton : , citing scholars who take this stance), but this appears to be a misnomer. Rather, loss of grammatical status and function is a fairly regular last stage on traditional grammaticalization clines.
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new nouns formed on -heit, these are clearly lexicalizations. However, focusing on the affix -heit itself, as seen above, we are able to make a better case in favor of grammaticalization. Finally, there are some phenomena in the lexicon that have been treated under the heading ‘lexicalization’ but would not fall under the concept as defined here. These include () the coinage of new words for new concepts (e.g. for refrigerator or for socialism at the time these things or concepts newly arose in society), () the conversion of one part of speech to another, including of more to less grammatical parts of speech (e.g. up from adverb to noun as in the ups and downs), and () the extraction of parts of words to create a hyperonym as in ism extracted socialism and stoicism, etc., a process known as hypostasis (cf. Wischer : ). These are all abrupt and conscious processes of word formation, for which the label ‘lexicalization’ would only be appropriate if ‘lexicalization’ is defined and used in a broader sense than here. The concept of ‘lexicalization’ has also been extended to account for the development of discourse markers (see especially Wischer and Fischer a, b: –). We will return to this issue in Section ...
Further reading Brinton and Traugott (), which was cited above, is still the standard resource for lexicalization in relation to grammaticalization. Himmelmann () is a relatively frequently cited paper on the distinction of grammaticalization and lexicalization. For Himmelmann, both are processes of conventionalization, but in lexicalization a string of items is conventionalized and in grammaticalization an expression pattern with one or more fixed items. Davidse and De Wolf () likewise try to distinguish grammaticalization and lexicalization, and from a Hallidayan perspective, see ‘systemicness’ as the decisive distinguishing factor. For them, it is not the process as such, but the outcome of the process that should distinguish between grammaticalization and lexicalization. Sauer () presents a very broad picture of possible meanings of lexicalization, especially with respect to other concepts except grammaticalization, such as idiomatization, institutionalization, etc. Beijering () discusses lexicalization vis-à-vis grammaticalization and pragmaticalization, and Trousdale (b) tries to distinguish grammaticalization, lexicalization, and constructionalization from a constructional perspective. Lastly, Habermann () is a rich source for the development of suffixes in word formation, providing food for thought on the distinction between lexicalization and grammaticalization in this area.
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10.2 Degrammaticalization (anti-grammaticalization) Unidirectionality has been a central claim in grammaticalization theory (cf. Section .). The centrality of this claim has served as an incentive to find empirical counterexamples, that is, examples of actual change in the opposite direction of grammaticalization. The most common label for the opposite direction has been ‘degrammaticalization.’ Thus, a huge literature on presumptive examples of degrammaticalization has developed over time. However, most of these examples are not really the mirror image of grammaticalization. We already mentioned the creation of hyperonyms, such as ism from stoicism and communism etc., and word class conversion, such as up in the ups and downs. As Haspelmath (: ) noted, “most cases of ‘degrammaticalization’ that are cited in the literature do not show the reversal of grammaticalization, but something else.” Furthermore, degrammaticalization must not be confused with mere ‘retraction,’ that is, a development in which some linguistic form develops some new grammatical use, but the grammatical use is eventually lost and only the original lexical, or the less grammatical use remains. That is, the linguistic form under discussion ‘pulls back’ or ‘retreats’ in its overall range of meanings and functions. At this point, it is helpful to get to learn about the notion of the ‘grammaticalization cline’ in order to better understand some of the discussion on degrammaticalization. A typical grammaticalization cline, that is, the path that a linguistic item eventually follows in grammaticalization in terms of morphosyntax, is represented in () (cf. Norde : ). ()
content item > grammatical word > clitic > inflectional affix (> Ø)
The idea is that a content item first becomes a grammatical word, then a clitic, and then an inflectional affix before eventually ending up being lost from the language. This is indeed a development that often takes place in grammaticalization, although it will take so much time that in most cases we can only observe part of that cline in historical data. However, the problem with the cline is that it is morphology-centric while the core of grammaticalization, as presented in this book, is semantic/functional. This is why we have not presented this cline so far, although it is such a common and sometimes also useful concept. Additionally, with respect to morphology, the status of ‘clitics’ is
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contested (cf. Börjars and Vincent : ). Nevertheless, we need to introduce the cline here, because a large part of the literature on degrammaticalization is based on developments claimed to be counterdirectional to it. For Haspelmath (: –), true degrammaticalization would be “a change that leads from the endpoint to the starting point of a potential grammaticalization and also shows the same intermediate changes.” To distinguish genuine counterexamples like these from the deluge of alleged degrammaticalizations, he proposes the term ‘antigrammaticalization.’ For Willis (: ) and Börjars and Vincent (: ), degrammaticalization should crucially display (i) the reverse morphological shift from affix to grammatical word and then content word, and (ii) semantic changes from grammatical/functional to lexical. And both should (iii) take place as a gradual process and not as a willful and abrupt intervention of the speaker, as in the case of the creation of hyperonyms, for example. Examples of ‘antigrammaticalization’ or genuine ‘degrammaticalization’ in this constrained view are hard to come by. Haspelmath (: ) does acknowledge a total of eight cases from the whole literature up to that point, but even most of those would seem to be primarily degrammaticalizations in a morphological sense (i), but not in a functional sense (ii). Askedal () acknowledges not a single of them as a true example of degrammaticalization, and Börjars and Vincent (: ) acknowledge only a single example, namely the change of Old Church Slavonic indefinite pronoun něčǐto to Bulgarian nešto ‘thing.’ This lexeme did not undergo a large counterdirectional change in terms of morphology, but it did change from grammatical word to lexical word. Another interesting candidate for a potentially genuine degrammaticalization is the change of Pennsylvania German wotte (Burridge ) from auxiliary to main verb. Wotte is the subjunctive preterite form of the modal verb welle ‘will,’ comparable and etymologically related to would as the preterite form of will in English. The modal verbs in this American German variety are generally more grammaticalized than the Standard German verbs, but slightly less grammaticalized than the English modals. Similar to their English counterparts, they are subject to a number of constraints such as a defective inflection, lack of a passive or imperative, and they can, with few exceptions, only be used with infinite clause complements (German modal verbs also permit
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nouns and finite clause complements). We would therefore expect it to be used in sentences such as (): () Pennsylvania German (Burridge : ) *Ich wott kumme. ‘I wanted to come.’ However, instead it is only used as a lexical verb with the meaning ‘wish’ in sentences with a nominal complement like (), where it is even in imperative form, or with a finite verb complement as in (). () Pennsylvania German (Burridge : ) Wott mal hart fer sell. Wotte once hard for that ‘Wish hard for that.’ () Pennsylvania German (Burridge : ) Er ist juscht am wotte, er kennt noch eens vun He is just at wishing he could still one of die Ebbel hawwe. the apples have ‘He is just wishing he could have one more of the apples.’ In (), wotte is found as an infinitive in the progressive construction am V-en, which would be impossible (imperative) or at least problematic (am V-en) even for Standard German modal verbs, which are less grammaticalized than the English modals. Burridge (: –) suggests that the reason for the idiosyncratic development of wotte is that two competing subjunctive forms, wette and wotte happened to develop, and a functional differentiation ensued: while wette assumed the functions of the regular grammatical form, wotte developed the idiosyncratic lexical use through contexts of politeness, where a preterite subjunctive of a verb of volition expressed a modest wish. Börjars and Vincent (: ) are hesitant to acknowledge this change as a genuine degrammaticalization because of the lack of historical data for Pennsylvania German, and Haspelmath (: ) misses a well-established grammaticalization path in the opposite direction. Both reasons for rejection seem harsh, since it is quite common in grammaticalization research to acknowledge grammaticalizations even without accurate historical data, or if there is no other example of exactly the same path. In the case of wollen, cognate of
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English will, we deal with a very old verb common to Indo-European, which originally may have denoted something like ‘choose’ or ‘wish’ (cf. Grimm /vol. : ). In the case of the meaning of ‘wish’ for wotte, a reversion to the original lexical meaning would be implied. If we are less strict about ‘degrammaticalization’ and admit a larger range of phenomena that are partially de-grammaticalizing in one sense or the other, Norde () is a rich source for a very systematic classification and description of such changes. She suggests that degrammaticalization will never be a mirror image of grammaticalization, but occurs with some frequency if defined as follows: Degrammaticalization is a composite change whereby a gram in a specific context gains in autonomy or substance on more than one linguistic level (semantics, morphology, syntax or phonology). (Norde : )
The term ‘autonomy’ already reveals an important source of Norde’s analysis, namely Lehmann’s six parameters of grammaticalization. Recall that Lehmann ( []) arranged the three criteria of ‘weight,’ ‘cohesion,’ and ‘variability’ in paradigmatic and syntagmatic dimension, leading to six parameters (see Section .). On this view then, grammaticalization is loss of ‘autonomy’ of a ‘linguistic sign’ along these parameters. A gain in ‘autonomy’ conversely would mean degrammaticalization. Norde combines the parameters with the idea of three different levels of observation: ‘content,’ ‘content-syntactic,’ and ‘morphosyntactic,’ and proposes three types of degrammaticalization, as in (). ()
Three types of degrammaticalization, according to Norde (: , : –) i. Degrammation: A function word in a specific context is reanalyzed as a member of a major word class, acquiring the morphosyntactic properties which are typical of that word class and gaining in semantic substance. ii. Deinflectionalization: An inflectional affix in a specific context gains a new function, while shifting to a less bound morpheme. iii. Debonding: A bound morpheme in a specific linguistic context becomes a free morpheme.
An example for ‘degrammation’ was already provided, namely Pennsylvania German wotte, which is a paradigm case of degrammaticalization for Norde (, ). Norde () presents four more, one of which is
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Bulgarian nešto, the only case also acknowledged by Börjars and Vincent () (see above). The best known case of ‘deinflectionalization’ is the English s-genitive, one of five cases of deinflectionalization provided by Norde (). It is described in some historical detail in Tabor and Traugott () and Rosenbach (). Old English -s was a genitive case inflection that alternated with other inflections. When a noun phrase was genitive, each of the elements of the noun phrase was marked as genitive, as in (): () Old English (ca. , Aelfric Hom ) (Tabor and Traugott : ) ðæs cyning:es sweoster Ecgfrid:es the: king: sister: Ecgfrid: ‘the sister of Ecgfrid the king’ In the late twelfth century, examples can be found in which the genitive is only marked once in the noun phrase, namely on the possessor head, as in (): () Middle English (late twelfth century, Seinte Katerine) (Rosenbach : ) þ was te deoules budel that was the- devil: door.man ‘who was the devil’s door-man’ Finally, -s came to be attached not to the possessor head, but to the last element of a possessive phrase, even if it is not the possessor but only a postmodifier, as in ():³ () Early Modern English (sixteenth century, Madox) (Rosenbach : ) the king of Portingales ship the king of Portugal: ship ‘the ship of the king of Portugal’
³ Note that the actual history of -s is complicated by the fact that there apparently was a transitory stage at which not -s but his or ys were attached to the last element of the noun phrase. This his or ys may have either been the possessive article his, in which case there is no straightforward development from genitive case marker -s to phrase marker, or a phonetically strengthened version of -s (cf. Rosenbach : –).
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In other words, genitive -s changed from a genitive noun marker to a possessive phrase marker. Further, it has also be claimed that it changed from inflection to clitic. Major arguments in favor of deinflectionalization, as an instance of degrammaticalization, could be as follows: () Depararadigmatization in Lehmann’s sense took place, that is, something that was once the member of the paradigm of noun declension now became a phrase marker, () deobligatorification took place, since -s is not obligatory any more on every word of a noun phrase, () the “structural scope” (better: structural size) in Lehmann’s sense expanded instead of shrinking, and () the degree of attachment of the genitive to the noun phrase became weaker, as -s became clitic-like. Three of the four points may be of limited validity: Both the fact that -s is not part anymore of a paradigm and that it is not marked anymore on every element of a noun phrase are largely due to developments external to -s: English noun declension in general faded away, so that -s can no longer be a member of an inflectional paradigm. Likewise, case marking of all other elements of the noun phrase except nouns has disappeared. Furthermore, it has been questioned that Modern English -s is a clitic (cf. Norde : ), and lastly, the usefulness of the category ‘clitic’ in a grammaticalization cline as such has also been questioned (Börjars and Vincent : ). Nevertheless, it does seem that morphologically degrammaticalization has taken place in that the morpheme -s has gained instead of losing autonomy. On the other hand, it is difficult to see that -s degrammaticalized in a functional sense. Quite the contrary, in expanding its scope (also in the general linguistic logical-semantic sense), it functionally underwent grammaticalization. Finally, we have debonding, which is presented with a full ten examples by Norde (: –). This shows that ‘debonding’ may be the change that is most likely to occur among the three types of degrammaticalization. Also, ‘debonding’ is, as a rule, a purely morphological change (cf. Norde : ). One of the best known cases from the literature—and also included by Norde ()—are Japanese clause connectives that developed from clause-internal clitics to clauseinitial adverbs. For example, the causal connective kara was initially an ablative case marker. Like many case markers in Japanese, it also developed a connective function, first in combination with other words, and then alone. () illustrates the ablative use, and () the connective use.
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() Middle Japanese, sixteenth century (Higashiizumi : ) Yoso=kara afar= ‘from a distance’/ ‘from outside’ () Middle Japanese, c. (Higashiizumi : ) Muyoo=na koto=o yuu=kara . . . . unnecessary= word= say= ‘Since you say something unnecessary, . . . .’ In the nineteenth century then, kara came to be used sentence-initially, either attached to the copula da, or as a standalone, as in (): () Early Modern Japanese (, Daisen sekai gakuya sagashi) (cited from NKD :) Geshi~gerō=no te=ni kakat.te, servant-commoner= hand= fall. nanor.u=de=mo nee=to name.== not.be= omo.u=mo muri=dya gozar-an.u. think. = unreasonable= be[]-- Kara wasi=ga sitikudoku mibu=o akas.u=sa. I= pesky standing= unveil.= ‘It is only reasonable that you don’t want to say your name if you have fallen into the hand of a commoner. So, I will go ahead and tell you my own standing.’ Sentence-initial connectives are preceded by a pause, and the preceding word can have any marking, while the marking of words preceding sentence-internal connectives is restricted. They furthermore can be used as discourse markers. Example () may be ambiguous between functioning as a logical connection between two propositions or as discourse marker, that is, giving a reason for the following speech act rather than sentence. The discourse marker function becomes especially clear when the connective is eventually used turn-initially as in (). () Modern Japanese; constructed (Matsumoto : ) Dakara chuui~si~nasai=tte it.ta==da. take.care~do~do[]= say.== ‘That’s why I told you to be careful.’ Morphologically, kara and other Japanese connectives clearly underwent a development towards greater ‘autonomy,’ that is, counter to the
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expected directionality of grammaticalization. However, functionally speaking, kara has developed increasingly wider scope, from scope over an NP to scope over a clause, and then over a whole sentence, reaching beyond sentence boundaries as a discourse marker. Therefore, functionally it has rather continuously undergone grammaticalization before being coopted as a discourse marker (see Chapter ). The discussion above has shown that genuine degrammaticalizations, in the sense of the reverse of grammaticalization are rare if existent at all. However, if one focuses only on specific aspects or parts of the process, they are easier to come upon. In particular, it seems that degrammaticalization in a purely morphological sense, that is, towards a greater morphological autonomy of a morpheme, is relatively “cheap.” However, the core universal aspect of grammaticalization is functional. Morphology, although it is the aspect of grammaticalization that is the easiest to observe and describe, is language-specific and not essential for the process (cf. Narrog c). In some languages, there is very limited morphological development in grammaticalization (cf. Bisang , ). In any case, as is true for most aspects of grammaticalization that we have discussed in this book, the scope of the phenomenon of degrammaticalization, and even its very existence, will vary widely depending on one’s definitions of grammaticalization and degrammaticalization and the criteria applied.
Further reading Literature on degrammaticalization is plentiful, even beyond what has been cited above. Norde () is the standard reference. Some particularly remarkable contributions not yet cited include Giacalone Ramat (), discussing the boundaries of grammaticalization, Heine (b), providing a comprehensive picture of degrammatialization in relation to grammaticalization and other processes, Brinton () on English subject clitics as potential examples of degrammaticalization, Schlüter () with a detailed corpus study on marginal modal dare as a possible example of degrammaticalization, Norde () with a detailed breakdown of Lehmann’s parameters with respect to degrammaticalization, Trousdale and Norde () on degrammaticalization from the specific perspective of Construction Grammar, and Viti’s () attempt to filter out ‘authentic’ cases of degrammaticalization from ‘non-authentic’ ones and discussing the potential influence of language type on degrammaticalization.
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E X A P T A T I O N /R E G R A M M A T I C A L I Z A T I O N
10.3 Exaptation/regrammaticalization The term ‘exaptation’ was introduced into linguistics by Lass () from biology (Gould and Vrba ). There, it referred to seemingly superfluous or redundant structures in organisms that were utilized for new purposes: [O]rganisms—and I suggest, other historically evolved systems, like language—may in their structure show a certain amount of bricolage; they are to some extent jury-rigged or cobbled together, and the remnants of old structures can be recobbled into new ones. (Lass : )
An example brought up by Lass () is the Dutch adjective ending -e, which attached to adjectives based on the gender of the following noun. In Afrikaans, gender was lost, and so we would expect that accordingly the ending -e would either be dropped or generalized to all adjectives. What happened instead was that now certain adjectives categorially (always) would have -e, namely morphologically and morphophonemically complex ones, while simple monosyllabic adjectives would be without -e. Lastly, with only a few adjectives, both presence and absence of -e became available, with different meanings. For example, ’n enkel man would mean ‘a solitary man,’ while ’n enkel-e man would mean ‘a single (unmarried) man.’ Thus, due to the loss of gender, the suffix -e surrendered its original grammatical function, but instead of getting eliminated, speakers assigned a new function to the ending. Another nice example is from English dialects, where the plural past form were of the verb be has become a negative marker (Willis ). In these dialects, the last remaining person–number distinction with regular verbs in Modern English, the third person singular -s (I sing, she sing-s) has become obsolete. Instead of preserving the number distinction between was and were, speakers use was in non-negated contexts and were, that is, weren’t, in negation, for all persons (e.g. I was, we was; I weren’t, we weren’t). As exaptation has garnered some attention, various properties have been ascribed to it. These are mainly (a) unexpectedness of the new function—that is, gap between the previous and the new function, (b) novelty of the new function, and (c) junk status of the input (cf. van de Velde and Norde ). We consider (c) as the core of the concept. ‘Unexpectedness’ (a), or the perception of a gap, is in historical linguistics most often the artifact of comparing the initial state and
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the end state of a change without paying attention to the actual process or the context in which the change took place. For example, in the case of were, where there is an apparent large gap between person–number as the source and negation as the target, Willis (: ) argues that the new function is in fact very well motivated in the context of grammar: Speakers of English are used to stem allomorphy occuring with negation. For example, do is pronounced much differently in do than in don’t, the same holds for can and can’t and even more so for will and won’t. So, construing weren’t as a polarity counterpart to was, when were had no apparent function anymore, makes sense to acquirers of the language. In most cases, on a closer view, there is a semantic connection or motivation in discourse. It is obvious that speakers try to make sense of extant linguistic material that has become functionally opaque for purposes related to the original function. Novelty (b) of the new function is another possible definitory restriction of the concept but there is no logical necessity to introducing it. Among the two changes discussed above, Afrikaans -e would qualify as an exaptation because it introduced a distinction into the language that was not yet expressed. In contrast, English dialectal weren’t would be excluded because negation is not a novel function in English. But this exclusion would seem arbitrary and confusing with respect to other changes. Would, then, grammaticalization leading to a new category also be exaptation? It would further be un-economical since one would have to create yet another concept for cases such as dialectal weren’t. The concept of ‘novelty’ as such is also problematic because categories might already exist in a language but not with exactly the same semantic properties, or it may have been expressed “only” pragmatically or lexically. We will therefore stick to ‘junk’ as the core concept. However, ‘junk,’ a term used by Lass () himself, is a pejorative label introduced for rhetorical purposes that has caused negative reactions. Scholars have furthermore contested that it is possible to claim for any structure in language that it is totally useless and ‘junk’ (e.g. Smith ). Better terms may be ‘functionally opaque’ (Narrog , ) or ‘obsolescent’ (Willis , ). Morphological material has lost a regular and clear form–function association, often because the categorical distinction it expressed has become obsolete. Or it may have lost the ‘competition’ to express a certain grammatical category to an eventually more productive or newly emergent form, losing productivity and being absorbed into a limited number of lexical items. This may
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not only occur at the end of a ‘grammaticalization cline,’ as suggested by Traugott (: ), but at any point in grammaticalization. If the functionally opaque material ‘recycled’ for a new grammatical function was clearly grammatical at some point before, we can speak of ‘regrammaticalization’ (cf. Greenberg : ).⁴ However, in some cases we do not have enough historical knowledge to be sure that it already had grammatical status at a previous stage. Therefore it makes sense to retain the term ‘exaptation’ and apply the term ‘regrammaticalization’ to those cases where a previous grammatical function is unambiguously documented. Thus far, it may seem that ‘exaptation’ only refers to some very rare and quirky cases of development of grammatical material. However, the extent to which exaptation occurs may be larger than expected. Most research focusing on grammaticalization-related processes of language change has focused on issues that seemed theoretically especially promising, that is, on distinguishing grammaticalization from lexicalization, and on finding examples of genuine degrammaticalization as a challenge to grammaticalization theory. In contrast, exaptation/regrammaticalization, which is not as common as lexicalization and not counterdirectional to grammaticalization as degrammaticalization would potentially be, has been flying under the radar. Probably this process is also more common in languages with rich morphology. For Japanese, for example, Narrog () presented six cases of exaptation from Japanese language history. One case is a lexicalized transitivization pattern becoming regular and productive as a causative. These lexicalized transitivization patterns are likely to be the fossilized remnants of a former grammatical pattern: Erstwhile productive causative suffixes become fossilized and lexicalized as part of verb stems. They end up as phonological elements of a transitive verb in intransitive–transitive verb pairs, or of the ditransitive counterpart to a transitive verb.⁵ Since the erstwhile suffixes have been absorbed into the lexicon, they do not participate further in grammaticalization. This is what ⁴ There is also the similar term ‘refunctionalization’ (cf. Smith ). ⁵ Note that a terminological difference between ‘causative’ and ‘transitive/intransitive’ is made here. Some approaches, especially formal approaches employing lexical conceptual structure (LCS) would not necessarily make such a distinction. However, at least in Japanese, a clear borderline can be drawn between lexical patterns of transitive/intransitive verbs and productive causative morphology. Furthermore, in typological studies, Nichols et al. () have established the terms ‘transitivizing’ and ‘detransitivizing’ for transitivity pairs. These are the terms used here.
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has been found in quite a few languages, for example in Lahu (Matisoff ), Tamil (Pedersen ), and Germanic (the -jan verbs; e.g. Kemmer and Verhagen ; García García ). In Old Japanese, verbs whose stem ended in -s-/-se- marked an additional argument, that is, they were the transitive in an intransitive–transitive verb pair, or the ditransitive in a transitive– ditransitive pair. Thus, pair () is intransitive–transitive, while pairs () and () are transitive–ditransitive. ()
ok- ‘rise’ vs. okos- ‘raise’
()
mi- ‘see’ vs. mise- ‘show’
()
ap- ‘fit, meet’ vs. apase- ‘fit (something) in / adapt (something) to’
These transitive verbs are probably based on a productive formation in Proto-Japanese or earlier with the verb se- ‘do’, that is, ‘rise’ plus ‘do’ is rendered ‘raise’ (see Kuteva et al. , DO > CAUSATIVE). In Old Japanese, these formations were already morphologically and functionally opaque and fused into lexical items. For one thing, many of these verbs can no longer be segmented into stem and suffix according to productive rules of morpheme concatenation in Old Japanese. This is, for example, true for ok- ‘rise’ vs. okos- ‘raise’ in () above. For another thing, the pattern was already restricted to a lexically determined set of verbs and competed with other lexically determined patterns of (in)transitivization. Thirdly, many of these verbs had developed idiosyncratic meanings and uses which do not constitute simple causativization of the intransitive (for example, an emperor can okos- ‘raise’ soldiers, but soldiers do not ok- ‘rise’ in a corresponding meaning). Overall, this morphological pattern is no longer a productive part of grammar and has become part of the lexicon. As such it has become, to some extent, opaque or obsolete but not entirely meaningless. Decisively, then, this pattern of verbs ending in -se- was the likely source of the regular productive causative suffix verb -(s)ase- in Late Old Japanese with the allomorphs -ase-, as in () and -sase-, as in () and (): ()
omof- ‘think’ vs. omof-ase- ‘make/let think’
()
s- ‘do’ vs. se-sase- ‘make/let do’
()
mi- ‘look’ vs. mi-sase- ‘make/let look’; also mise- ‘show’ vs. mise-sase- ‘make/let show’
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The lexicalized verb pairs as in () to () are the only likely source for the new grammatical suffix that is known to us, and there is also a plausible scenario for this development. Many of the transitive verbs ended in the sequence /ase/.⁶ Apase- ‘fit in, adapt to’ as in () is an example. The vowel /a/ between the verb stem ap- ‘fit, meet’ and se- is most likely originally part of a proto-Japanese vowel stem often ending in /a/, rather than the ending, but the frequent sequence /ase/ probably encouraged a reanalysis as ap-ase-. This form already accounts for the majority of Japanese verbs, whose stem ends on a consonant, and to which -ase- came to be suffixed productively from Late Old Japanese on. We further need the insertion of an /s/ in front of -ase- to form the allomorph -sase- suffixed to vowel-stem verbs. As a result, we even obtain a complex causative verb from a transitive mi-sase- ‘make/let see’ based on a transitive verb that competes with an already extant ditransitive verb ‘show’ (cf. ()), and a causative from a ditransitive verb, mise-sase ‘let see’ (). Morphologically, it seems that accretion of phonological material in the form of pseudo-reduplication took place.⁷ The process hypothesized here is one of ‘secretion’ in the sense of Jespersen (: –; cf. also Wischer : –). With respect to the functional side of the change, we know that Japanese had a productive causative -(a)sime- in Old Japanese, which was already in decline at that time, and later only survived in particular written registers of the language (and in some dialects). The issue whether there is a “need” to express some category is notoriously contentious, but if there was such a need, -(s)ase- clearly emerged to replace the older -(a)sime- as the productive causative, and filled that need. This is what it has served as until Contemporary Japanese. Crucially for our purposes, it came in as an exaptation from fossilized lexicalized material on the way to demise. One thing that is spectacular about this case of exaptation is that a similar development is known from a few other languages as well. In Sanskrit, a development of the -áya-formations of the older Vedic period, which are a lexical transitivization pattern, to the Classical Sanskrit morphological causative suffix -áya- is known ⁶ With the slashes “//” we indicate that we consider this as a phoneme sequence and not a morpheme. ⁷ One might naively suspect that another ‘do’-verb was inserted but this would have led to the form -sise- and not -sase-, so it does seem that we are dealing with a quasireduplication of the /s/ in front of the -ase-sequence here.
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(Jamison , ). The Vedic -áya-formations were originally transitive counterparts to intransitive verbs, and a semantically irregular and functionally opaque pattern. According to Jamison, the expansion of the pattern and its ascent to morphological productivity started from verbs of motion, consumption, perception, and enjoyment, that is, verbs that are grammatically construed as transitive verbs, but are semantically intermediate between transitivity and intransitivity. In other words, the transitivization of the experiencer verbs was reinterpreted as a causativization of a transitive verb, and this causativization then spread to other verbs. A similar development can even be found in one more entirely unrelated group of languages. In a number of North American languages, a lexical instrumental pattern has been the source of productive causative prefixes. Mithun () has described this process in some detail for the Shoshone causative prefix ma- (cf. Mithun : , , ). According to her, Proto-Uto-Aztecan *maʔa ‘hand’ first lexicalized into Tümpisa ma- ‘with the hand’; for example ma-sungkwa’ah ‘feel with the hand.’ This in turn later became the source of the Tümpisa grammatical causative ma- as in ma-tukwiihwa ‘let go out/ put out’ (not necessarily involving hand action). Mithun suggests that it was exactly the stage of lexicalization of the pattern, in which the original meaning and function of the prefix grew opaque, that made the further development to causative possible. She writes that, Because of the large inventory of causative verbs containing hand-action prefixes . . . , the implication of causation in these verbs was ultimately reinterpreted as the primary meaning of the prefixes. The reinterpretation could not have taken place without the tight bridging context provided by lexicalization. . . . ” (Mithun : –)
The last example here is a case where the source of the exaptation is known to have been grammatical at an earlier point in history. Thus we are dealing here with genuine ‘regrammaticalization.’ The later evidential -rasi- was in Late Middle Japanese an adjectival ending on a few nouns, and most likely a fossilized remnant of the Late Old Japanese productive inferential particle rasi. It denoted the factual appearance (i.e. appearance coinciding with fact as perceived by the speaker) of some property. For example, airasi-, based on the noun ai ‘love’ meant ‘cute,’ and dokurasibased on the noun doku ‘poison’ meant ‘poisonous.’ In extension it could also mean ‘typicality,’ as in otokorasi-, based on the noun otoko ‘man,’ and meaning ‘manly’ (cf. Narrog a; Section ..).
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Much later, in the eighteenth century, this ending spread to nouns other than those few that were lexically determined, denoting not only a factual appearance but, reversely, false appearance. Under the newly available reading, otokorasi- would now not mean ‘manly’ but ‘outwardly appearing like a man, but actually being something else (e.g. a woman).’ It was probably this extension in meaning and use, and the new ambiguity that led to a perception of -rasi- as something increasingly independent from the lexical stem to which it was attached. Furthermore, while the two extremes of factual appearance and false appearance both denote a positive (vs. negative) fact, and are therefore non-modal, the fact that it could be used for both these areas of factuality positioned it well to encroach on the in-between area of the factually undetermined, that is, modality and evidentiality. -rasi- thus came to be used for denoting a semblance, as in makoto-rasi- (‘truth’ + -rasi-) ‘appearing to be truthful.’ Expressions such as ‘appearing to be truthful’ are bound to be used as the predicate of a clause (e.g. ‘this appears to be truthful’). Thus, -rasi- eventually became associated with clause level predication, and spread to word classes other than nouns. First, these were sentence adverbs like soo ‘to be so’ (e.g. soo=rasi‘seems to be so’), and finally also adjectives and verbs. In terms of morphology, -rasi- must be classified as a ‘particle’ at this point, that is, as a clitic able to attach to various word classes. It is therefore not a noun suffix anymore. It thus moved towards greater morphosyntactic independence. In terms of function, by the nineteenth century it had become an evidential marker with scope over entire clauses, and sentences, instead of just over a noun, as in example (). () Early Modern Japanese (Iroha Bunko –; Yuzawa : ) Ano XX-saN=wa, onusi=ni yoppodo ki=ga (name)-= you= very feeling= ar.u=rasi.i be.=. ‘That XX seems to have feelings for you.’ The new particle rasi- moreover developed hearsay uses. With respect to exaptation and regrammaticalization, the former ending that was fossilized and absorbed into a handful of nouns, was recycled to gradually become a fully productive evidential marker. The presence of the Classical Japanese particle rasi in literary classics and in written
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documents based on literary classics may also have supported this process. Educated speakers knew the classical inferential particle and how it was used in classical Japanese. Narrog has collected an unpublished database of Japanese with more than cases of grammaticalizations, compared to which six cases of exaptations, is not a high number, or to be precise, only about . percent of the changes leading to the creation of grammatical material. Why is exaptation/regrammaticalization less frequent than grammaticalization? The answer is rather obvious. The lexical material available in any language is a practically infinite source for the expression of grammatical categories, that is, for grammaticalization. In contrast, erstwhile grammatical material that has become functionally opaque or fossilized is rather limited. Furthermore, if ‘expressiveness’ is indeed one of the crucial factors in grammaticalization as it has traditionally been held to be (cf. Section .), the relatively short and functionally opaque forms available for exaptation are not effective source material. They do have the advantage, though, of being already entrenched. Interestingly, in Japanese there is a tendency to back up the expressiveness of such lexicalized material through partial reduplication of the phonological material (cf. causatives above; Narrog ). Despite the relative scarcity, exaptations may still be much more common than genuine degrammaticalizations, that is, cases of degrammaticalization which are also functional. No such case has yet been established for Japanese, unlike exaptation, for which six cases have been documented. Furthermore, one scholar of Japanese language history claims that exaptation was even the prevalent mode for the creation of grammatical material in proto-Japanese, instead of grammaticalization. Koyanagi (: –) calls the phenomenon “promotion to function word” (shōkaku kinōgoka) and claims that proto-Japanese had word formation as a rich resource for grammaticalizations, instead of lexical words in later historical times. This is entirely a matter of reconstruction then, and refers to developments such as that discussed above, of the lexical transitive verb endings becoming regular causative suffix verbs. Janda () has dedicated a monograph to ‘defunct’ paradigms and categories in Slavic languages that gained new functionality and Smith (, ) identified a large number of cases of ‘refunctionalization’ of paradigms in the nominal domain in Romance languages and beyond. Overall, exaptation is a process that is still vastly understudied compared to others.
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OTHER
-IZATIONS
Further reading While most relevant literature has already been cited above, we should like to point out that there is full paper collection has been dedicated to the topic (Norde and Van de Velde ) and that Lass, the original proponent of the concept, also discussed it in some detail in Lass (). Furthermore, besides the labels already mentioned, exaptation or overlapping processes are also known as ‘secretion’ (Harnisch , ) and ‘functional renewal’ (Brinton and Stein ). Haiman () presents a broader concept of exaptation including exaptation into the lexicon. Kailuweit () and Rosemeyer () focus on the conditions for ‘refunctionalization,’ trying to distinguish it from ‘exaptation.’
10.4 Other -izations In this section we will briefly introduce other terms and labels for processes that have been related to grammaticalization in previous research. The term phonologization refers to a process whereby allophones of one phoneme develop into phonemes on their own. The process may further feed into morphology. A well-known example is the development of front rounded vowels /ø/ and /y/ in German, which originally were contextual variants of /o/ and /u/ with /i/ in the following syllable. Phonologization is only of limited relevance for grammaticalization. It does lead to a more distant relationship between what were originally two forms of one word; for example fall/fell, drink/drench. Phonogenesis is the degrading of erstwhile morphemes into purely phonological elements of a word (cf. Hopper ). One example already mentioned under ‘lexicalization’ would be the word-final /r/ in Modern English near, which was originally the comparative adjective ending -(e)r, that can still be found in a number of adjectives such as strong/stronger. Another example would be the /s/ in craftsman, which was originally a genitive -s. In order to reduce terminology one could also speak of phonogenesis as ‘phonologization from above’ vs. ‘phonologization (from below),’ but in contrast to ‘phonologization (from below),’ the result is extant phonological material and not a new phoneme.
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The term morphologization has been used in two senses: Within the study of grammaticalization, it has been used for morphological change from an independent word to a bound morpheme, that is, the core of the potential morphological development accompanying grammaticalization (e.g. Hopper and Traugott : , : –). More frequently, however, in the tradition of morphology-centered linguistic studies, this term has been used in a much broader sense, namely generally for the development of morphological material from various sources (e.g. Joseph and Janda ; Gaeta ; Klausenburger ; Joseph ; Andersen ).⁸ These are primarily phonological and secondarily syntactic sources. The original use of the term morphologization is for phonological operations gaining morphological value (cf. Gaeta : ). For example, we mentioned under ‘phonologization’ that phonology may feed into morphology: The German umlauts [ø] and [y] not only gained phonemic status as /ø/ and /y/ (phonologization) but also became markers of plural, as in Mutter ‘mother’–Mütter ‘mothers.’ Morphologization from syntax includes morphologization during grammaticalization but may also include cases of lexicalization like that of German heute ‘today’ from hiu tagu ‘this day’ (Joseph : ). Demorphologization is reversely either the degradation of morphological patterns to phonology (in this case it would be roughly the same as phonogenesis above),⁹ or from a more bound to a more independent morpheme such as a clitic or independent word, in which case it would roughly refer to degrammaticalization in a morphological sense. Transcategorization, not to be confused with ‘transcategoriality’ (Section .), is a shift of a category from one word class to another; for example during from verb participle to preposition, and lateral shift is a change in a category that does not involve change towards a more (or less) grammaticalized category on a grammaticalization cline. Joseph () gives as examples shifts of inflectional endings from active voice to nonactive voice and vice versa in Greek. In the area of modality, necessity may change to possibility and vice versa without a ⁸ “[Morphologization is] a set of developments by which some element or elements in a language that are not a matter of morphology at one stage come to reside in a morphological component” (Joseph : ). ⁹ “When a morpheme loses its grammatical-semantic contribution to a word but retains some remnant of its original form, and thus becomes an indistinguishable part of a word’s phonological construction, I shall speak of the resulting phonological material as morphological residue, and of the process itself as demorphologization” (Hopper : ).
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CONCLUSION
difference in degree of grammaticalization (cf. Narrog a; Section ..). Delexicalization is the reverse of lexicalization. Speakers analyze words as the concatenation or fusion of morphemes that are often not their actual source; for example ham-burger from hamburger, which originally comes from Hamburg (place name) + -er (nominal affix), and create new word formation based on their analysis. More broadly, delexicalization can be understood as a type of remotivation (Harnisch and Krieger ), whereby speakers ascribe more structure and analytical meaning to a word or construction than it actually has and reanalyze it accordingly. Relexicalization, in contrast, would refer precisely to a case of morphological degrammaticalization (demorphologization), in which an erstwhile morpheme becomes a lexeme. Retraction (Haspelmath ) was already mentioned as a term referring to the loss of a further advanced grammatical function that a linguistic item developed, with only the less advanced function(s) remaining. Regrammation is a term that has been proposed by Andersen () for what we refer to as ‘secondary grammaticalization’ in this book (Section .), while pragmaticalization refers to the development of discourse markers as something different from grammaticalization. We have attached enough importance to this process to dedicate the whole of Chapter to it.
10.5 Conclusion In this chapter, we have discussed in some detail the three processes that are either theoretically or empirically most relevant for grammaticalization, namely, lexicalization, degrammaticalization, and exaptation/regrammaticalization each in a section of their own, and others very briefly in Section .. Morphologization is also an empirically and theoretically important concept, but in its narrow definition as the typical morphological process from more to less independent morphemes, it is already part of the study of grammaticalization, and, in its broad definition as any change that leads to new morphology, it does not have a well-defined relationship with grammaticalization. Pragmaticalization is a theoretically and empirically important concept and also relevant to grammaticalization but is afforded a chapter of its own
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(Chapter ). Lexicalization, degrammaticalization, and exaptation/regrammaticalization are in a well-defined and relevant relationship to grammaticalization. This relationship can be represented as in Figure .. grammaticalization words and phrases (degrammaticalization)
lexicalization (vs. delexicalization)
elements of grammar
fossilization/obsolescensce (vs. exaptation/regrammaticalization) lexical entries
Figure 10.1 Lexicalization, degrammaticalization, and exaptation vis-à-vis grammaticalization
Figure . shows that words and phrases can either lexicalize or grammaticalize. Lexicalization and grammaticalization are the ‘elephants’ in the room with respect to change with words and syntactic phrases as the source. This is indicated through the regular arrows. In case of grammaticalization, once a word or construction has entered the domain of grammar, there is a long potential ‘runway’ of categories along which the semantic scope of the category widens, and the item further grammaticalizes, for example from a resultative to anterior, then perfective and simple past, or from desire to intention to future and then a complementizer (cf. Bybee et al. : , ). Morphological grammaticalization is optional. That is, the typical morphological ‘grammaticalization cline’ (cf. Section .) may or may not accompany the development. At any stage, an element of grammar can become obsolete. Often it may entirely disappear, like most person/number endings of English verbs or case endings of English nouns. It then goes to “zero,” a case which is not represented in Figure .. It may also fossilize and be absorbed into the lexicon, either as a lexical entry itself or as a phonological part of a lexical entry (‘phonogenesis’). These are the most common developments. The lexicon is the largest reservoir for linguistic material and acts like a huge sink, eventually attracting regular and transparent combinations of words and morphemes. Individual lexical items once more become the input for syntactic combination. This is indicated by the large arrow on the left.
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However, sometimes processes take place in the opposite direction. The opposite processes are much less common and regular, and are therefore indicated by dotted lines and the terms in brackets. Theoretically the most interesting, but empirically probably the rarest, is degrammaticalization. It is usually confined to the morphological aspect, that is, a non-central aspect of grammaticalization, and lasts for only one step—in contrast to grammaticalization, which can continue for long stretches of development often along cross-linguistically common grammaticalization paths. This is why the degrammaticalization arrows are represented as shorter than the grammaticalization arrow. Delexicalization and its scope is basically outside the range of this book but has been included in the figure for the sake of completeness. If delexicalization is also labeled as ‘exaptation’ (cf. Haiman ), then exaptation could be used as the unified term for all processes coming back from the lexicon either to the syntactic combinations of words, or to grammatical elements. Exaptation brings back obsolescent or obsolete grammatical elements (or elements that have the appearance of erstwhile grammatical elements) to grammar. It is probably more common than degrammaticalization, at least it is more common than genuine degrammaticalization in a functional sense. However, it has received less attention in the literature probably because it does not have the same theoretical appeal as degrammaticalization and the category labels under which largely the same phenomena have been discussed (exaptation, regrammaticalization, refunctionalization, functional renewal, secretion, remotivation, partially also morphologization) have been splintered to an excessive degree.
Further reading Other authors who try to provide an integrated picture of grammaticalization with other processes include Lehmann (, ), Wischer (, , ), Heine (b), Brinton and Traugott (, ), and Norde and Beijering ().
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Discussion points () Take the example of a common word formation affix from English or another language that you are familiar with; for example English -able (rechargeable), or -ty (immunity). Would you consider them lexicalizations or grammaticalizations? What would be the arguments in favor of the one or the other? () In your view, should the term ‘degrammaticalization’ be restricted to the exact reversal of grammaticalization, or should partial counterdevelopments also be allowed to count as ‘degrammaticalizations’? How would one stance or the other impact your concept of grammaticalization? () Exaptation is a term borrowed from evolutionary biology. In your view, is there justification for using a term from biology for linguistic phenomena as discussed in the chapter, and if yes, what would be a justification?
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11 Discourse markers
11.1 What are discourse markers?
11.2 Problematic features of discourse markers
11.3 Hypotheses on the development of discourse markers
11.4 Conclusions
Discussion points
Grammaticalization theory is by now widely accepted as one of the main tools of historical linguistics. But there are also problems with its application, as has been pointed out in a number of publications, and in , a book was devoted precisely to this issue, entitled The Limits of Grammaticalization (Giacalone Ramat and Hopper ). Some of the main problems were discussed in Chapter , relating most of all to the unidirectionality principle, which is a cornerstone of the theory. One of the problems surfacing in the course of the last decades was the status of discourse markers (henceforth: DMs): Is their rise and development the result of grammaticalization, like that of other grammatical forms, such as tense markers, case markers, conjunctions, etc.? This problem, which has generated some amount of research output (see, e.g., Brinton ; Heine et al. ), has been discussed controversially. It was argued in particular that grammaticalization is inadequate as a tool to account for the history of DMs and an alternative mechanism was proposed, namely ‘pragmaticalization.’ In , a volume on the development of DMs was published as a special issue of the journal Linguistics (Volume , ). Observing that there had been ‘an explosion of research on discourse markers’ in the preceding two decades, the editors asked the contributors to the volume to comment on the question of which of the main hypotheses that had been voiced in previous work was best suited to account for
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this development: grammaticalization, pragmaticalization, or perhaps ‘simple’ semantic change? The outcome of this project, which had a noteworthy impact on ensuing research, is summarized by the editors Degand and Simon-Vandenbergen () thus: . . . we had not expected these contributions to be so unanimous in their rejection of pragmaticalization as a substitute term for the processes described. All authors plead for grammaticalization as the best possible explanation for the developments described, on condition that grammar is given a wider sense . . . . (Degand and Simon-Vandenbergen : )
As straightforward as this comment may be, however, it does not solve the problem of how the history of DMs is to be described, as we will show in the present chapter. To this end, Section . provides a short introduction on what DMs are about. The problems that a student of grammaticalization is faced with when analyzing the history of DMs are then discussed in Section ., while Section . presents an overview of the main hypotheses that have been proposed to deal with these problems.
11.1 What are discourse markers? The following example, taken from Traugott (a: ), may be of help to illustrate the problem involved. ()
a. She spoke well. b. Well, she spoke.
The item well in (a) is a manner adverb modifying the meaning of the verb. The homophonous item well in (b), by contrast, is not a syntactic constituent of the clause, and it is frequently set off prosodically from the clause, typically marked in writing by a comma. And it also differs from well in (a) in its meaning: Rather than contributing to the semantic content of the clause, it has been described as doing ‘metatextual work’ (Traugott a: ). The item well in (b) is commonly described as a DM. It seems to be fairly uncontroversial that the DM well developed historically out of adverbial uses of well like that in (a) above. The question is: When and, more importantly, how did this happen? The DM well can be traced back to Old English, it is well attested for instance in the form wel la or wella in King Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon Version of Boethius De
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WHAT ARE DISCOURSE MARKERS?
consolatione philosophiae (Jucker : ). Does this mean that the DM had already arisen in Old English, or even earlier? As difficult as it is to answer this question, it is even more difficult to establish how DMs such as well in (b) came to be what they are: Are they the result of grammaticalization, as has frequently been claimed? It is this question that is the subject of the following paragraphs. The term ‘discourse marker’ is used in a wide range of senses and for quite a number of different phenomena, extending from monosyllabic interjection-like particles to clausal expressions. Also called discourse particles, pragmatic markers, or discourse connectives, DMs have become known under a large number of different names, and they have been the subject of many studies. Some authors do not make a distinction between discourse markers and pragmatic markers, while others do (e.g. Fraser : ). Some authors argue that DMs can be described exhaustively with reference to conventional linguistic taxonomy, calling them adverbs or adjuncts, a ‘subclass of adverbials,’ ‘connecting adverbs,’ linking adverbials, ‘speaker-oriented or conjunctive sentence adverbs,’ or ‘connective adjuncts.’ Other authors again maintain that DMs are elusive to conventional categories of grammar and must be understood and described in their own right. This is the predominant stance of students of DMs, and it is also adopted here. One problem with definitions of DMs is that quite a few of them are not highly specific. This also applies to the classic definition by Schiffrin (: ), for whom discourse markers are “sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk.” In the present work they are defined as follows (see Heine et al. for elaboration): Discourse markers are (a) invariable expressions which are (b) syntactically independent from their environment, (c) typically set off prosodically from the rest of the utterance, and (d) their function is metatextual, relating an utterance to the situation of discourse, that is, to the organization of texts, speaker-hearer interaction, and/or the attitudes of the speaker.
This definition differs from definitions proposed in the tradition of Schiffrin (), which stipulate that DMs signal some kind of relationship between clauses or utterances,¹ because in a number of their
¹ This applies, for example, to the following definition by Traugott (b: ): “By a DM I mean a metatextual marker that signals some kind of relationship between clauses/ utterances.”
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uses, DMs do not signal such a relationship. This seems to apply, for example, to uses of the English DM well in utterances such as the following where no relationship of this kind needs to be involved: My performance yesterday was not really, well, outstanding. DMs have been classified, on the one hand, as a sub-type of pragmatic markers (Fraser ) and, on the other hand, as a sub-type of parentheticals (see the contributions in Dehé and Kavalova ) or, as we will say here, of theticals (Kaltenböck et al. ). What distinguishes them from many other (paren)theticals is that they are largely or entirely invariable, that is, they are formulaic, and they typically do not allow internal modification (see Section ..). The items listed in () are amongst the ones most commonly discussed and are the least controversial items classified as English DMs, and it is these items that are the topic of the present chapter. () Paradigm English DMs after all, anyway, as it were, besides, however, indeed, in fact, instead, I mean, now, okay, so, then, I think, well, what else, you know, you see But not all uses of these items really qualify as DMs. As we saw already in (), for example, it is only the use of well in (b) that qualifies as a DM, not that of (a). A characteristic of many DMs is in fact that they have homophonous counterparts that are not DMs. Further reading Discourse markers, also called pragmatic markers, constitute a wide field of research. The following are a few publications providing an insight into what they are about: Schiffrin (, ), Brinton (, b: , , ), Jucker (: , ), Jucker and Ziv (: –), Hansen (a, b), Schourup (), Fischer (), Barth-Weingarten and Couper-Kuhlen (: ), Aijmer (), Traugott and Dasher (: –), Dostie (), Kaltenböck (: ), Dér (), and Heine et al. ().
11.2 Problematic features of discourse markers For students of grammatical change, an interest in DMs arose mainly in the s when some scholars suggested that such items are hard to reconcile with established principles of grammaticalization. It is most
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of all changes such as the ones in () that are commonly found in the development of DMs and provide a challenge to an understanding of DMs in terms of grammaticalization. ()
Changes commonly found in the development of discourse markers a. From syntactic constituent of the sentence to syntactically unattached status b. From prosodically integrated to non-integrated or less integrated status c. From meaning as part of the sentence to meaning outside the sentence d. From sentence function to metatextual function e. From positionally constrained to largely unconstrained placement
The catalog in () does not exhaust the number of features that have been pointed out, most of all in the literature on pragmaticalization (see Section .. below), but they are particularly hard to reconcile with observations commonly made in grammaticalization. They are looked at in more detail in Sections ..–... But before we go into such details, Section .. deals with a more general problem concerning the status of DMs. 11.2.1 Do discourse markers belong to grammar? We noted in Section . that DMs are also called ‘pragmatic markers,’ and there have been some debates on what DMs actually are. Questions that have been asked include, predominantly, the ones in (). ()
Questions a. Are DMs are part of grammar? b. And if yes, how is grammar to be defined?
These questions have generated a number of discussions, most of all in work that distinguishes in some form or other between a narrow or restricted and a wider or expanded view of grammaticalization (see, for example, Degand and Evers-Vermeul : , ). When reviewing the literature on this issue as well as the way DMs are conventionally treated in linguistic work it would seem that the most reasonable answer to the two questions in () can be phrased as follows at the
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present state of research: DMs are part of grammar and, accordingly, grammar is best defined in way that includes DMs. Obviously, this answer is not entirely satisfactory considering all the complex theorydependent issues that have been raised in connection with (). The main reasons for the answer can be summarized as follows. First, the answer is in accordance with, or is not contradicted by, most of what has been written on this issue. For some scholars, the proposal entails the need to adopt “a more comprehensive view of what constitutes grammar” (Degand and Simon-Vandenbergen : ), or “a broad definition of grammar” (Traugott and Trousdale : ). For others, such a need does not exist. This applies, for example, to the framework of Discourse Grammar, where DMs are treated as belonging to the component of Thetical Grammar rather than to Sentence Grammar (Heine et al. ; Heine ). This distinction corresponds largely to that proposed by Haselow (: ) between ‘macrogrammar,’ which refers to structural relations beyond isolated sentences, and ‘microgrammar,’ referring to sentence-internal strucural relations, respectively. Second, the answer is also in accordance with the way DMs are traditionally treated, for example, in standard grammars of English such as those by Quirk et al. (: –), Biber et al. (: –), or Huddleston and Pullum (: ff.), where DMs are analyzed as a part of grammar, even if they may not be referred to with the term ‘discourse markers.’ And finally, classifying DMs as belonging to a domain other than ‘grammar,’ for example to ‘pragmatics,’ would require DMs to be consistently set off from ‘grammar.’ To our knowledge, this has so far not been done. In the absence of more detailed evidence to the contrary we follow those scholars who classify DMs as belonging to ‘grammar,’ ignoring the question of how exactly ‘grammar’ is to be defined. 11.2.2 From syntactic constituent of the sentence to syntactically unattached status DMs have been described as being typically associated with the following features: They are syntactically isolated, extrasyntactic (Brinton : ) or independent and outside the main clausal structure (Brinton : ). For some authors, syntactic independence, detachment, or freedom is therefore one of the most conspicuous features of
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DMs. Accordingly, the growth of DMs has been described as involving “an increase in syntactic freedom instead of syntactic fixation” (Norde : ; Beijering ). Movement out of the morphosyntax of a sentence is a change that stands in stark contrast to what can commonly be observed in grammaticalization, specifically to the parameter of decategorialization (see Section .), and especially to the changes associated with external decategorialization summarized in (), repeated here for convenience from Chapter (a–d). ()
Salient changes associated with external decategorialization a. Loss of independence as an autonomous form. b. Increasing dependence on some other form. c. Increasing obligatoriness of use. d. Loss of the ability to be moved from its canonical position to other positions in the sentence in ways that are characteristic of the corresponding non-grammaticalized source item.
In sum, rather than losing syntactic freedom, independence from surrounding items, and positional variability, as commonly found in grammaticalization, linguistic items becoming DMs move in the exact opposite direction. 11.2.3 From prosodically integrated to non-integrated or less integrated status In a number of studies it has been pointed out that DMs tend to be prosodically set off from their host utterance, often occurring “in an independent breath unit carrying a special intonation and stress pattern” (Traugott a: ). The hedge ‘tend to be’ indicates that distinct prosody is not consistently found, or can even be missing in DMs. What is obvious, however, is, first, that DMs are more likely to be separated prosodically from their environment than the expressions from which they are historically derived. And secondly, items such as the adverb well in (a) or (a) may well be interpreted as DMs once they are prosodically set off from the rest of a sentence, cf. (b). ()
English a. Paula lives well in Bagdhad. b. Paula lives, well, in Bagdhad.
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In this respect, DMs differ from what would be expected in grammaticalization: As was discussed in Chapter , grammaticalizing items tend to undergo erosion, losing suprasegmental features such as stress, tonal distinctions, or intonation, and they may be adapted to adjacent phonological units (Section ., ()). Loss of prosodic independence may in fact lead “to an item’s inability to form a prosodic word of its own” (Haspelmath : ), and Wichmann () concludes: [G]rammaticalization involves not only (and not always) the attrition of phonetic substance but more importantly the loss of prosodic prominence with concomitant loss of independence in intonational structure. (Wichmann : )
In short, rather than leading from prosodically non-integrated to integrated items, DMs are likely to move in the opposite direction. As noted above, however, distinct prosody is not consistently found, or can even be missing in DMs, and it may even happen that frequently occurring DMs lose their prosodic distinctiveness, as has been observed, for example, with the English markers of course and sorry (Wichmann : –). 11.2.4 From meaning as part of a sentence to meaning outside the sentence When a DM evolves, it is no longer part of the meaning of the sentence, and it does not affect the propositional content of a sentence or an utterance (e.g. Jucker : ). Not being part of the meaning of a sentence explains why the use of DMs is described as ‘optional’ in the sense that “the content of an utterance is not altered if the DM is removed” (Frank-Job : ). In accordance with these observations, DMs are commonly described as being non-truth-conditional, they are not part of sentence questions, they cannot become the focus of a cleft sentence, and they are not in the scope of a negated sentence (cf. Espinal ). Meanings arising in grammaticalization, by contrast, shape the meaning of sentences, be that within a phrase or a clause, or between clauses, but not normally beyond the level of sentences. For example, in many languages, meaningful expressions used to structure noun phrases or adverbial phrases, such as demonstratives, nominalizing markers, adpositions, or case markers, are commonly grammaticalized to markers of clauses combining like complementizers or relative clause
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markers (see Kuteva et al. for examples). However, such processes are essentially restricted to the meaning content of sentences. 11.2.5 From sentence function to metatextual function The functions of DMs have been described as introducing a higherlevel speech act, as being metatextual, metacommunicative, discourseinteractional, as operating on the textual or discourse level, to serve as text structuring devices at different levels of discourse, or as contributing to the interpretation of an utterance rather than to its propositional content (e.g. Frank-Job : ; Fraser : ). And in work on Relevance Theory, the function of DMs is described as procedural and portrayed as serving to guide the hearer’s linkage of an utterance to an appropriate context (e.g. Blakemore : ). Such features contrast sharply with those captured in accounts that have been proposed for grammaticalization processes of any kind, in particular in crosslinguistic typological accounts (e.g. Kuteva et al. ). Rather than being metatextual, functions arising in grammaticalization shape the meaning of sentences, be that within a phrase or a clause, or between clauses. 11.2.6 From positionally constrained to largely unconstrained placement Being semantically and syntactically unattached, DMs are, ideally, unconstrained in their placement, that is, they may be found in various slots of a sentence. Accordingly, Hansen (: ) notes that DMs (pragmatic markers in her terminology) “frequently have great freedom of position within the host utterance, and are thus syntagmatically variable,” and Tabor and Traugott (: ) note that DMs “occur in multiple positions in the clause.” Positional mobility of the kind commonly found in DMs is at variance with what can be observed in grammaticalization, which typically leads to a reduction of placement options. Accordingly, Brinton and Traugott (: ) conclude that Lehmann’s ( []: –) notion of fixation or loss of syntagmatic variability is problematic for DMs since they are “often quite moveable.” At the same time there are also constraints on the placement of DMs, and these constraints are in accordance with the particular discourse
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functions expressed by them. The functionally preferred position is that at the left periphery of a sentence, followed by the right periphery, and less commonly within the sentence. Overall, however, there is converging evidence to suggest that DMs are in general distinctly more flexible in their placement than the expressions from which they are etymologically derived. This observation is hard to reconcile with observations made in grammaticalization, according to which the development from lexical to grammatical expressions almost invariably entails reduction or loss in positional variability. 11.2.7 Conclusions In sum, there are problems with the view that the rise of DMs can be reduced to grammaticalization. What is more, the features discussed above are not the only ones suggesting that the grammaticalization hypothesis is in need of reconsideration, as we will see in Section ... At the same time there are also features that are more readily compatible with a general understanding of grammaticalization. This applies in particular to the notion of procedural meaning, which constrains the computations needed to parse and comprehend an utterance. Procedural meaning, contrasting with conceptual meaning, is widely agreed to be a paradigm feature of DMs, but it is in the same way considered to characterize grammaticalization. Nevertheless, the features listed in Sections .. to .. are the ones that are particularly hard to account for when using an interpretation of DMs purely in terms of grammaticalization. The question to be looked into in the next section is how such features are dealt with in reconstructing the rise and development of DMs.
11.3 Hypotheses on the development of discourse markers The discussion in Section . suggests that DMs are not only hard to reconcile with but even contradict what has commonly been found cross-linguistically in grammaticalization. A number of proposals were made to account for this fact, but most of them can be reduced to the hypotheses in ().
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HYPOTHESES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DISCOURSE MARKERS
Hypotheses on the development of discourse markers a. They are the result of grammaticalization. b. They are the result of pragmaticalization. c. They are the result of lexicalization. d. They are the result of cooptation followed by grammaticalization.
The hypothees can be referred to, respectively, as the grammaticalization hypothesis, the pragmaticalization hypothesis, the lexicalization hypothesis, and the cooptation hypothesis. In the following paragraphs, each of these hypotheses is looked at in turn. Most of the studies dealing with the hypotheses discussed below use DMs in English and a few other European languages, as well as Japanese and Korean. Languages in other parts of the world, such as Australia, Africa, or the Americas, have so far played hardly any role in this debate. 11.3.1 The grammaticalization hypothesis Work carried out over the last decades has been based most commonly on the assumption that the rise and/or development of DMs is the result of grammaticalization (for references, see Further reading). Proponents of the grammaticalization hypothesis do not all share the same view of how discourse markers evolved. Rather, the two main stances in () can be distinguished. ()
Kinds of grammaticalization distinguished to account for discourse markers a. A different kind of grammaticalization. b. An expanded notion of grammaticalization.
A position in accordance with (a) is that of Wischer (), who argues that processes relating to pragmaticalization should be assigned to one subtype of grammaticalization that deals with text and discourse level phenomena. For a number of proponents of (b), two views of grammaticalization need to be distinguished, referred to, respectively, as the ‘narrow’ and the ‘wider’ views. According to the ‘narrow,’ or the ‘restricted’ view, grammaticalization is compatible with the criteria proposed by Lehmann ( []), and this view is said to have problems to account for DMs. The ‘wider’ view, by contrast, takes care of DMs, and perhaps also of other kinds of discourse material (e.g. Degand and Evers-Vermeul ).
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A more pronounced proposal relating to this distinction is made in the study of Traugott and Trousdale (: –). Rejecting the term ‘pragmaticalization,’ they distinguish two kinds of approaches, referred to as ‘GR’ (grammaticalization as restriction) and ‘GE’ (grammaticalization as extension). According to them, in GR approaches, grammaticalization is viewed as reduction and increase in dependency. As examples of such approaches, studies published before are cited, but there are also some more recent studies, such as Haspelmath () and Boye and Harder (). In GE approaches, by contrast, grammaticalization is claimed to be viewed as expansion. Traugott and Trousdale () argue that there are a number of features distinguishing the two approaches, and these are principally features characterizing DMs. For a critical discussion of Traugott and Trousdale (), see Heine (a). As we will see in Sections .. and .., the problems mentioned in this section have also been a major issue in alternative approaches to understanding the evolution of DMs. Note, however, that doubts have been raised more recently by the main proponent of the grammaticalization hypothesis on whether this hypothesis is in fact appropriate to account for the rise of DMs. Thus, Traugott (a: ), had argued earlier that “[t]o treat [the development of DMs; a.n.] as a case of something other than grammaticalization would be to obscure its similarities with the more canonical clines.” Now she no longer thinks that the rise of DMs is a case of grammaticalization (Elizabeth Traugott, p.c. of March , ). 11.3.2 The pragmaticalization hypothesis The observation that grammaticalization theory has problems with explaining the nature of DMs has induced some authors to propose an alternative process, generally referred to as pragmaticalization. Pragmaticalization has been defined as . . . the process by which a syntagma or word form, in a given context, changes its propositional meaning in favor of an essentially metacommunicative, discourse interactional meaning. (Frank-Job : )
Grammaticalization—it is argued—describes the emergence of sentence-internal grammatical markers while pragmaticalization describes that of DMs, that is, of text structuring devices at different levels
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of discourse. Following Norde (: ), pragmaticalization can be defined more concisely as the development of DMs. On this view, then, the presence of DMs presupposes prior pragmaticalization. On the pragmaticalization hypothesis, lexical or other elements develop into DMs without involving grammaticalization or via a kind of grammaticalization that differs from ‘canonical’ grammaticalization in some way, the result being markers “mainly serving as text structuring devices at [non-sentential] levels of discourse” (Erman and Kotsinas : ). Some authors in fact argue that the main reason for distinguishing pragmaticalization as a distinct mechanism is semantic-pragmatic (e.g. van Bogaert : ), but this view is not shared by all. It is mostly the features listed in () that have been adduced in favor of pragmaticalization. ()
Features claimed to distinguish pragmaticalization from grammaticalization a. Syntactic isolation. b. Lack of fusion. c. Peculiar grammatical status. d. Increase in structural scope. e. Optionality. f. Non-truth conditionality.
Three of the six features listed () relate to what was described in Section . as ‘movement out of the morphosyntax of a sentence.’ This means that DMs are at variance with the grammaticalization parameter of decategorialization (Section .), which would predict syntactic integration rather than isolation, increasing fusion rather than lack of fusion, and syntactic and grammatical fixation rather than increasing syntactic freedom (cf. Norde : ; Beijering ). (d) is described as a development ‘from restricted structural scope to scope beyond the sentence.’ And finally, (e) and (f) have been covered in Section . with reference to the development from meaning as part of a sentence to metatextual function: ‘Optionality’ in (e) refers in particular to the fact that the meaning of an utterance is not altered if the DM were removed (Frank-Job : ). And not being part of the meaning of a sentence also implies that DMs do not contribute to its truth conditionality. Other features mentioned by students of pragmaticalization are that DMs do not belong to the categories traditionally considered
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‘grammatical,’ that they do not become part of a paradigm, and that “they do not become rule-governed.” But there are also features that are, as it seems, compatible with a grammaticalization analysis. One is high frequency of use, which is also widely held to be a paradigm feature of grammaticalized items. Furthermore, Frank-Job (: ) observes that pragmaticalized items are characterized by ‘co-occurence in contiguity,’ that is, a DM can co-occur with a corresponding sentence grammar unit in the same utterance. To take the example that we had in (), reprinted here as (), a possible response to (a) could be (b), where the first instance of well is a DM and the second an adverb. But much the same can also be found in grammaticalization, for example, when the English future tense marker be going to co-ocurs with its lexical source, the verb to go, as in (). ()
a. She spoke well. b. Well, yes, she spoke well.
()
He’s going to go home soon.
On account of such features, Ocampo (: ) argues that grammaticalization is movement towards syntax and morphology whereas DMs move “precisely to the opposite end: outside of syntax and towards discourse,” and Norde (: ) concludes that “movement towards discourse is genuinely different from movement towards grammar, and the two are therefore best kept separate.” 11.3.3 The lexicalization hypothesis In a few studies it is also argued that lexicalization is the main, or one of the mechanisms leading to the development of DMs. Thus, according to Wischer (), the early English DM methinks was the result of both grammaticalization and lexicalization, in that a construction consisting of a recipient subject and an impersonal verb was fossilized, becoming unproductive and being stored as a whole in the lexicon. A stronger form of the lexicalization hypothesis is proposed by Fischer (b: –), who argues that in non-standardized languages, epistemic parentheticals are likely to undergo morphological bonding and to form one lexical unit in the course of time, turning into lexical units.
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For a critical review of the lexicalization hypothesis, see Brinton (: –, ). 11.3.4 The cooptation hypothesis A fourth perspective on the development of DM evolved more recently, inspired by research on parentheticals, that is, linguistic expressions that are inserted fairly freely within a sentence, but also at the left or right periphery of a sentence without forming a participant of the sentence (see the contributions in Dehé and Kavalova ). In the framework of Discourse Grammar (Kaltenböck et al. ; Heine et al. ), parentheticals are referred to in short as theticals, their use is illustrated in the constructed examples of (), where theticals are printed in bold. () Constructed examples of theticals a. This is, if I may say so, not exactly what I had expected. b. This is, and I ask for your understanding, not exactly what I had expected. c. This is, please forgive me if I am impolite, not exactly what I had expected. Theticals, like if I may say so in (a), are expressions that are not syntactic parts of the sentence, they tend to be set off prosodically, for example by small pauses and/or a special intonation contour, they express meanings that are not part of the sentence meaning, and their function is typically metatextual: Rather than to the meaning of the sentence, they relate to speaker–hearer interaction, speaker attitudes, and/or the organization of texts. DMs, such as the ones in (), exhibit much the same features as theticals. Compare the examples in () with those of (), where instead of theticals, the DMs well, as it were, and in fact are used. () Constructed examples of discourse markers a. This is, well, not exactly what I had expected. b. This is, as it were, not exactly what I had expected. c. This is, in fact, not exactly what I had expected. The units printed in bold in () and () exhibit essentially the features listed in (). Accordingly, DMs have been treated as a subclass of parentheticals or theticals.
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()
Features typically exhibited by theticals (Kaltenböck et al. ) a. They are not part of the syntax of the sentence. b. They are as a rule not integrated prosodically. c. Their meaning is not part of the sentence meaning. d. They have metatextual functions. e. They are fairly flexible in their placement.
On account of such observations it is argued by Heine et al. () that features such as those discussed in Section . do not constitute a problem for reconstructing the development of DMs—on the contrary, they are to be expected since DMs arise as theticals. But this approach raises a number of questions, in particular the following: (a) How do theticals arise? and (b) how do DMs differ from other theticals, such as the ones in ()? The answers proposed by Heine et al. () are based on the hypotheses in (). ()
Hypotheses on the development of DMs (Heine ; a) a. Theticals arise via cooptation. b. Once coopted, some theticals develop further into DMs via subsequent grammaticalization.
Cooptation is defined as a discourse strategy (Heine et al. ), more specifically as a cognitive-communicative operation whereby a chunk of sentence grammar,² such as a clause, a phrase, a word, or any other text piece, is deployed for use on the metatextual level of discourse processing, thereby turning into a thetical, either interpolated in an utterance or placed at its periphery, or else used as a syntactic standalone. This operation, sometimes perceived as one leading from ‘grammatical’ to ‘pragmatic’ uses of a linguistic expression, resembles to some extent notions such as discoursivization, leading, for example, from adjective to discourse particle (Ocampo : ), and category change (Dostie (), both phrased in terms of pragmaticalization (see Section ..): The term [pragmaticalization] refers to a process of linguistic change in which a full lexical item . . . or grammatical item . . . changes category and status and becomes a pragmatic item, that is, an item which is not fully integrated into the syntactic structure of the utterance and which has a textual or interpersonal meaning. (Dostie : )
² On the notion of Sentence Grammar vs. Thetical Grammar see Kaltenböck et al. () and Heine et al. (); see also below.
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In accordance with its new status, the coopted unit is now an autonomous information unit, set off from the clause syntactically, prosodically, and semantically—that is, it is a thetical exhibiting the features in (). No longer serving a sentence grammatical function, it is a device of metatextual planning, its main function being that of relating the text to the situation of discourse. Thus, an English adverb like sadly in (a) can be coopted as a thetical, as in (b) (cf. Swan : ). As a result, it no longer modifies the meaning of the sentence or a part of it; rather, its meaning now relates to the situation of discourse, in this case more specifically to the attitudes of the speaker. () a. He sang sadly while she wept. b. Sadly, Alex lost the election. A coopted unit may be used once and never again. But it may as well be used recurrently, and in specific cases this can mark the beginning of a gradual process of grammaticalization, eventually leading to the rise of DMs. This process is in accordance with the parameters described in Chapter and can be sketched as follows: Context extension: The coopted expression is extended to new contexts where it assumes specific functions of discourse processing. These functions are essentially metatextual, relating to the overall situation of discourse. Desemanticization: In the same way as the new discourse functions are foregrounded, the lexical meaning of the evolving DMs is backgrounded and may eventually disappear entirely. Thus, in its grammaticalized uses, the DM well that we presented in (b) exhibits little of its former semantics of an evaluative adverb, now serving exclusively as functions of discourse organization. Decategorialization: It is largely restricted to internal decategorialization, in that the expression loses its ability to be inflected, to take on derivational morphology or modifiers, and it also loses internal morphological boundaries (see Section ., ()). In this way, collocations like I think, you know, or any way undergo univerbation, gradually turning into the invariable DMs I think, you know, and anyway, respectively. But the external status of the evolving DM is hardly affected by decategorialization—that is, the grammaticalizing DMs retain the syntactic independence they inherit from their earlier use as non-grammaticalized theticals.
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Erosion: DMs may but need not lose part of their phonetic substance, with one partial exception: Frequently used DMs can lose their prosodic distinctiveness—to the extent that they are integrated in the intonation contour of adjacent pieces of discourse. For example, rather than being prosodically separated, Kaltenböck (: ) found the DM I think in the following text piece to form one pitch contour unit with the preceding noun Monday, separating Monday I think from the preceding tone unit by pitch change and a pause. ()
The House knows that this matter may be debated on the Queen’s speech specifically tomorrow and again on uh Monday I think. (sb--; Kaltenböck : )
To be sure, not all of the parameters necessarily apply in a given case. For example, internal decategorialization leading to univerbation is relevant to DMs such as I think, what else, or you know but not to so, then, or well, since they consist of one morpheme only. In sum, on the cooptation hypothesis (Heine et al. ), DMs are the result of a two-stage history, sketched as in (). Evidence for () is provided in Heine (: –) and Heine et al. (). ()
Hypothesized development of discourse markers (Heine : –) (grammaticalization >) cooptation > grammaticalization
In accordance with (), the morphosyntactic, phonological and semantic features of DMs cannot be reduced to or be explained with reference to only one of these two mechanisms—be that grammaticalization or cooptation: On the one hand, DMs exhibit features such as the ones listed in Section . that bear witness to their genesis as (paren)theticals. On the other hand, they also exhibit the features of grammaticalization just mentioned. In sum, grammaticalization may and frequently does accompany the entire history of a DM from its rise to its present usage. Cooptation, by contrast, involves only a short phase in this development, but this phase can be held responsible for salient grammatical properties of DMs, such as the ones listed in ().
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CONCLUSIONS
Further reading Discourse markers have so far remained a fairly marginal field in grammaticalization studies. We therefore present a more extensive list of bibliographical references than in other chapters to familiarize the reader with this field. In many studies it is argued that discourse markers are largely or entirely the result of grammaticalization. The following represent paradigm examples of this hypothesis: Thompson and Mulac (), Traugott (a), Auer (), Nakayama and Ichihashi-Nakayama (), Günthner (, ), Barth-Weingarten and Couper-Kuhlen (), Traugott and Dasher (), Günthner and Mutz (), Rhee (), Auer and Günthner (), Brinton and Traugott (), Brinton (b, ), van Bogaert (), and Diewald (a; b). A ‘wider’ view of grammaticalization is discussed principally in Traugott (a), Hansen (b), Lenker (), Traugott and Dasher (), Brinton and Traugott (: –), Prévost (), Diewald (a; b), van Bogaert (), and Degand and Evers-Vermeul (: ). For a critical review of attempts to reduce the development of discourse markers to grammaticalization, see Heine (a). The pragmaticalization hypothesis is presented in particular in Erman and Kotsinas (), Aijmer (), Günthner (), Dostie (), Frank-Job (), Ocampo (), Brinton (: –), Hansen (: , ), Norde (: –), Claridge and Arnovick (: –), Arroyo (), and Beijering (: –). Lexicalization as a factor involved in the development of discourse markers is argued for by Wischer () and Fischer (b); for a critical review of the lexicalization hypothesis, see Brinton (: –, ). The cooptation hypothesis is expounded in particular in Heine (), and Heine et al. (, ). For critical comments on this hypothesis, see Degand and Evers-Vermeul (: ) and Brinton (: ).
11.4 Conclusions The four hypotheses discussed in this chapter are seemingly incompatible with one another. As a matter of fact, however, there is a remarkable similarity between them, in that they all claim, in some form or another, that the development of DMs involves a development towards discourse. The differences among them chiefly relate to the question of whether this development is restricted to grammaticalization of some kind (the grammaticalization hypothesis), whether it involves but is not restricted to grammaticalization (the cooptation hypothesis), or whether it is idiosyncratic to the extent that it needs to be treated
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DISCOURSE MARKERS
separately and referred to with a distinct term (the pragmaticalization hypothesis). The rise of DMs thus requires an account that takes care of the features which are incompatible with or contradict principles of grammaticalization, in particular the ones discussed in Section .. Proponents of the grammaticalization hypothesis have so far not provided such an account. This is different to the other hypotheses examined. Proponents of the cooptation hypothesis, in particular, argue that these are exactly the features that have been identified in research on extraclausal constituents, or on parentheticals, or theticals. Which of the hypotheses surveyed is correct is an empirical issue, in that the hypotheses can be verified or falsified by means of conclusive historical evidence. Some kind of evidence is presented in Heine et al. (), but more detailed reconstruction studies are urgently needed. What all this research suggests is that DMs will remain a challenge for students of grammaticalization.
Discussion points
() What do you think is the advantage or disadvantage of defining discourse markers through a combination of distributional and semantic properties, instead of defining them purely in terms of their distribution or their semantics? () Which properties of discourse markers, do you think, are problematic for an analysis based on grammaticalization? Which might be more readily reconcilable? () Describe the difference between grammaticalization and pragmaticalization. Do you think the term pragmaticalization is needed? Give your reasons for one position or the other.
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12 Summary and conclusion
There is by now a wealth of publications on grammaticalization, extending from articles to books and contributions to handbooks on language structure and language change. But around the turn of the millennium, there was massive criticism challenging grammaticalization theory (see below under Further reading). A number of weaknesses and inconsistencies found in previous analyses of grammaticalization were pointed out, and attention was drawn to areas of research that had been neglected or ignored in earlier work. In particular, the more general claims represented in (i) to (iv) have been made time and again: (i)
Not all instances of grammatical change are due to grammaticalization. (ii) Grammaticalization is not unidirectional. (iii) Grammaticalization is not a distinct process. (iv) ‘Grammaticalization theory’ is not a theory. In earlier work, the impression was in fact conveyed that any changes affecting the grammatical structure of a language can be subsumed under the heading of ‘grammaticalization.’ The challenge in (i) was therefore a timely reminder that grammatical change also involves factors that are not covered by grammaticalization, and more research is needed to deal with these factors in detail. It is especially the later stages of grammatical change that may pose problems or be elusive to parameters of grammaticalization such as the ones discussed in Chapter , as aptly pointed out especially by Norde (). With regard to (ii), doubts as to whether grammaticalization is truly a unidirectional process have in fact been raised throughout the history of this field of research, and a number of examples contradicting the
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unidirectionality hypothesis have been identified. We have dealt with this issue in Sections . and .. In accordance with (iii) it has been argued that grammaticalization is not a distinct process because the main parameters (or mechanisms) characterizing it, that is, desemanticization, decategorialization, erosion, as well as context extension (see Chapter ) can be also be identified in other kinds of linguistic change (Newmeyer : –; Campbell ; Janda ). There are a couple of reasons why such a position does not seem to be justified. First, the main task of grammaticalization theory is to provide explanations for why grammatical forms arise and develop, and it is these four parameters that have been found to be material to jointly achieving such explanations (see Section .). Thus, irrespective of how one wishes to define a ‘distinct process,’ these mechanisms and their interaction are part of one and the same explanatory framework. And second, grammaticalization, as conceived here, is first and foremost a semantic process. Being extended to new contexts, linguistic expressions lose parts of their meaning but acquire new, grammatical meanings invited by the context (context extension). And by having acquired grammatical meanings, these forms tend to increasingly diverge from their old uses, losing morphosyntactic properties characteristic of the old uses (decategorialization). They tend to be used more frequently, their use becomes increasingly predictable, and they tend to lose part of their phonetic substance (erosion). Accordingly, what used to be a free form having lexical meaning may end up as a bound form expressing some schematic function. Thus, even if some of their effects can also be found in other kinds of linguistic change, the four mechanisms are needed to account for processes of grammaticalization. In sum, to the extent that these parameters jointly provide a tool for describing and explaining the rise, development, and structure of functional categories through space and time, and to understand why these categories are structured the way they are, there seems to be justification for viewing grammaticalization as a distinct process. Finally, with regard to (iv), it was argued that ‘grammaticalization theory’ is not a theory (see especially Newmeyer : –; Campbell ). For most researchers this is not, and has never been, an issue, since their interest is simply in describing grammatical change and the implication it has for a better understanding of language. Whether their work deserves or needs to be described as a theory is not considered by them to
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be of major concern. Other researchers again describe grammaticalization as a theory in their work; see below under Further reading. As understood here, grammaticalization theory can be taken to provide an explanation for certain linguistic phenomena (Narrog and Heine : ), and its hypotheses can be tested by means of empirical evidence: Grammaticalization theory is neither a theory of language nor of language change; its goal is to describe grammaticalization, that is, the way grammatical forms arise and develop through space and time, and to explain why they are structured the way they are. (Heine a: )
Furthermore, as Song (: ) notes, “the fact that some, not other, changes giving rise to grammaticalization and constraints on what can and cannot grammaticalize exist does call for the need for grammaticalization theory” (see also Haspelmath a). We are aware, however, that there are also a number of other, equally relevant stances on this issue. In the course of this book, we have given an overall introduction on grammaticalization and subsequently focused on a number of issues that we consider to be particularly relevant for an introduction, even if the list of issues treated is by no means exhaustive. The first five chapters discussed the fundamentals of the study of grammaticalization. In Chapter , we defined grammaticalization as having both a functional and a formal aspect, with the functional aspect as the core. Furthermore, we distinguished primary grammaticalization, as the change from lexical categories to grammatical (functional) categories, from secondary grammaticalization, as the extension to further grammatical categories. In some approaches only the change from lexical to grammatical is labeled as grammaticalization, and subsequent changes as something else, but we perceive a directionality of change that goes beyond the initial stages of grammaticalization. This directionality of change is characterized by an expansion of scope and a development towards discourse orientation, as the aggregate of speaker-, hearer-, and textual orientation. Unidirectionality is an important feature of grammaticalization. Generally, lexical categories develop into grammatical categories and not vice versa. Likewise, within the further extension from one grammatical to the next grammatical category, there is also clear directionality. For example, aspectual categories will develop into tense categories, or modal categories
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into subordinated moods but not vice versa. As was later seen in Chapter , unidirectionality can be empirically challenged, but challenges have not been entirely successful if one strictly requires the exact reversal of grammaticalization as a condition for a successful challenge. Grammaticalization can be taken as an explanation for a wide range of grammatical phenomena. Some cases that we reviewed involved word order, morpheme order, properties of grammatical categories at certain stages of their development, and polysemy/multifunctionality. Lastly, we discussed that grammaticalization can essentially be studied in two ways, namely diachronically, on the basis of historical language data, and synchronically, through comparison of related constructions in one language or across a well-defined set of structurally similar or genetically related languages. The diachronic approach is empirically superior but can only be applied to the small number of the world’s languages that are historically well-documented, and even with these languages it faces various challenges. Reconstruction tries to combine diachronic data, if available, and synchronic data, to fill in the blanks in the history of a language where historical data are not available, making use of methodologies established in historical linguistics. Grammaticalization has become an important tool in reconstruction, and the topic is one of the focal points in this volume that is emphasized throughout the chapters. In order to identify a linguistic phenomenon as ‘grammaticalization’ a set of criteria or parameters is needed. Criteria are also instrumental in identifying in more detail in which respect some linguistic item is grammaticalized and what stage of the process it has reached. Chapter provided an overview of such criteria, which have also been proposed under the terms ‘parameters’ and ‘principles.’ In Chapter , the key parameters of grammaticalization were discussed in great detail. The parameters are () context extension, () desemanticization, () decategorialization, and () erosion. These parameters are also the tools of reconstruction, as they allow us to reversely determine the likely former function and form of a grammatical item, or its predecessor. Chapter elaborated on the overall directionality of semantic change in grammaticalization. We first discussed the term ‘bleaching’ that has been favored by some researchers but has come under fire from others, and suggested that ‘abstraction’ may be a more suitable term. We then hypothesized that grammatical categories develop in the direction of more ‘discourse orientation.’ This term subsumes three tendencies,
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namely orientation towards the speaker, the hearer, and finally text and discourse itself. The phenomena known as ‘subjectification’ and ‘intersubjectification’ in grammaticalization research only relate to minor parts of this overall tendency, namely the gain in speaker-centered evaluative meanings in early stages of grammaticalization and the expression of the speaker’s attention to the addressee’s self-image. The order between the three tendencies has yet to be fully established empirically, but evidence suggests that textual, or proper discourse orientation is a later or last stage phenomenon. Furthermore, while early stage speaker orientation can be identified with the expression of speaker attitudes, in later stages that involve increasingly abstract meanings, speaker deixis takes its place. The claim that later stages of grammaticalization involve objectification basically refers to the fact that expressive speaker-oriented meanings tend to fade in secondary grammaticalization, and more abstract speaker-deictic and textual functions take its place. Chapter , the last chapter of the block of ‘fundamentals’ chapters, discussed gradualness and various concepts of stages in grammaticalization. We suggest that grammaticalization is best captured as a gradual process, even if alternative conceptualizations, for example, as a gradient, are possible. From a wider perspective, stages can be organized into grammaticalization chains and also semantic maps. In terms of semantics, as grammaticalization proceeds in steps and changes, one linguistic form accumulates more meanings and functions. The reason is that the original meanings and functions rarely disappear immediately, but rather, they are prone to persist. The resulting polysemy and multifunctionality has been variously described in terms of ‘polysemy,’ ‘transcategoriality,’ and ‘heterosemy.’ We argued that ‘heterosemy’ is a particularly useful term. Lastly, we discussed ‘cycles’ in grammaticalization, that is, cases in which the same grammatical category is recreated when an older expression fades and a new expression for the same category grammaticalizes, or the older expression is ‘reinforced’ by new material. The best-known case of this is negation. But not all categories that develop in grammaticalizations are renewals of older ones. Sometimes, genuine ‘innovation’ takes place. A second block of chapters, from Chapter to Chapter , dealt with motivations for and constraints on grammaticalization. Chapter discussed in some detail mechanisms of, and motivations for grammaticalization that have been proffered in the research literature. Reanalysis
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and analogy have been traditionally labeled as ‘mechanisms’ only, and both have been subject to considerable controversy. In contrast, the language system, communicative needs, inferences and context, cognition and conceptualization, frequency of use, and discourse have been mostly identified as ‘motivations,’ but some of them also alternatively as ‘mechanisms’ or ‘filters.’ None of them has been undisputed in its relevance for grammaticalization, and which one of them is considered as decisive heavily depends on the theoretical stance taken towards the study of grammaticalization. We suggest that grammaticalization can have multiple motivations. None of them needs to exclude the others. However, we consider language structure as guiding and constraining grammaticalization rather than motivating it. ‘Borrowing’ is traditionally one of the three mechanisms of grammatical change. Also traditionally, ‘external’ language change through language contact is distinguished from internal change. In Chapter we took a grammaticalization perspective on so-called ‘external’ language change and revealed that the replication of structures of a contact language (the ‘model language’) is quite common and often happens via the same mechanisms through which purely ‘language-internal’ grammaticalization takes place. In fact, it is often not easy to decide whether a grammaticalization was motivated ‘internally’ or ‘externally.’ We suggested a number of criteria for grammaticalization through language contact and for deciding which language was the model language. These are also important tools for reconstruction, since language change through language contact is quite common in the languages of the world. Finally, in Chapter , we first returned to the idea that language structures guide or constrain grammaticalization. We provided some examples for extant language structures guiding, or serving as a model for, newly developing structures. This can be most easily observed in the morphological and phonological structures of grammaticalization, such as so-called ‘isolating’ languages grammaticalizing isolating structures, but also holds for functional domains. We can see this in the fact that languages tend to bolster their extant grammatical categories rather than constantly developing new ones. Alternatively, principles of grammaticalization can also bear on the structural features of a language. Well-known examples are the so-called suffixing preference, and morpheme order in complex words. Furthermore, grammaticalization is a decisive factor in how specific grammatical categories are
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expressed in a specific language. And, it almost trivially contributes to the formation of new analytic language structures to replace older synthetic ones. Chapter is a standalone chapter that discussed a number of theoretical frameworks that have adopted the study of grammaticalization and have thereby developed very specific perspectives on grammaticalization. We saw that in generative grammar, grammaticalization is understood in terms of upward reanalysis in hierarchical clause structure, in consonance with our idea that grammaticalization implies scope expansion and economy. In Functional Discourse Grammar as well, although the theoretical background is entirely different, grammaticalization is also conceptualized as a development upward (or to the outside of) hierarchical clause structure. Functional Discourse Grammar was the first theoretical framework to make this claim. Variationist Theory differs from these frameworks in that it does not apply a different analysis of grammar to the phenomenon, but focuses on important factors in grammaticalization that traditionally tend to be overlooked. In particular, it views grammaticalization in terms of competition between variants of expression for the same functional domain, and analyzes the use contexts of each variable. Cognitive Grammar takes a unique synchronic view of grammaticalization entirely in terms of semantic change, specifically ‘subjectification.’ This subjectification is highly compatible with what we consider as speaker orientation in terms of speaker deixis, and contrasts with the more common view of subjectification in terms of the expression of the speaker’s attitude. Lastly, we examined the relationship between grammaticalization and Construction Grammar, which is a challenging one, since Construction Grammar essentially denies the distinction between the lexicon and grammar, which is definitory for grammaticalization. We discussed a few attempts to reconcile grammaticalization theory and Construction Grammar. Chapters and constituted the part of this book that dealt with issues ‘beyond’ grammaticalization. These were mainly lexicalization, degrammaticalization, and exaptation (regrammaticalization) in Chapter , and the development of discourse markers, also known as pragmaticalization in Chapter . Degrammaticalization and the development of discourse markers, in particular, have been posited as challenges to grammaticalization theory. Degrammaticalization, in a strict sense as the mirror image of grammaticalization, hardly exists or
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does not exist at all, as mentioned in the remarks on Chapter above. On the other hand, partial developments in the opposite direction of grammaticalization, especially purely formal (morphological) ones, do exist, and the less restrictive we are in our definition of degrammaticalization, the more ‘degrammaticalizations’ can be identified. Exaptation (regrammaticalization) has received far less attention than degrammaticalization, but may in fact be a more common and even a more regular progress. The development of discourse markers is a process that is in principle different from grammaticalization but incorporates elements of grammaticalization. While grammaticalization as such is a linguistic phenomenon, we have outlined grammaticalization in this book as a theory. We argued in particular that it can uniquely explain a variety of language phenomena. Grammaticalization can be understood as a ‘mid-level’ explanation in that grammaticalization itself is driven by deeper motivations such as cognition and communication. However, it is a useful explanation because linguists usually do not have direct access to those deeper factors, and even if they do, such factors may play out in many alternative ways, not only those that are actually realized in a grammar.
Further reading Around the turn of the millennium, the question of whether grammaticalization can be defined as a distinct process has generated some research activity; see especially Newmeyer (), Joseph (), Campbell (), Campbell and Janda (), Janda (), and Norde (, , , ). This activity has also identified a range of grammatical changes claimed to be at variance with the unidirectionality hypothesis; see also Joseph and Janda (), Ramat (), Frajzyngier (), and especially Newmeyer (: ff.) While the term ‘grammaticalization theory’ is avoided by a number of researchers, others, including Haspelmath (a: ), Heine (a), Song (), Noël (), Gisborne and Patten (), Narrog and Heine (, ), Reinöhl and Himmelmann (), and Heine (a), have used it affirmatively.
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Glossary The following list presents terms which are in some way or another relevant for describing phenomena of grammaticalization as discussed in this book. The list is based on more detailed descriptions in established dictionaries of linguistics and in the literature on grammaticalization. It only aims to provide brief characterizations of common uses of the terms, and not exhaustive descriptions or definitions. For more details and bibliographical references see the main text of this book as well as the references provided therein. ability, see PI-possibility ablative: ‘(away) from’; also ‘from above/below/inside’; case indicating a spatial source participant; direction from, source; temporal ‘from,’ ‘since’; indicating a temporal (source) participant (e.g. from morning to evening) affix: a bound morpheme added to a root or a stem. See also prefix, suffix agent: e.g. ‘by’; semantic role of a participant that instigates or performs the action described by the main verb agglutinating: a mechanism of word formation where a grammatical item typically having a separate form and a separate function is affixed to a root morpheme and to other grammatical items, e.g. Swahili tumefika ‘we have arrived’ () context extension and no longer needs to be supported by the context which gave rise to it. Cf. bridging context, switch context cooptation: a productive operation whereby a chunk of sentence grammar, such as a word, a phrase, a reduced clause, a full clause, or some other piece of text, is deployed for use on the metatextual level of discourse processing, thereby turning into a thetical. Cf. Chapter ... See also thetical copula: ‘be’; predicate used in propositions of the type ‘X is (a) Y’; identifying copula, classifying copula. See also locative copula creole: a language that has evolved as a rule from a (>) pidgin learned by children as their first language, thereby acquiring an extended lexicon and grammar. As a result, creoles are in a number of ways indistinguishable from other languages. Cf. pidgin cycle, also morphological cycle: a cyclic form of evolution, typically involving morphosyntactic or semantic-pragmatic material, leading to the renewal of
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GLOSSARY
a grammatical category of the same kind. Cf. Chapter .. See also reinforcement, renewal, spiral dative: case that typically marks a third participant, such as a recipient de-volitive: a grammaticalized form derived from a verb meaning ‘want’ debonding: a composite change whereby a bound morpheme in a specific linguistic context becomes a free morpheme. Cf. Chapter . decategorialization: loss of morphological and/or syntactic properties that a linguistic expression experiences in the course of grammaticalization. Cf. Chapter . definite: ‘the’; definite article; nominal determiner. Cf. indefinite degrammaticalization: a composite change whereby in a specific context a grammatical form gains in autonomy and/or substance on at least two of the three levels semantics, morphosyntax, and phonology. Cf. Chapter . degrammation: a composite change whereby in a specific context a function word is reanalyzed as a member of a major word class, gaining both semantic substance and morphosyntactic properties characteristic of that word class. Cf. Chapter . deinflectionalization: a composite change whereby in a specific linguistic context an inflectional affix gains a new function and shifts to a less bound type. Cf. Chapter . delexicalization: the reverse of lexicalization, where speakers re-analyze words as the concatenation or fusion of morphemes that often are not their actual source; e.g. ham-burger from hamburger (from German Hamburger ‘[something] from Hamburg’). Cf. Chapter .. See also lexicalization demonstrative: ‘this/these,’ ‘that/those’; nominal determiner or pronoun demorphologization: either the degradation of morphological patterns to phonology, or from a more bound to a more independent morpheme such as a clitic or independent word. Cf. phonogenesis, degrammaticalization. Cf. Chapter . deontic (modality), see D-necessity desemanticization (or bleaching): loss of semantic properties that a linguistic expression experiences in the course of grammaticalization. Cf. Chapter . discourse marker (or pragmatic marker): invariable expressions which are semantically and syntactically independent from their environment, typically set off prosodically from the rest of the utterance, and their function is
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GLOSSARY
metatextual, relating a text to the situation of discourse, e.g. anyway, indeed, in fact, now, well, etc. discourse orientation: orientation towards speaker and hearer, and towards organizing speech or discourse itself. Usually increases in grammaticalization. Cf. Chapter .. See also speaker orientation, hearer orientation, textual orientation discursively primary, see primary, discursively discursively secondary, see secondary, discursively distal: ‘far away’; spatial distance, e.g. expressed by demonstratives. Cf. proximal divergence: a lexical form undergoes grammaticalization but survives as an autonomous lexical element, occurring side by side with its grammaticalized variant. Cf. Chapter dual: number category referring to no more and no less than two items durative: ‘keep doing’; verbal aspect elative: ‘too,’ as in too much, too big, etc. emphatic: expression of emphasis or contrast endocentric (construction): a syntactic construction which belongs to the same form class/category (i.e. shows the same distribution) as one or more of its constituents epistemic (modality): type of modality that denotes a necessity or possibility based on the speaker’s knowledge and beliefs about the state of affairs expressed in the proposition ergative: case marking the agent argument of a transitive verb in ergative languages erosion (or phonetic reduction): loss of phonetic features that a linguistic expression experiences in the course of grammaticalization evidential: category, typically of the verb, that refers to information about the evidence on which a report is based evidential, inferred: category, typically of the verb, indicating information acquired through inductive or deductive inference evidential, reported: category, typically of the verb, indicating that the evidence for the proposition is based on hearsay exaptation: as used in grammaticalization theory, the term stands for a change whereby a grammatical category that has lost its semantic and/or formal distinctiveness is put to new functional uses. See Chapter .
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GLOSSARY
exclusive: ‘we excluding you’; a distinction made typically in first person plural pronouns, which excludes the hearer. Cf. inclusive explanation, external: an explanation where a set of facts is derived as a consequence of principles outside the domain concerned, which typically— though not necessarily—is that of grammar. This is the case, for example, when linguistic phenomena are explained by means of extra-linguistic phenomena explanation, internal: an explanation where a set of facts is considered to be a consequence of the deductive structure of a particular theory of grammar, or where a given phenomenon is explained with reference to other phenomena belonging to the same domain extension: a mechanism which results in changes in the surface manifestation of a pattern which does not involve immediate or intrinsic modification of underlying structure. See also context extension external explanation, see explanation, external focus: grammatical function ‘highlighting’ some participant of a sentence, presenting that participant as new information frequency, see token frequency, type frequency future: ‘will,’ ‘be going to’; tense indicating that the speaker predicts an event to occur later than the time of the speech event future, de-volitive: a future tense category historically derived from a verb for ‘want’ grammaticalization, paired, see paired grammaticalization habitual: ‘do habitually’; verbal aspect for an event occurring habitually or usually and on different occasions hearer orientation: orientation of a linguistic expression towards the addressee; e.g. honorifics. It may increase in the grammaticalization of some categories. Especially in advanced grammaticalization, it becomes hearer deixis (anchoring in the second person); e.g. imperatives. Cf. Chapter .. See also speaker orientation, discourse orientation heterosemy: obtains when within a single language two or more meanings that are historically related, in the sense of deriving from the same ultimate source, are borne by reflexes of the common source element that belong in different morphosyntactic categories honorific: marker of honorific reference or deference imperative: form of the verb that expresses directives, commands, and requests
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GLOSSARY
imperfective: verbal aspect denoting that an event is viewed as unbounded temporally. See also perfective impersonal: construction without openly expressed agent; the agent may be not identifiable or simply irrelevant implicature, conversational: any meaning implied or expressed by, and inferred or understood from, the utterance of a sentence which is meant without being part of what is strictly said. It is one of the manifestations of inferences. See also inference inchoative: . phasal aspect marking the beginning of a state or event. . Stands for spontaneous action not depending on a volitional actor inclusive: ‘we including you’; a distinction typically made within first person plural pronouns which includes the hearer. See also exclusive indefinite: ‘a, an’; indefinite article; nominal determiner. See also definite indefinite pronoun: ‘something,’ ‘someone,’ etc., including impersonal pronouns, like French on or German man inference: conclusion drawn on the basis of a set of propositions, either logically or from context or from everyday reasoning. See also implicature, conversational inflection: consistent or even obligatory change of word form corresponding to specific syntactic and semantic functions of a word, typically found in verbs, adjectives, and nouns, e.g. keep vs. kept, goose vs. geese). Cf. Chapter . See also agglutinating, isolating inflectional language: a language using mainly inflectional word formation. Cf. Chapter . See also inflectional ingressive: synonymous with inchoative innovation: a mechanism whereby a new grammatical form is created for which there was no earlier conventionalized equivalent in the language concerned. See also renewal instrument(al): ‘with,’ ‘by means of ’; semantic role, and in some languages a case indicating the function of a participant as an instrument integrity: the amount of semantic and phonological substance needed for a given form to maintain its identity intensifier: ‘-self’, as in The king himself, The king did it himself; frequently referred to as emphatic reflexive, identifier intention, see B-necessity interjection: wow!, Boy!, a typically short emotive exclamation
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GLOSSARY
internal explanation, see explanation, internal intersubjectification: increase in intersubjectivity . See also subjectification intersubjectivity: . In philosophy, psychology, and part of linguistics, shared ground between speaker/writer and hearer/reader; . In some grammaticalization studies, attention towards the addressee’s face needs. See also subjectivity isolating (or analytic): a mechanism of word formation where each grammatical category is represented by a separate word, that is, where words have no internal morphological structure. Cf. Chapter . See also agglutinating, inflectional isolating language: a language using mainly or exclusively isolating word formation. Cf. Chapter . See also isolating iterative (or repetitive): ‘do repeatedly’; aspectual category for action that is done repeatedly or an event occuring repeatedly lateral shift: a diachronic change from one category to another that does not involve change towards a more (or less) grammaticalized category on a grammaticalization chain. See also transcategorization layering: new layers of structure arising via grammaticalization may coexist with older layers within a broad functional domain of a language, with the two, or more kinds of layers interacting with one another. Cf. Chapter lexicalization: a process by which linguistic units enter the lexicon. More specifically, it is a change whereby in certain linguistic contexts speakers use a syntactic construction or word formation as a new contentful form with formal and semantic properties that are not completely derivable or predictable from the constituents of the construction or the word formation pattern. Cf. Chapter . locative: semantic role, or in some languages, case indicating a locative participant locative copula: ‘be at,’ ‘be somewhere’; predicate used in propositions of the type ‘X is (located) at Y’ loss-and-gain model: a model of grammatical change according to which meaning change in grammaticalization involves both losses of old material and gains of new materials. Cf. Chapter . map, semantic, see semantic map mechanism: a particular constellation of factors causing one state to change into another
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metatextual: the function of a marker, such as a discourse marker, as being anchored in and relating the meaning of a sentence to the situation of discourse. In more general terms, a metatextual marker refers to a statement whose topic is the text itself model language: a language that provides the source for a transfer of linguistic material from one language to another. Cf. Chapter . See also replica language morpheme: a minimal form unit with a meaning. See also phoneme morphological cycle, see cycle morphologization (in grammaticalization): a diachronic process leading from an independent word to a bound morpheme. The term relates to the core of the potential morphological development accompanying grammaticalization. See also coalescence morphology: the branch of grammar devoted to the structure of words morphosyntax: the branch of grammar involving simultaneously morphology and syntax B-necessity (Intention): ‘intend to’; boulomaic necessity D-necessity (Obligation): ‘have to,’ ‘should,’ ‘must’; the validity of a proposition is relativized as being contingent on an obligation or societal norms; deontic necessity E-necessity (Probability): ‘it is likely that’; the validity of a proposition is relativized as being contingent on the speaker’s assessment of its likelihood; the likelihood is high; epistemic necessity negation: ‘not,’ ‘no’ neuter: a gender category that is neither feminine nor masculine nominalizer: marker used to derive nouns from verbs, adjectives, and other categories; for example, English ‐er, ‐ization non-specific marker: use of an indefinite article to refer to a participant in discourse whose referential identity neither the hearer nor the speaker knows or cares to know. See also specific marker obligation, see D-necessity obligatorification: the use of a linguistic form in some specific context becomes obligatory rather than being optional. Cf. Chapter obligatoriness: a particular expression can be required to differing extents, being required in some environments. Cf. Chapters ,
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paired grammaticalization: a situation where two neighboring languages in contact share two grammaticalization processes for the same general grammatical function. Cf. Chapter paradigmaticity: the formal and semantic integration both of a paradigm as a whole and of a single subcategory into the paradigm of its generic category. Cf. Chapter . parenthetical: a linguistic expression that is inserted fairly freely within a sentence, but also at the left or right periphery of a sentence, without being integrated in the sentence. See also thetical passive: a grammatical voice in which the agent is suppressed or demoted and the event is often centered on the perspective of the recipient or patient of the verb past: tense indicating that an event or state is temporally located before the moment of speech patient: semantic role of a participant that is the undergoer of the action denoted by the verb; direct object perfect: verbal aspect indicating that a past event is relevant to the situation at reference time; anterior perfective: verbal aspect indicating that an event is viewed as bounded temporally. See also imperfective persistence: relates the meaning and function of a grammatical form to its history as a lexical form phoneme: a minimal distinctive sound unit. See also morpheme phonetic reduction, see erosion phonogenesis: a process whereby erstwhile morphemes are degraded into purely phonological elements of a word phonologization: a process whereby allophones of one phoneme develop into phonemes of their own phonology: the branch of grammar devoted to the sound system of a language pidgin: a language that has a reduced lexicon and grammatical structure, resulting typically from extended contact between groups of people with no language in common plural: number category indicating two or more referents. See also dual polysemy: one linguistic form having two or more related meanings, that is, there is significant overlap in semantic content between the meanings. See also heterosemy, homonymy
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polysemy copying: a process whereby in situations of language contact a combination of related meanings associated with one form is copied analogically from one language (the model language) into another language (the replica language), that is, it is ‘translated’ in another language. Cf. Chapter . possibility, see C-, E-possibility C-possibility (root possibility): ‘can’; the validity of a proposition is relativized as being contingent on enabling circumstances and conditions, e.g. You can get that book in our bookstore; also known as circumstantial or situational possibility E-possibility: ‘it is possible that’; the validity of a proposition is relativized as being contingent on the speaker’s assessment of its likelihood; the likelihood is not high; epistemic possibility. See also potential PI-possibility (ability): ‘can, be able’ (participant-internal possibility) pragmatic marker, see discourse marker pragmatic strengthening: a process whereby in a situation of semantic ambiguity of an utterance pragmatic inferences about that utterance serve to strengthen one of the available interpretations. The result can be that, over time, an old meaning is replaced by a new one. Cf. Chapter . pragmaticalization: a process leading to the rise of (>) discourse markers prefix: an affix which precedes a root or a stem. See also affix, suffix present: tense that is simultaneous or overlapping with the moment of speech presentative marker: use of an indefinite article to refer to a new participant in discourse presumed to be unknown to the hearer and this participant is taken up as definite in subsequent discourse. See also non-specific marker, specific marker primary, discursively: a linguistic form, such as a noun or a demonstrative, that can be focalized or addressed in discourse, e.g. It is this that I wanted to tell you. See also secondary, discursively* primary grammaticalization: the development from lexical to grammatical meanings or forms. Cf. Chapter .. See also secondary grammaticalization probability, see E-necessity procedural meaning: encodes information about computations rather than about representations, that is, on how an utterance is to be processed rather than conceptually expressed proclitic: a clitic which is attached to the beginning of a word. See also clitic progressive: ‘be doing’; aspect indicating that an action or event in progress at reference time
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GLOSSARY
proximative: a category of verbal aspect denoting ‘be about to,’ ‘be on the verge of doing.’ See also avertive purpose: ‘in order to,’ ‘so that’; () semantic role for the purpose of an action. () Relationship between two clauses in which one clause indicates the purpose of the event or action described in the other clause reanalysis: a change that assigns a new underlying structure to a surface sequence without overtly modifying that sequence reason: . In complex clauses, proposition adduced by a speaker to support a conclusion in the other clause. Can be marked in English with conjunctions such as because or since. . Semantic role used synonymously with cause recipient: ‘to’; semantic role of a typically human goal or recipient; indirect object, dative reflexive: ‘self ’, as in I saw myself in the mirror; where the patient is the same referent as the agent (i.e. the two have identical reference) reinforcement: a mechanism whereby a grammatical marker A is supported by some additional expression B ‘strengthening’ the meaning of A. See also cycle, renewal relative pronoun: ‘who,’ ‘which,’ ‘that’; marker introducing relative clauses renewal: a mechanism whereby an existing expression of a grammatical category is replaced by a new expression, with the result that the new expression assumes a function that is similar to the old one. See also cycle, innovation, reinforcement renovation, see substitution repetitive, see iterative replica language: a language that is the target of a transfer of semantic or structural linguistic material from one language to another. See also model language replication: a contact-induced process whereby semantic and/or structural linguistic material is transferred from one language to another. See also borrowing reported evidential, see evidential, reported resultative: ‘having reached a new state’; verbal aspect. See also change-ofstate retraction: loss of a further advanced grammatical function that a linguistic item developed, with only the less advanced function(s) remaining ritualization: term from ethnology, referring to the development of rituals and routines through frequent repetition of the same behavior; in
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GLOSSARY
linguistics, seen as the driving force behind grammaticalization by scholars who emphasize the language processing aspect of grammaticalization. Cf. Chapter .. See also chunking, routinization root possibility, see C-possibility routinization: a process by which a linguistic sign or sequence is made to be used more frequently, thereby progressively ruling out alternatives and choices. See also ritualization scope: a logical-semantic concept, defined by an asymmetric (exocentric) relationship between an operator and an operand. By the scope of an operator, such as a connective or a quantifier, is meant that part of a formula which is within the domain of operation of the operator scope, structural: the structural size of the construction which a grammatical form helps to form; specific to Lehmann’s concept of grammaticalization and fundamentally different from scope (above) secondary, discursively: a linguistic form, such as an article (the, a), that cannot be focalized or addressed in discourse. See also primary, discursively secondary grammaticalization: the development from grammatical meanings or forms to even more grammaticalized meanings or forms. Cf. Chapter .. See also primary grammaticalization semantic map: two- (potentially even three-)dimensional representations of degree of similarity of a specific range of linguistic categories serial verb: a verb in a construction in which two or more verbs sharing the same subject or agent are juxtaposed and together express the equivalent of a verb phrase with just one verb in other languages serial verb construction: a monoclausal construction consisting of multiple independent verbs with no element linking them and with no predicate– argument relation between the verb source, semantic role; see ablative source (of grammaticalization): a linguistic form or construction giving rise to a process of grammaticalization. See also target (of grammaticalization) speaker orientation: orientation of a linguistic expression towards the speaker; e.g. attitudinal use of adverbs and adjectives, said to increase in grammaticalization. Especially in later stages of grammaticalization, it takes the form of speaker deixis (e.g. tense). Cf. Chapter .. See also hearer orientation, discourse orientation
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specialization: the narrowing of choices that characterizes an emergent grammatical construction specific marker: use of an indefinite article to refer to a participant in discourse known to the speaker but presumed to be unknown to the hearer; See also indefinite, non-specific marker speech act orientation: term formerly used for discourse orientation speech community: a group of individuals who share a set of norms regarding the use of a language spiral: elaboration on the concept of cycle. While a ‘cycle’ rests on a metaphor of exact renewal of a specific linguistic category, or state of a language, the metaphor of a spiral emphasizes that the renewed category is similar but not identical to the one it replaced. Cf. Chapter . subjectification: . Traugottian sense: a process whereby a meaning becomes increasingly based in the speaker’s subjective belief state or attitude towards the proposition; related to subjectivity ; . Langackerian (Cognitive Grammar) sense: the realignment of some relationship from the objective to the subjective axis, or a gradual process of progressive attenuation in which an objective relationship fades away, leaving behind a subjective relationship that was originally immanent in it; related to subjectivity . See also speaker orientation subjectivity: in linguistics: . Expression of the speaker’s attitude or commitment to the content of a proposition. . Speaker deixis, in particular implicit speaker deixis (e.g. spatial expressions such as here, there; tense). . Referring to information that is not shared with the addressee. Cf. Chapter .. See also intersubjectivity, subjectification subordinator: general marker introducing adverbial clauses, having a range of adverbial functions, such as presenting locative, temporal, causal, and/or conditional functions substitution (or renovation): a grammatical form A falls into disuse and is replaced by a largely equivalent form B. See also cycle, renewal suffix: an affix which follows a root or a stem. See also affix, prefix switch context: the use of a linguistic form in a new context highlighting a new meaning (the target meaning) which is incompatible with the earlier meaning of that form (the source meaning). Cf. Chapter .. See also bridging context syntactic variability, see variability syntagmatic: refers to the relationship between linguistic items in linear sequence, e.g. word formation or sentence formation. Contrasts with the term paradigmatic, which refers to the relationship between linguistic items
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GLOSSARY
that can replace each other in a specific position in a linear sequence. Not identical with syntactic. Term used by Lehmann. Cf. Chapter . synthetic language: language in which two or more meanings and grammatical functions are often fused into one morpheme, and morphemes are often not separated by clear boundaries. Opposite of analytic language. Cf. Chapter . target (of grammaticalization): a linguistic form or construction being the result of a grammaticalization process. See also source (of grammaticalization) thetical: a linguistic expression that is syntactically separate, typically set off prosodically, and its meaning relates to speaker–hearer interaction, speaker attitudes, and/or the organization of texts, rather than to the meaning of the sentence it is associated with. See also parenthetical token frequency (in grammaticalization): refers to the frequency with which an individual form may be used and becomes relevant when grammaticalization has kicked in. Cf. Chapter .. See also type frequency topic: the theme of a sentence, that is, what the sentence is about, as ‘X’ is in ‘as for X’ transcategoriality: one and the same kind of linguistic form is used simultaneously on two or more different planes of linguistic organization based on some regular pattern. English round is an example of transcategoriality, occurring as an adjective (a round table), a preposition (He walked round the corner), a verb (The boat will round the buoy soon), an adverb (I went round to the shop), or a noun (It’s my round). Cf. Chapter . transcategorization: a shift of a category from one word class to another; e.g. considering from verb participle to preposition. See also lateral shift type frequency (in grammaticalization): the type and number of contexts in which a linguistic form can be used, e.g. the number of verbs with which an aspect marker co-occurs. Cf. Chapter .. See also token frequency uniformitarian principle, or uniformitarianism: a hypothesis according to which the same kind of linguistic phenomena and changes that we observe in the present must have existed at some time in the past which is not accessible to direct observation, unless there is empirical evidence to the contrary univerbation: a process whereby a collocation of two or more words or morphemes loses its internal morphological boundaries and merges into a new, invariable word, e.g. English forget-me-not, anyway). Cf. Chapter .. See also chunking, coalescence
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variability, syntactic: the flexibility of a linguistic item, that is, the number of syntactic slots that an element may occupy. For example, items moving towards bound status lose in syntactic variability; syntagmatic variability venitive: ‘motion hither,’ ‘motion towards’; verbal category for a movement towards the speaker or deictic center; ventive. See also andative
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Author index Aaron, Jessi Elena Abraham, Werner , , , , , Adamson, Sylvia , Adone, Dany Ahn, Mikyung – Aijmer, Karin , Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. , , , –, , Ambrazas, Vytautas Andersen, Henning , , – Anderson, Lloyd B. Ansaldo, Umberto , , –, , Arcodia, Giorgio Francesco Arends, Jacques Ariel, Mira , , –, Arkadiev, Peter , Arnovick, Leslie Arroyo, José Luis Blas , Ashby, William J. , Askedal, John Ole Athanasiadou, Angeliki , Auer, Peter Awolaye, Yiwola Baker, Mark Baker, Philip Barðdal, Jóhanna Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar , Beijering, Karin , , , , , Bergqvist, Henrik Bergs, Alexander Bhat, D.N.S. , – Biber, Douglas , Bisang, Walter , , , , –, , , Blakemore, Diane
Blas Arroyo, José Luis Boland, Johanna H.G. Boogaart, Ronny Booij, Gert – Boretzky, Norbert –, Börjars, Kersti , , , –, – Boye, Kasper , , , , , Bradley, Peter T. , Breban, Tine , , , Brems, Lieselotte Brinton, Laurel J. –, –, –, , , , , , , , , Bruyn, Adrienne , , , Budts, Sara Burridge, Kate – Bybee, Joan L. , , , , , –, , , , , , –, –, , , , , –, , –, , –, , Campbell, Lyle , , –, , –, , –, –, , , , Carlier, Anne , Cennamo, Michela , Chafe, Wallace , Chomsky, Noam A. Chor, Winnie Claridge, Claudia Claudi, Ulrike , , – Coates, Jennifer , Collins, Peter , Comrie, Bernard –, , , , , Cornillie, Bert , Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth –, , Craig, Colette G. , , Croft, William ,
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AUTHOR INDEX
Csató, Éva Cysouw, Michael – Dahl, Östen , , , , –, , Dao, Huy Linh , Dávalos, Jimena Tena – Davidse, Kristin –, , De Mulder, Walter , De Smet, Hendrik , , , , , De Wolf, Simon Degand, Liesbeth , –, , Dehé, Nicole , DeLancey, Scott Delbeque, Nicole Denison, David Dér, Csilla Ilona Detges, Ulrich , , , Devos, Maud Diewald, Gabriele , –, –, , , , Dik, Simon C. Dixon, Robert M. W. Do-Hurinville, Thành , Dong, Xiufang Dostie, Gaetane. , , Dryer, Matthew S. Du Feu, Veronica Eckardt, Regine Enfield, N. J. Erman, Britt , Espinal, M. Teresa Esseesy, Mohssen , Evans, Nicholas Evers-Vermeul, Jacqueline , , , Fagard, Benjamin Fischer, Kerstin Fischer, Olga , , –, , , , , Fitzmaurice, Susan , , Fortescue, Michael
Fortuin, Egbert Frajzyngier, Zygmunt François, Alexandre Frank-Job, Barbara –, –, Fraser, Bruce –, Fried, Miriam , Gabelentz, Georg von der , , , Gaeta, Livio –, García García, Luisa Gast, Volker Geis, Michael L. Georgakopoulos, Thanasis Ghesquière, Lobke Ghezzi, Chiara – Giacalone Ramat, Anna , –, , Gisborne, Nikolas –, Givón, T. , –, –, , , , , , Goossens, Louis Gould, Stephen Jay Gray, Bethany Greenberg, Joseph H. , , , –, Grice, H. Paul , Grimm, Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Günthner, Susanne Guthrie, Malcolm Haase, Martin –, , Habermann, Mechthild , Haegeman, Liliane Haig, Geoffrey , , – Haiman, John , , Hale, Ken Halliday, M. A. K. Hancil, Sylvie , Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard , –, , , , , Harnisch, Rüdiger , Harder, Peter , , , , , Hardie, Andrew
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AUTHOR INDEX
Harris, Alice C. , –, , –, , –, –, Harrison, Andrew – Haselow, Alexander , , Haspelmath, Martin –, , –, , –, , , , –, , –, , , , , Hawkins, John , , Heath, Jeffrey Heine, Bernd , –, , , –, , –, , , –, –, , –, –, , , –, , –, , , –, , , –, , , –, , –, , –, , –, –, , , , , –, , –, , –, –, , , –, , , , , , , –, , , –, –, , – Helbig, Gerhard Heltoft, Lars Hengeveld, Kees , – Herring, Susan C. , –, Higashiizumi, Yuko Hilpert, Martin , , –, , –, Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. , , –, , , , Hock, Hans Henrich Hodge, Carleton T. , Hoefler, Stefan H. Hoffmann, Sebastian Holm, John A. Hopper, Paul J. , , , –, , , –, , , , , , , –, , , –, –, , , –, –, –, –, –, , , –, Hornstein, Norbert Huang, Yan Huddleston, Rodney , Hüning, Matthias – Hurch, Bernhard –, , , Hwang, Jya-Lin
Ichihashi-Nakayama, Kumiko Igla, Birgit – Itkonen, Esa Ito, Shinya Jäger, Gerhard Jakobson, Roman Jamison, Stephanie Janda, Laura A. Janda, Richard D. , , , , Jendraschek, Gerd –, – Jenkins, Rebecca Sue – Jespersen, Otto –, Johanson, Lars , , , Johnson-Laird, Philip N. Jones, Mari C. Joseph, Brian D. , , , , Jucker, Andreas H. –, Juge, Matthew L. Kaltenböck, Gunther , , , , –, Kailuweit, Rolf Kaplan, Bernard , Kastovsky, Dieter Kaufman, Terrence , , , Kavalova, Yordanka , Kearns, Kate Keesing, Roger M. , Keizer, Evelien Keller, Rudi , –, , , Kemmer, Suzanne Kinuhata, Tomohide , – Kiparsky, Paul , , –, Kissine, Mikhail Klamer, Marian Klausenburger, Jürgen König, Ekkehard –, –, , , –, , Koops, Christian – Kortmann, Bernd –, Kotsinas, Ulla-Britt , Koyanagi, Tomokazu Kranich, Svenja , , –, , , –,
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AUTHOR INDEX
Krieger, Manuela. Krug, Manfred G. , , Kuryɬowicz, Jerzy Kuteva, Tania , , , , , , , –, –, , –, –, , , , –, , –, –, , –, , , , , , –, –, , , , –, –, –, , , Labov, William Lacey, Alan Robert Lai, Vicky Tzuyin Lamiroy, Béatrice Langacker, Ronald W. –, , , , , – Lass, Roger , –, Ledgeway, Adam – Lehmann, Christian , –, , –, –, , –, –, , –, , –, , , , –, , , , Lenker, Ursula Lepore, Ernie Lessau, Donald Andreas Levinson, Stephen C. Lichtenberk, Frantisek – Lightfoot, David , Lightfoot, Douglas J. , , Lim, Lisa , , , Lima, José Pinto de López-Couso, María José , , Lord, Carol Diane , , Luraghi, Silvia , , , Lyons, John , , – Maat, Henk Pander Mackenzie, Ian , Mackenzie, J. Lachlan Mair, Christian , , , , Maisak, Timur , Malvar, Elisabete Mardale, Alexandru Maslova, Elena Matasović, Rolf
Matisoff, James A. , Matras, Yaron Matsumoto, Yo Mauri, Caterina McEnery, Tony McNeill, David McWhorter, John Meillet, Antoine , –, , Miller, George A. Minami, Fujio Mirčev, Kiril Mitchell, Bruce Mithun, Marianne –, , , , , , –, Miyashita, Hiroyuki – Molinelli, Piera – Moravcsik, Edith A. Morfill, W. R. Morgan, William Moser, Rosemarie – Moyse-Faurie, Claire , Mufwene, Salikoko S. Mühlhäusler, Peter Mulac, Anthony Mushin, Ilana Mutz, Katrin Nakayama, Toshihide Narrog, Heiko , , , , , , , , , , –, , –, –, , –, , –, , , , , , , , –, , , , , Nevalainen, Terttu Newmeyer, Frederick J. , , , Nichols, Johanna Nicolle, Steve , , Noël, Dirk , –, Nomachi, Motoki , , Norde, Muriel , , , , , , , –, –, , , , –, , , Nørgård-Sørensen, Jens – Nuyts, Jan –, ,
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AUTHOR INDEX
Ocampo, Francisco , , Ohori, Toshio Onodera, Noriko , Osawa, Fuyo
Rosenbach, Annette , , , Rostila, Jouni Roussou, Anna ,
Pagliuca, William , Palander-Collin, Minna Park, Insun , Patten, Amanda –, Paul, Herrmann Pedersen, Eric Peng, Rui Persson, Gunnar , Peters, Hans Petré, Peter Plag, Ingo Polis, Stephane Poplack, Shana – Portner, Paul Prévost, Sophie Prince, Ellen F. Proudfoot, Michael Pullum, Geoffrey K. , Pulvermüller, Friedemann Pustet, Regina Quirk, Randolph , Ramat, Paolo , , –, , , , Ramisch, Heinrich Rayfield, Joan Rachel – Reh, Mechthild , , , , , , –, , , Reinöhl, Uta –, Rhee, Seongha , Rice, Keren Ringe, Donald A. Robbeets, Martine Robert, Stéphane , , , Roberts, Ian , , , , , , , , , –, Romaine, Suzanne –, , Rosemeyer, Malte
Saigo, Hideki Sankoff, Gillian Sansò, Andrea – Sauer, Hans Schiffrin, Deborah – Schladt, Mathias Schlüter, Julia Schneider, Stefan Schneider, Wolf Schourup, Lawrence Schulte, Kim Shindo, Mika Shinzato, Rumiko Silva-Corvalán, Carmen Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie , Smirnova, Elena Smith, John Charles , –, Sohn, Sung-Ock S. Song, Jae Jung , , Stein, Dieter , Stolz, Thomas , , –, Stone, Matthew Suzuki, Ryoko Swan, Toril , Sweetser, Eve E. , –, Syea, Anand Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt Tabor, Whitney , Tantucci, Vittorio Thieroff, Rolf Thomason, Sarah Grey , , , Thompson, Sandra A. , , , Timberlake, Alan Tomasello, Michael Torres Cacoullos, Rena , ,
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AUTHOR INDEX
Trask, Robert L. , , , Traugott, Elizabeth C. , , , , , , , , –, , –, , , , –, , , –, , –, , , –, , –, –, –, , –, –, –, –, –, , , , , , –, –, , , , , –, –, , , Trips, Carola Trousdale Graeme , , , , , , , , Van Bogaert, Julie , , Van der Auwera, Johan , , Van de Velde, Freek , Van der Wal, Jenneke Van Gelderen, Elly , , –, , , –, Van Olmen, Daniel Van Rompaey, Tinne Velupillai, Viveka Vennemann, Theo Verhagen, Arie , Verstraete, Jean-Christophe Vincent, Nigel –, , –, – Vindenes, Urd –, Visconti, Jacqueline , , Visser, Frederikus Viti, Carlotta
Von Mengden, Ferdinand Vrba, Elisabeth S. Walker, James A. Waltereit, Richard , , – Warner, Anthony Weinreich, Uriel Werner, Heinz , Whaley, Lindsay J. Whitehead, A. N. Wichmann, Anne Wiemer, Björn , , Wilkins, David Willis, David , – Wischer, Ilse , –, , , , , Wolff, Ekkehard Wright, Susan , Wu, Xiu-Zhi Zoe – Xing, Janet Zhiqun , Yang, Lynne Young, Robert Yuzawa, Kōkichirō Zariquiey, Roberto Zavala, Roberto Ziv, Yael Zwicky, Arnold
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Language index Afrikaans – Albanian ,
French , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , –, , , –, , –, , French, Old , –, ,
Balkan languages –, Bantu languages –, , , , Bari Basque –, – Belarusian Bulgarian –, –, , –,
German , , , , –, , , –, , , –, , , , –, –, , , , –, , –, –, – Germanic languages , , , , Greek , ,
Chamus – Cherokee , , Chinese (Mandarin) , , , , –, – Croatian
Hebrew , Hungarian
Dutch , , ,
Indo-European languages –, , , , , , Iroquoian languages , , Italian –, , –,
English –, , , , , –, –, –, –, , , –, , –, –, , –, , , , , , , , , –, , –, , , –, –, , , –, , –, , –, , , –, , –, –, , , , , –, , –, –, –, –, –, , , , , –, , , English, Old –, , –, , , , , , –, –, , , , , – Estonian , – Ewe , –
Ladin Lahu Lamang Latin –, , , –, , , , , –, –, , , Latvian –
Finnic languages – Finnish –
Maa – Maasai, see Maa
Japanese –, –, , , , , , , –, –, Japanese, Old , – Kabba – Kenya Pidgin Swahili , – Korean , ,
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LANGUAGE INDEX
Maltese Mandarin, see Chinese Mayan Mexican Spanish, see Spanish Mixe-Zoquean languages Old Church Slavonic Papago Pennsylvania Dutch, see Pennsylvania German Pennsylvania German – Pidgin Swahili, see Swahili Polish , Pomattertitsch – Portuguese –, , , , Proto-Indo-European , Rapanui Rhaeto-Romance – Romance languages , –, , , , , , , –, –, , Romani – Romanian , , Russian , , , , , ,
Sanskrit – Serbian , Shoshone Slavic languages –, Spanish –, –, , , , –, , –, Sranan , – Swahili , –, –, , –, –, , , –, Tamil , , Tariana , –, Thai , Tigak – Tolowa Tümpisa, see Shoshone Turkic languages , Ukrainian Vedic Sanskrit, see Sanskrit !Xun – Yiddish –, – Yoruba , Yupʼik ,
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Subject index ability, see PI-possibility ablative, also: source –, , , , , agreement , , , analogical leveling , , analogy , , , , –, , –, , , –, , andative –, , anterior, see also perfect , , , antigrammaticalization , –, applicative , , , automation , , autonomy –, , , , , , , –, , avertive , benefactive –, bidirectionality , , bleaching, see also erosion , , , –, , , , , , , , bondedness , , –, , borrowing –, , , –, , , , , , boundness –, , bridging context –, –, , – case –, , , , , –, , –, , , , causative –, , , –, , chain (of grammaticalization) , , , , , –, , , , , , change-of-state , , chunking , classifier , –,
cline (of grammaticalization) , , , –, , , , , clitic , , –, , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , coalescence , , , , comitative –, –, , comparative (form, construction) , , , , , comparative method , – compositionality , –, concessive , , , –, , , –, , , concessive conditional –, , conditional , , , , conjunction , , , –, –, , , , , –, , , , , constructional change , , constructionalization , –, , contact-induced grammaticalization –, context extension , –, ––, –, , , , –, , , –, , –, , , , , conventionalization , –, –, , , –, , , , cooptation , , –, cycle , –, , , , –, –, , , dative , , –, de-volitive (future) , , debonding , , decategorialization , , –, –, , –, , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , ,
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SUBJECT INDEX
degrammaticalization –, , , –, , , –, –, degrammation , , deinflectionalization –, delexicalization –, demonstrative , –, , , , , –, , –, , , , –, , demorphologization –, deobligatorification deontic (modality) –, , , –, desemanticization , , –, , , –, , , –, , , , , , , , , discourse marker , , –, , , –, –, –, , discourse orientation , –, , –, discursively primary , , , , discursively secondary –, , , , distal (demonstrative) , , divergence , –, dual , durative , , elative , emphatic , , endocentric (construction) , , epistemic (modality) , , , , , –, –, , , , –, , ergative –, erosion , –, , –, , –, , , , –, , , , , evidential , –, evidential, inferred , evidential, reported , exaptation –, –, –, exclusive , focus , , functional renewal , future (tense) –, , –, –, , –, –, –, , , , , –, , , –, –, –,
grammaticalization, primary , , , , , , grammaticalization, secondary , , , , , , , , , , , , habitual (aspect) , hearer orientation , –, , –, , –, – heterosemy –, , honorific , , , imperative , , , –, –, , , –, imperfective , , –, , –, , –, impersonal , , , implicature, conversational , , , inclusive , indefinite article , –, , –, , , –, , –, indefinite pronoun , inference , , , , , –, –, –, , ingressive , innovation , , –, , , , –, , instrument(al) –, –, , –, , , , integrity , , , , , intensifier , , intention, see B–necessity interjection , , intersubjectification , , , , –, –, , intersubjectivity –, , , , iterative , , layering , , , lexicalization –, –, , , –, , –, loss-and-gain model ,
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SUBJECT INDEX
mechanism , , , –, –, , , , –, –, metatextual , , –, , , , –, , model language , , –, , morphological cycle, see cycle morphologization , –,
proclitic , , , progressive –, , –, , –, –, , , , , , , proximative –, ,
obligation, see D-necessity obligatorification , , , obligatoriness , –, –, , , ,
reanalysis , , , , –, –, , , , , , recipient , –, reflexive , , –, , regrammation reinforcement –, , , renewal –, , , , repetitive, see iterative replica language , , , –, –, , replication –, , , –, , –, , resultative , , , retraction , , ritualization , , root possibility, see C-possibility routinization , –, ,
paradigmaticity , –, , passive , , –, –, –, perfect , , , , , –, , , perfective , , –, –, , persistence , , , phonogenesis –, , phonologization –, polysemy –, , –, –, –, , –, polysemy copying –, C(ircumstantial)-possibility (root possibility) –, PI(participant-internal)-possibility (ability) , , presentative marker , , , procedural (meaning) , , –,
scope , –, , , –, , , , , , , , , , scope, structural –, –, , , serial verb , , , , source, see ablative source, lexical (of grammaticalization) –, , , , , , , –, source construction , , source meaning –, –, , , , source schema –, , –, speaker orientation –, –, –, , , specialization , , , specific marker , speech act orientation , , speech community , , –, subjectification , –, , , –, –, , ,
B(oulomaic)-necessity (intention) –, , , , D(eontic)-necessity (obligation) , , –, , E(pistemic)-necessity (probability) –, , nominalization , nominalizer , , , non-specific marker , , ,
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SUBJECT INDEX
subjectivity –, , , , , , , subordinator , –, , , substitution –, switch context , –, ,
transcategoriality –, transcategorization , ,
target (of grammaticalization) –, , –, –, , , , , , , , , , thetical , –, topic , ,
uniformitarian principle, or uniformitarianism , univerbation , , –, variability, paradigmatic –, –, , variability, syntagmatic , , , –, , , –,
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/1/2021, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/1/2021, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/1/2021, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/1/2021, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/1/2021, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/1/2021, SPi