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On some Principles of Grammaticalization
Abstract
Suggests some principles that characterize grammaticalization in its earliest phases.
... Conjugando essa constatação ao princípio básico funcionalista de que a língua se estrutura nos usos, a gramática é concebida como uma estrutura emergente (Hopper, 1991) (Hopper, 1991), o qual prevê que, quando um elemento gramatical sofre mudança de uma função para outra, Revista (Con)Textos Linguísticos, Vitória, v. 18, n. 40, 2024| e-ISSN 1982 Ao analisarmos o dado (4), observamos a ocorrência da seguinte estrutura no segmento 1: sujeito explícito ("a fé pessoal") + verbo finito ("está) + advérbio ("longe"). O segmento 2, por sua vez, constitui-se dos seguintes elementos: preposição ("de") + verbo no infinitivo ("ser") + adjetivo ("perfeita"). ...
... Conjugando essa constatação ao princípio básico funcionalista de que a língua se estrutura nos usos, a gramática é concebida como uma estrutura emergente (Hopper, 1991) (Hopper, 1991), o qual prevê que, quando um elemento gramatical sofre mudança de uma função para outra, Revista (Con)Textos Linguísticos, Vitória, v. 18, n. 40, 2024| e-ISSN 1982 Ao analisarmos o dado (4), observamos a ocorrência da seguinte estrutura no segmento 1: sujeito explícito ("a fé pessoal") + verbo finito ("está) + advérbio ("longe"). O segmento 2, por sua vez, constitui-se dos seguintes elementos: preposição ("de") + verbo no infinitivo ("ser") + adjetivo ("perfeita"). ...
... Em termos morfossintáticos, longe de funciona como um conector, estabelecendo uma relação de exclusão, de modo análogo ao que ocorre com as clássicas conjunções subordinativas adverbiais da gramática normativa. Não se trata propriamente de uma conjunção convencionalizada, pois só conecta orações infinitivas, além de ainda revelar efeitos de persistência (cf.Hopper, 1991). De fato, apesar de denotar exclusão, esse elemento procedural ainda resguarda parte de sua carga semântica original de distanciamento, como será mais bem desenvolvido adiante. ...
Com base nos princípios da Linguística Funcional Centrada no Uso (Furtado da Cunha, Bispo e Silva, 2013; Rosário, 2015; 2022b; 2023; Rosário e Oliveira, 2016), o objetivo deste artigo é descrever e analisar três diferentes usos de longe de, em perspectiva sincrônica, a partir de dados da modalidade escrita da língua portuguesa. Para isso, realizamos uma análise quantitativa e qualitativa do fenômeno, com um foco maior na análise qualitativa. Os dados foram extraídos do Corpus do Português, disponível em http://www.corpusdoportugues.org/xp.asp. As análises realizadas levaram-nos à confirmação da hipótese de que há três padrões de uso de longe de na atual sincronia do português: padrão 1 (valor preposicional), padrão 2 (valor predicativo) e padrão 3 (valor conectivo). No padrão 1, [longe de]prep serve para ligar sintagmas no nível suboracional. No padrão 2, [longe + de]pred integra um sintagma cuja função é análoga à de um predicativo. Por fim, no padrão 3, que é o foco principal desta pesquisa, [longe de]conect comporta-se como uma microconstrução com a função de conectar orações hipotáticas não finitas, veiculando a noção semântica de exclusão.
... Thus, the semantic bleaching or erosion of a linguistic expression may come along with extension in the range of usage, inflectional and distributional limitations, and attrition of the linguistic form. Moreover, Hopper (1991) identifies five principles for identifying and characterizing grammaticalization across languages: specialization, layering, divergence, persistence, and de-categorization. In our discussion of the developmental pathway of Nkami's future tense maker, we will observe the relevance of all principles except for the first two: specialization and layering. ...
... The grammaticalization of the future tense prefix in Nkami clearly shows evidence of what Hopper (1991) and Heine and Reh (1984, p. 57) respectively call 'divergence' and 'functional split', whereby new grammaticalized prefixes (i.e. the directional and future prefixes) co-exist with their source lexical verb bɛɛ̀ to continually perform independent functions. Thus, in Hopper's (1991, p. 24) words, the divergence principle "refers to the fact that when a lexical form undergoes grammaticalization to a clitic or affix, the original form may remain as an autonomous lexical element and undergo the same changes as ordinary lexical item". ...
... Craig, 1991), persistence, divergence, and decategorization (cf. Hopper, 1991), all play a crucial role in the evolution of the future marker in Nkami. Lastly, this study has provided additional evidence for dividing the Guang language group into Northern and Southern sub-groups. ...
1 This paper explores the grammatical pathway through which the future tense marker bɛ-evolved in Nkami, a lesser-studied Kwa language of Ghana. The analysis is based on synchronic natural data drawn from an extensive corpus collected during a language documentation project focusing on both the language and its speakers. It reveals that Nkami's future tense marker evolved from the deictic motion verb bɛɛ̀ 'come' along the following channel: bɛɛ̀ (lexical verb) →bɛ-'proximal directional prefix' → bɛ-'future tense prefix'. This derivation strengthens a widely held observation that (deictic) motion verbs are a rich source concept for deriving grammatical markers of temporal orientation. Besides developing into grammatical items, the paper also shows that bɛɛ̀ developed into another form, bà, which co-exists with it to express the lexical concept of 'come'. Apart from indicating the deictic motion 'come', bà/bɛɛ̀ also complements bʊ 'have' to express property in completive situations, which contrasts with the general tendency to use the verb 'do' in such situations. Principles of grammaticalization, including polygrammaticalization, divergence, persistence, and decategorization, are all shown to be relevant in the evolution of the future tense marker in Nkami. Lastly, the investigation into the grammaticalization of the future tense marker in Nkami provides additional support for classifying Guang (Kwa, Niger-Congo) languages into Northern and Southern groups. Abstract in Nkami ɔwɪlɪ ɲa ɔɔtʃɪtʃɪ grammaticalization bʊ Nkami (Kwa, Niger-Congo) lɔ. Nkami døi Guan anaafʊ kʊĺɔlɪkuo kʊ nɪ baakãã bʊ Amankwakrom nɪ ɛbʊ Afram Plains nɪ ɛbʊ Ghana apueyɛ afã lɔ. ɔɔsuna ɔkpa nɪ ɔkaakʊlɪ mɔɔfɪm bɛ-ba bʊ Nkami kʊĺɔlɪ lɔ. Deta nɪ anɪfʊ bɔ asumi ɲa tʃu Nkami kʊĺɔlɪ amʊ asumi lɔ. ɔɔsuna bɛɛ Nkami mʊ kaakʊlɪ mɔɔfɪm bɛ-tʃu anamɔntu atɔbɔ bɛɛ̀ lɔ bʊ ɔkpa nya lɔ: bɛɛ̀ (anamɔntu atɔbɔ) → bɛ-'prɔksima mɔɔfɪm' → bɛ-'ɔkaakʊlɪ mɔɔfɪm'. ɛɲa ɔɔfʊa mʊnɪ abɪrɪsɛ kʊ baakãaɛ bɛɛ baataa ɲa ɔkaakʊlɪ mɔɔfɪm tʃu anamɔntu atɔbɔ lɔ. Atʃɛkɛ, anɪɲa ba tʃu bɛɛ̀ lɔ nɪ fɛɛfɛ woosuna 'come'. Grammaticalization mɪra nɪ ɔɔsuna amʊ lɔ kʊ døi polygrammaticalization, divergence, persistence, na decategorization. Mʊ kʊrakʊra, ɔɔdɛ sana anɪtʃie Guan kʊĺɔlɪkuo lɔ aɲo: anaafoc ne atifi.
... Grammaticalization has been defined as the process by which a lexical form receives a grammatical meaning besides its conventional lexical meaning or as the development of grammatical forms or constructions out of already existing ones (see Hopper 1996, Heine 1997, Heine and Kuteva 2004, Kuteva et al. 2019, among others cited in this paper). In this section the grammaticalization of the possessive genitive exponent ħaɡ is discussed with reference to Hopper's (1991Hopper's ( , 1996 principles of grammaticalization, namely (i) layering, (ii) divergence, (iii) specialization, (iv) persistence, and (v) decategorialization, along with Heine and Kuteva's (2004) four main mechanisms of grammaticalization, namely (i) extension, (ii) desemanticization, (iii) decategorialization, and (iv) erosion (see also Kuteva et al. 2019). ...
... Moreover, insertion of the functional word ħaɡ between the possessee and the possessor nominals gives way to the deletion of the possessee if it could be inferred from the context. Therefore, the forms ħaɡ Sami 'Sami's', and ħaɡɡ-i 'mine' are attested forms in MA and are used alternatively with the full form (possessee ħaɡ possessor) and the construct state structure, which conforms to Hopper's (1991Hopper's ( , 1996 principle of layering, the co-occurrence of multiple forms and/or structures in the lexical, as well as the grammatical domain of a given language. Following are the constructions that co-occur as attested possessive structures in MA (examples (1), (3), and (4) above are repeated, respectively, as (8), (10), and (11) below). ...
... This co-occurrence is in compliance with the premise that language change is a gradual process that does not take the form of an abrupt shift, but a gradual transition from using one form to using another emergent form. Throughout such a diachronic transition, areas appear in which the original form and the emergent one(s) co-exist and are equally attested by the language speakers (Hopper 1991(Hopper , 1996Hopper and Traugott 2003;Heine and Kuteva 2004;Kuteva et al. 2019). ...
Many of the world's languages grammaticalize a distinction between alienable and inalienable possession. Inalienable possession is defined as an unchanging, permanent semantic relationship between two nominals, the possessee and the possessor while alienable possession is a changing, context-dependent relationship between the possessee and the possessor (Heine 1997 and Alexiadu 2003). Such a dichotomy of acquired vs. inherited possession (as identified by Alexiadou 2003) does not exist in Standard Arabic in which possession is expressed by simple juxtaposition of the possessee and the possessor nominals, a structure known as the Semitic construct state (Benmamoun & Choueiri 2013). However, in Makkan Arabic (MA) an alternative possessive construction has emerged (besides the construct state) in which possession is expressed by using the morpheme ħaɡ between the possessee and the possessor. This morpheme might be followed by a possessor NP as in (1a) or take an enclitic possessive pronoun as in (1b-c) and it agrees with the possessed NP in gender as in (1c).
(1) a. (al)-kita:b ħaɡ Sami b. (al)-kita:b ħaɡɡ-i c. al-waraɡ-a ħaɡɡ-at-i
DEF-book POSS Sami. DEF-book POSS-1SG DEF-paper-F POSS-F-1SG
'Sami's book' 'my book' 'my paper'
Cross-linguistically, kinship and body parts terms are prototypical members of the class of inalienably possessed nouns in languages that display distinct grammatical markings for in/alienable possession (Nichols 1992, Heine 1997, and Alexiadu 2003). These two noun classes are incompatible with the emergent periphrastic possessive construction in MA, as indicated by the ungrammaticality of (2a) and (2b). Thus, I assume that the emergent possessive construction in MA is specific to alienable possession and that it is the outcome of the grammaticalization of the inalienable/alienable split in this variety of Arabic.
(2) a. *ʕam ħaɡɡ-i b. *Ra:s ħaɡɡ-i
uncle POSS-1SG head POSS-1SG
(Intended) 'my uncle' (Intended) 'my head'
In this paper I argue that the possessive marker ħaɡ is a functional morpheme that has been grammaticalized from the noun ħaɡ 'right'. As a noun, ħaɡ 'right' can (a) be pluralized: ħuɡu:ɡ 'rights' and (b) take the definite article: al-ħaɡ 'the right'. However, the grammaticalized functional possessive morpheme, ħaɡ lost these properties, so it is incompatible with the definite article (3a) and cannot be pluralized (3b). Nonetheless, grammaticalization does involve gains (Hopper & Traugot, 2003), ħaɡ as a possessive morpheme inflects for gender as in (1c), a property which does not apply to the lexical source, the noun ħaɡ.
(3) a. *(al)-kita:b al-ħaɡ Sami b. *al-kutub huɡu:ɡ Sami
DEF-book DEF-POSS Sami DEF -books POSS.PL Sami
(Intended) 'Sami's book' (Intended) 'Sami's books'
In the recent study, I show that the possessive morpheme ħaɡ conforms to Hopper's (1991) five principles of Grammaticalization, namely (1) layering, (2) divergence, (3) specialization, (4) persistence, and (5) decategorialization. Moreover, the choice of noun ħaɡ to be grammaticalized as a possessive marker is not arbitrary but complies with the principle of specialization on the basis of textual frequency and semantic generalizations (Hopper 2003). This cline of grammaticalization in MA is consistent with the insights of grammaticalization as a cyclical process (Hopper and Traugott 2003), and, interestingly, it is in line with a similar cline of grammaticalization in Maltese and Egyptian Arabic (Stolz 2011 and Sultan 2007).
... Grammaticalization is always a question of degree (Hopper, 1991), synchronically referred to as 'gradience' and diachronically as 'gradualness' (Traugott & Trousdale, 2010). The issue of determining the grammaticalization degrees of linguistic items is essential for a better understanding of how they compete or constrain each other (Hopper & Traugott, 2003). ...
... The issue of determining the grammaticalization degrees of linguistic items is essential for a better understanding of how they compete or constrain each other (Hopper & Traugott, 2003). Considerable efforts have been dedicated to determining the degree of grammaticalization (Heine et al., 1991;Hopper, 1991;Lehmann, 1982). Although feasible in principle, the criteria suggested in those works are somewhat abstract, intuitive, or difficult to operate. ...
... If the colligations of 叫 reflect both its verb and preposition features while those of 笑 predominantly exhibit verb features, it may suggest that 叫 has undergone a higher degree of grammaticalization. Subsuming all instances of a word under a single POS actually gives us operational opportunities in the synchronic context to examine principles of grammaticalization like divergence (Hopper, 1991), especially for those words at the early stages of grammaticalization where diagnostic characteristics are not yet obvious enough to be identified. If a form is detected with diversified colligations associated with different grammatical functions, it is reasonable to consider it as a potential candidate for grammaticalization. ...
... Our numbers are small, yet they still point to some clear patterns: As we go down the rows of Table 1, we generally find increasing de-categorialization (Hopper 1991) in the form of (1) decreasing variability in syntactic complementation and (2) increasing From lack of understanding to engagement morphophonological reduction. Looking at the formal grammaticization indicators (syntax and morphophonology) in Table 1, it may appear that 'Framing speaker's intensified affective stance' might be a later phase of grammaticization than the following phase ('Opening a narrative episode while seeking recipient alignment with speaker's intensified affective stance'). ...
... On the basis of this increasing de-categorialization, our synchronic study of the ′ATA LO MEVIN construction suggests the following grammaticization path: This path is supported by additional properties characterizing grammaticization (Hopper 1991;Hopper and Traugott 2003): First, the cline illustrated in Fig. 1 reflects semantic bleaching: the more advanced the stage of grammaticization, the more faded away the original lexical meaning denoting the recipient's lack of understanding. Nevertheless, the principle of persistence (Hopper 1991), according to which the original lexical meaning still glimmers through even the most fixed manifestations of the construction, is also present here, as the most grammaticized form still reveals a faint allusion to the recipient's not being able to fathom the extent of the gripping events about to be described (Ex. ...
... On the basis of this increasing de-categorialization, our synchronic study of the ′ATA LO MEVIN construction suggests the following grammaticization path: This path is supported by additional properties characterizing grammaticization (Hopper 1991;Hopper and Traugott 2003): First, the cline illustrated in Fig. 1 reflects semantic bleaching: the more advanced the stage of grammaticization, the more faded away the original lexical meaning denoting the recipient's lack of understanding. Nevertheless, the principle of persistence (Hopper 1991), according to which the original lexical meaning still glimmers through even the most fixed manifestations of the construction, is also present here, as the most grammaticized form still reveals a faint allusion to the recipient's not being able to fathom the extent of the gripping events about to be described (Ex. (5)). ...
This study explores the Hebrew ′ATA LO MEVIN (‘you don’t understand’) construction in a corpus of casual conversation. Employing the methodology of Interactional Linguistics and Multimodal Conversation Analysis, we show that deployment of this construction is fixed and formulaic and only rarely denotes the recipient’s lack of understanding. Based on a mostly synchronic analysis, we suggest a grammaticization path followed by this construction from a negative epistemic subject-predicate construction denoting literal lack of understanding to a discourse marker signaling the opening of a new narrative, while seeking recipient alignment with the speaker’s intensified affective stance. The path described reveals that embodied conduct, as well as prosodic, morphophonological, and syntactic features of the construction correlate with the weakening of its literal meaning. This sheds light on the uses speakers make of the construction, on how heightened engagement may be achieved in discourse, and on the dialogic nature of interaction and grammar.
... Our numbers are small, yet they still point to some clear patterns: As we go down the rows of Table 1, we generally find increasing de-categorialization (Hopper 1991) in the form of (1) decreasing variability in syntactic complementation and (2) increasing morphophonological reduction. Looking at the formal grammaticization indicators (syntax and morphophonology) in Table 1, it may appear that 'Framing speaker's intensified affective stance' might be a later phase of grammaticization than the following phase ('Opening a narrative episode while seeking recipient alignment with speaker's intensified affective stance'). ...
... Looking at the formal grammaticization indicators (syntax and morphophonology) in Table 1, it may appear that 'Framing speaker's intensified affective stance' might be a later phase of grammaticization than the following phase ('Opening a narrative episode while seeking recipient alignment with speaker's intensified affective stance'). However, because of the property of Divergence (Hopper 1991, see below), a phase may continue its formal grammaticization even after it has given rise to the next phase. This is the reason for the five vertical arrows in Figure 1 below. ...
... This path is supported by additional properties characterizing grammaticization (Hopper 1991;Hopper and Traugott 2003): First, the cline illustrated in Fig. 1 reflects semantic bleaching: the more advanced the stage of grammaticization, the more faded away the original lexical meaning denoting the recipient's lack of understanding. Nevertheless, the principle of persistence (Hopper 1991), according to which the original lexical meaning still glimmers through even the most fixed manifestations of the construction, is also present here, as the most grammaticized form still reveals a faint allusion to the recipient's not being able to fathom the 6 We thank one of the reviewers for suggesting this visualization to us. ...
This study explores the Hebrew 'ATA LO MEVIN (‘you don’t understand’) construction in a corpus of casual conversation. Employing the methodology of Interactional Linguistics and Multimodal Conversation Analysis, we show that deployment of this construction is fixed and formulaic and only rarely denotes the recipient’s lack of understanding. Based on a mostly synchronic analysis, we suggest a grammaticization path followed by this construction from a negative epistemic subject-predicate construction denoting literal lack of understanding to a discourse marker signaling the opening of a new narrative, while seeking recipient alignment with the speaker’s intensified affective stance. The path described reveals that embodied conduct, as well as prosodic, morphophonological, and syntactic features of the construction correlate with the weakening of its literal meaning. This sheds light on the uses speakers make of the construction, on how heightened engagement may be achieved in discourse, and on the dialogic nature of interaction and grammar.
... Marcadores discursivos, em linhas gerais, são itens linguísticos provenientes de outras categorias gramaticais, decorrentes do processo da gramaticalização (HOPPER; TRAUGOTT, 2003;HOPPER, 1998;1991;TRAUGOTT, 1995), tais como formas verbais entendeu?, sabe? e viu?. Elizabet C. Traugott (1995, p.2, tradução minha) define que a "gramaticalização é o processo pelo qual o item lexical em contextos morfossintáticos e pragmáticos altamente restritos torna-se gramatical" 5 , sendo, portanto, uma indicação unidirecional na medida em que prevê que o item gramatical não se tornará lexical. ...
... As sequências discursivas, embasadas em Urbano (1999, p.195-258), que foram mais produtivas na amostra de dados estão descritas abaixo e, seguidas de excertos de exemplificação: (2015, FF, 17-17, U, D) Para analisar os estilos de fala, Coupland (2001, p.201) atribui a uma perspectiva motivacional humana para explicar o uso de estilos, que não são apenas "condicionados pela situação", mas que a variação de estilo co-ocorre com a variação no tópico, no canal ou na participação (COUPLAND, 1980apud COUPLAND, 2001BELL 1984), em acordo com as próprias identidades do falante. Para seguirmos com essa perspectiva de análise do tópico é necessário, primeiro, observar como se dá a distribuição de frequências por tipo de sequência discursiva para, depois, investigar as questões do "tópico versus efeitos no ouvinte" proposto por Coupland (2001, p.201 1991;BELL, 1984;. ...
Dissertação apresentada ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras da Universidade Federal de Sergipe como requisito à obtenção do título de Mestre em Letras. Área de concentração: Estudos Linguísticos. Linha de Pesquisa: Sociolinguística e Dialetologia.
... What seems to be the case is that one can qualify these constructions as evaluative, the modal function being a pragmatic inference. To what extent one regards the modal meaning as predominant is probably subjective, and the decision is often difficult to make in view of the 'persistence' effect that manifests itself even in cases of relatively advanced grammaticalization (Hopper 1991). It is conceivable, however, that the evaluative construction simply remains evaluative, being at the same time substituted for a deontic modal construction as a politeness or hedging strategy. ...
... But in the case of deontic questions a functional differentiation is clearly present. By what it was driven we have no means of establishing with certainty, but a plausible explanation could involve the notion of persistence effect as defined by Hopper (1991). The principle of persistence consists in that traces of an earlier lexical meaning can be detected in the distribution of a more grammaticalized construction. ...
A shift from evaluation ('it is good, fitting', etc.) to deontic modality is well known from the literature on grammaticalization. This article looks at it from the viewpoint of complementation. In Lithuanian, a complementation strategy characteristic of evaluative predicates has been carried over to deontic contexts. The complementation strategy referred to consists in the reuse of an originally conditional adverbial clause structure with evaluative predicates as a means of avoiding the factive implication usually associated with evaluatives (cf. it is good that... : it would be good if...). The conditional clause type under discussion contains the anteriority converb in-us, which, as a result of the shift 'evaluative → deontic', has become characteristic of a set of de-ontic constructions where it competes with the infinitive. This development moreover involved processes of insubordination and resubordination. The relevance of the Lithu-anian facts (apart from their intrinsic interest, also from the viewpoint of resubordination processes) consists in that the extension of the complementation type from evaluative to unambiguously deontic contexts provides palpable proof of the transition while the research has hitherto failed to find a cutoff point between evaluation and deontic modality.
... Diacronia; Espanhol peninsular; Perífrase modal; Tener que. (HOPPER;TRAUGOTT, 2003) and seek proof for the hypothesis of change that predicts that, in the domain of modality, epistemic values, as they are more abstract, emerge in the language from non-epistemic values (BYBEE et al., 1994). Therefore, we analyzed diachronic data from the 13th to the 19th centuries, available on the CORDE platform (Corpus Diacrónico del Español), considering, in the analysis of the periphrasis, the semantic domain of modality (inherent, deontic, epistemic ...
... Enquanto a inferenciação metafórica permite a transferência conceitual de um domínio para outro por analogização, a metonímia resulta da contiguidade de conceitos disponíveis no contexto linguístico, propiciada por reanálise estrutural. Outro princípio geral da gramaticalização é o de que é improvável que a mudança envolva perda súbita de significado, tanto que traços do significado lexical original podem aderir à forma gramaticalizada e impor sobre ela certas restrições, princípio denominado Persistência (HOPPER, 1991). ...
Neste trabalho, analisamos o desenvolvimento diacrônico dos significados modais da construção perifrástica [tener que + V-infinitivo] no espanhol peninsular. Recorremos aos pressupostos teórico-metodológicos da gramaticalização clássica (HOPPER; TRAUGOTT, 2003) e buscamos comprovação para a hipótese de mudança que prevê que, no domínio da modalidade, valores epistêmicos, por serem mais abstratos, emergem na língua a partir de valores não-epistêmicos (BYBEE et al., 1994). Para tanto, analisamos dados diacrônicos dos séculos XIII ao XIX, disponíveis na plataforma CORDE (Corpus Diacrónico del Español), considerando, na análise da perífrase, o domínio semântico de modalidade (inerente, deôntico, epistêmico e volitivo) e a orientação do valor modal (para o participante, para o evento e para proposição) (HENGEVELD, 2004), correlacionados à animacidade do sujeito da construção modal. Os resultados das análises mostram que a expressão de valores epistêmicos é, de fato, temporalmente mais tardia que a dos valores não-epistêmicos e emerge na construção associada a sujeitos inanimados. Com base nos resultados, comprovamos que os valores modais da perífrase seguem um processo de abstratização diacronicamente atestado.
... Even though many of the changes occurred before the first written records of the language, this article attempts to gather textual evidence of those processes and reconstruct the main stages of the grammaticalization processes involved. This is possible due to the phenomenon of persistence (Hopper 1991), i.e., the tendency of the traces of the original lexical meaning to remain in the grammaticalized item and to influence its grammatical distribution. ...
... Nevertheless, a careful analysis of textual evidence is crucial. One of the most prominent features of grammaticalization is 'persistence' (or 'source determination' in Bybee et al. [1994: 15]), or the adherence of the original lexical meaning, which might determine the grammatical distribution of the grammaticalized element (Hopper 1991). As put by Bybee et al. (1994: 18), "we find that multiple uses and the retention of lexical specificities can be employed as diagnostics of the earlier history of grammatical material, even in languages for which historical attestation is sparse or nonexistent". ...
This article analyzes the diachrony of the Basque marker bait-, which is a verbal prefix in subordinate clauses, but also has other functions: for example, it appears in independent clauses and indefinite pronouns. In subordinate clauses, it is used in two ways. First, it co-occurs with clause-initial conjunctions in reason, manner or result clauses or with pronouns in relative clauses. Secondly, it is used on its own, in relative, reason, result and complement clauses (with a limited group of verbs, such as emotive factive predicates or predicates of happening). The article combines evidence from a corpus study (6822 examples from 16th- to 20th-century texts) and internal reconstruction to (1) determine if and in what way the subordinator bait- and the affirmative bai ‘yes’ can be diachronically related, and (2) try to establish diachronic relations between the functions of bait-. It is proposed that the missing link between the subordinator and the affirmative particle might be a manner expression bai which had anaphoric functions. The marker bait- emerged as a reanalyzed form of the manner expression, which then gradually and through various pathways spread to different types of subordinate clauses and was reanalyzed as a subordinator.
... For instance, in the context of reassuring oneself, as in (2), its primary function is subjective. On the other hand, boasting may be interpersonal and oriented toward the interlocutor, and, in a confrontational situation in particular, can be perceived as face-threatening to the addressee, as in (20). 1 In explaining how a new meaning emerges through grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification, Traugott and Dasher (2002) proposed the Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change (building on a similar proposal in Hopper andTraugott, 2003 [1993]). According to this model, an invited inference in an associated stream of speech can become conventionalized through frequent use. ...
... According to Hopper (1991) and Hopper and Traugott (2003), as grammaticalization takes place, one or more of five phenomena can be detected: layering, divergence, specialization, persistence, and decategorialization. In the case of i-ke ya, divergence (the source, discourse deictic i-ke ya, exists alongside the stance marker i-ke ya), decategorialization (the noun and verb combination i-ke ya becomes a single stance marker), and specialization are observed. ...
Across languages, demonstratives grammaticalize into various grammatical and discourse-pragmatic markers. Using corpora of natural conversation and scripted drama conversation , and employing the theoretical frameworks of grammaticalization and (inter)sub-jectification, this study demonstrates that the Korean demonstrative construct i-ke ya '(it) is this' has developed into an affective stance marker, a development not yet discussed elsewhere in the literature. As a stance marker, the form can encode (a) an emphasizing stance and (b) a boasting stance. The study shows that the development of i-ke ya is an instance of subjectification and of intersubjectification, as the functions of i-ke ya changed from exophoric (pointing to a physical object), to discourse deictic (pointing to a referent in a discourse), and then to expressive (encoding the speaker's stance). The analysis of its shifting functions indicates that i-ke ya obtained its affective meanings due to its frequent use in negative and disaffiliated contexts. Frequency information and a prosodic analysis further testify to the emergence of the new affective meanings of i-ke ya. The study contributes to recent research that investigates various emotive functions of demonstratives beyond accounts based on physical proximity.
... While previous studies have identified the formal distinctions between the participial and prepositional uses of considering (see Hopper 1991;Kortmann 1991;König & Kortmann 1991;Kortmann & König 1992;Skiba 2021), the extent to which these two uses differ in terms of subjectivity remains unclear. Furthermore, the diachronic processes through which considering has become more subjectified have not been thoroughly examined. ...
While the category shift of deverbal prepositions has been well documented in grammaticalization studies, its accompanying process of subjectification remains underexplored. Adopting a constructionist perspective, this article addresses the gap by analyzing data from the Corpus of Historical American English. We present a multivariate analysis of the deverbal preposition considering to examine the role that subjectification has played along the way to it becoming a preposition over the past 200 years. Specifically, we investigate whether the two grammatical variants, participial and prepositional considering, can be anchored in context, focusing on a set of subjectivity indicators and their gradual changes over time. The findings are twofold. First, the two variants can be distinguished by six contextual features, namely subject animacy, subject person, contextual polarity, presence of degree modifiers, presence of modal auxiliaries and genre. Second, over time, there is an increasing correlation between the prepositional variant and levels within contextual features that indicate greater evaluative subjectivity. Previous scholarship has debated whether subjectification is independent of grammaticalization. This study contributes to this discourse by illustrating how various facets of subjectification may interact and manifest to varying degrees within the process of grammatical change.
... Ahora bien, la pérdida del contenido semántico de la partícula se ha visto compensada por el desarrollo de un significado de tipo discursivo, ya que la estructura, en su totalidad, se ha especializado en una determinada función discursiva claramente interactiva: la réplica. Los especialistas asumen que el pro ceso de gramaticalización se caracteriza desde el punto de vista semántico-pragmático precisamente por el hecho de que se produce una subjetivación del significado (Traugott, 1989;Traugott y Kónig, 1988, 1991, tal como ocurre en el esquema que estamos analizando. ...
... First of all, as was the case with ablatives, multiply strung forms in both languages tend to be emphatic in meaning. Furthermore, certain allatives possess additional semantic features at varying degrees as a result of carry-over from the source semantics (an instance of 'persistence' in grammaticalization, Hopper, 1991). For instance, the allatives related to the verb hây 'give' (e.g., hây, hây kɛɛ, hây kàp, etc.) tend to imply benefaction. ...
Thai and Korean have large inventories of adpositional particles, including source and goal markers. As reported in many languages, Thai and Korean adpositions also prominently exhibit the ‘goal-over-source asymmetry’ at multiple levels. This article supports this hypothesis on asymmetry from these two typologically and genealogically distinct languages. In both languages, goal markers far exceed source markers in number, confirming the hypothesis. Even among the allative-ablative-(locative) syncretic forms, the proportion of use for goal marking far exceeds that for source marking, again upholding the asymmetry hypothesis. The multiplicity of forms in the two polar categories is largely due to the stacking of multiple markers of (nearly-)synonymous adpositions as a strategy to reinforce meaning or to add finer shades of meaning. The multiplicity of forms is also due to frequent innovation of new forms, especially goal markers, in an effort to enhance expressivity and to entertain the desire for creativity. This is evident in the fact that the forms being innovated tend to carry more lexical content than older, fully grammaticalized forms, and thus carry more expressive potential. Drawing upon corpus data, this paper addresses the goal-over-source asymmetry in Korean and Thai from pragmatic and grammaticalization perspectives.
... It is routinely observed in relevant research that, cross-linguistically, motion verbs may display many more semantic properties besides denoting their original meaning of motion (Talmy 1975;Bybee et al. 1991;Hopper & Traugott 1997). In various languages, such as Romance (Ledgeway 2011(Ledgeway , 2012(Ledgeway , 2017, grammaticalization has led to the morphological specialization and ultimately to the emergence of two parallel forms of the same verb -a full form which preserves the original lexical meaning and a phonologically reduced form which acquires more grammatical properties -that coexist and are juxtaposed (Hopper 1991). In Standard Modern Greek (SMG), the verb pijeno 'go' and its parallel form pao 'go' may have the same meaning (normally the basic one) in a plethora of semantic contexts like in the example below: ...
... Note that although the degree of productivity might at first sight be due to semantic restrictions (possibly resulting from lexical persistence [Hopper 1991]) exerted by the auxiliary on the infinitive slot (as suggested by one of our reviewers), it cannot be reduced to such restrictions (Dowty 1986;Rothstein 2004). As one of our reviewers righteously pointed out, the destruction verbs are "punctual and denote a sudden and explosive start", which influences their combinatorial pattern. ...
This study investigates the productivity of a family of inchoative constructions in (Peninsular) Spanish ( empezar a + inf., echar a + inf.) and the way it correlates with semantic openness. Productivity is defined as lexical openness of a slot (here the infinitive) of a construction. A range of productivity measures (e.g., type/token ratio, hapax/token ratio, and other parameters related to the frequency of the most frequent types) are discussed and compared. Semantic openness is operationalized on the basis of distributional semantics, yielding two measures viz. semantic range and semantic sparsity . The correlations between productivity measures and semantics are studied by means of a Principal Components Analysis. It is shown that the so-called ‘anti-productivity’ measures (related to entrenchment due to high token frequency) on the one hand, and the productivity measures (including the hapax-based ones, traditionally associated with extensibility) on the other hand, strongly correlate and constitute opposites along the same dimension of lexical openness. In addition, the semantic measures strongly correlate with productivity, which suggests that often semantic and lexical openness go hand in hand in this dataset. As to the behavior of the individual auxiliaries (= micro-constructions), they appear to be rather extreme, showing very productive and less productive profiles.
... Though "Gan Jing" and "clean" come from different languages, the grammaticalization path of the two words show some shared rules of grammaticalization. Hopper (1991) proposed five rules of grammaticalization: divergence, specialization, persistence, layering and decategorization. Then Shen Jiaxuan (1994) added four which are delaying, graduality, frequency and cycling. ...
Based on corpus study, this paper makes a diachronic study of the grammaticalization process of the Chinese word “Gan Jing” and English word “clean”. The study shows that both “Gan Jing” and “clean” gradually lose their original meaning and change from a content word to a functional word. The mechanisms of the grammaticalization include reanalysis, analogy, semantic bleaching, metonymy and metaphor, as well as subjectivity. These changes can be attributed to the principle of economy. Though “Gan Jing” and “clean” share many similarities in grammaticalization path, mechanisms and motivations, the use frequency of them varies. The lowly grammaticalized form of “Gan Jing” is most used while the highly-intensified meaning of “clean” is used more widely.
... The temporal and dynamic qualification certainly applies, but whether or not the pragmatic usage Mair refers to here will become a permanent feature of English speech, only time will tell; the development may be only short-term. Current experience, however, suggests that, in view of the increasing frequency discerned, this development might well prove more enduring, at least in informal, often discourse-related contexts, where it is likely to continue to exist as a competing variant equivalent in meaning alongside the stative proper, leading to a recognized situation known as 'layering', after Hopper (1991), where a language can have several ways of expressing the same concept. 12 Hence, it is the contention of this paper that the historically fairly recent addition of the [+progressive] option to certain verbs of the stative verb class suggests there is an ongoing change to document if only because, as Mair himself maintains, there is a 'continuing diachronic dynamic' (p. ...
That a certain class of verb commonly known as ‘statives’ is undergoing change in terms of the way in which certain verbs of this type are being used in everyday speech is nothing new to the field of linguistics. Much has been written about it, and the author of this paper alone has been preoccupied with the subject for many years now. However, notwithstanding that this change has been fairly widely documented for well over half a century, the present paper has been motivated by the desire to capture the root cause of this change in writing and to establish the linguistic conditions that have enabled it to occur. This is not so much a reductionist venture, negatively conceived, as a quest to determine the primary factors involved in what can seem at times to be a most peculiar phenomenon. The method employed to delimit these causal factors proceeds by a process of elimination, while the provision of evidence adopts the traditional, tried-and-tested method of ‘observation and collection’. The stative-specific research papers that examine the current variation constituting the focus of this paper are all from the present century.
... Las funciones que estas unidades tienen en común dentro y fuera del marco oracional coexisten en el español actual (Hopper, 1991). Frente a otros operadores de modalidad deóntica como 'vale' o 'de acuerdo', estudiados por Porroche Ballesteros (2011), estas expresiones añaden, además, una evaluación positiva respecto a lo dicho por el interlocutor, de manera que manifiestan una aceptación intensificada, colaborativa, que refuerza la imagen positiva del hablante y, al mismo tiempo, protegen la imagen negativa del interlocutor (Brown & Levinson, 1987). ...
In this research work we intend to carry out a detailed synchronous characterization of the functions of cojonudo, estupendo, guay, genial and perfecto in the Spanish of Spain. We start from the hypothesis that these qualifying adjectives have various functions inside and outside the sentence framework that have not yet been treated in the specialized bibliography. To undertake our analysis, we observe its behavior in different corpora that contain real discourse (the MEsA Corpus, the Val.Es.Co. 2.0. Corpus, and the COLA(M) Corpus), as well as in other corpora where we find some texts in which there is a mimesis of the oral, such as the synchronous academic corpus: CORPES XXI and CREA. Our study follows a qualitative methodology, which seeks to offer a comprehensive analysis of these units. The results show that the discursive uses of these expressions are diverse and that, in reactive interventions, these forms present a similar discursive behavior, since they occupy the same functional space as a Spanish acceptance modal operator (like vale or de acuerdo). The theoretical framework used to describe the polyfunctionality of these expressions is the Macrosyntax of Fuentes Rodríguez (2013, 2017, 2019).
... Semantische Verbleichungen gelten als charakteristische Merkmale für die Rekategorisierung sprachlicher Zeichen als Diskursmarker (Gohl/Günthner 1999;Günthner 1999;Auer/Günthner 2005;Imo 2012). Hopper (1991) beschreibt diese Art des Mitschwingens der ursprünglichen Bedeutung eines Elementes (wie hier eines Verbs) im Prozess der Dekategorisierung zu der grammatikalisch weniger 29 Theoretisch könnte man sich auch die Variante gucken Sie mal als Diskursmarker vorstellen. Die Tatsache, dass diese Form im vorliegenden Datenmaterial jedoch nur im Sinne einer Aufforderung zur visuellen Blickausrichtung ("GUCKen sie mal der süße HUND,") bzw. ...
... In Present-Day English that's right can take on both functions, i.e. as a marker of 'epistemic stance' or of 'uptake', and concrete examples in context are often ambiguous or even vague, leaving open both options or a mixture of the two. In such cases of "layering" (Hopper 1991), it can be particularly difficult to identify a turning-point in the usage history of a pattern when we can argue on reliable grounds that constructional split has taken place and a new construction is born (Traugott and Trousdale 2013). ...
This paper identifies a number of challenges that Construction Grammar has to face and offers some thoughts on how the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model might help to overcome them.
... Research in grammaticalization has been the focus of several works across languages during the 20th century (see some foundational studies, such as Givón 1971;Hopper 1991;Sweetser 1988;Traugott 1982Traugott , 1995Traugott and Heine 1991, among others). These works describe how linguistic items develop grammatical functions in specific contexts (Hopper and Traugott 2003, p. 2), with special interest in the cognitive and functional mechanisms under the changes carried out throughout different time spans (Traugott and Dasher 2002, p. 6). ...
This paper explores the evolution of the conversational formula pues eso in Peninsular Spanish through the framework of constructionalization, so as to describe how form–meaning pairings have been consolidated. Additionally, the Val.Es.Co. model for discourse segmentation is introduced as part of the form pole in the construction. The findings suggest that PE has become a consolidated parenthetical, procedural device during the 20th century, but that previous centuries are also key in understanding how the new functions were developed from pues.
... The predictors reported here have been traditionally discussed in the context of grammaticalisation/delexicalisation theory (Hopper & Traugott, 2003). Broadly, delexicalisation is understood as one of the parameters of grammaticalisation linked to a reduction and subsequent loss of lexical meaning of a word so that it can serve a more abstract (grammatical) function (Hopper, 1991;Lehmann, 1995). In grammaticalisation theory, delexicalisation is also referred to as 'desemanticisation', 'semantic bleaching ', 'generalisation' or 'abstraction' (Narrog & Heine, 2021, p. 85) and is traditionally treated as one of the parameters of grammaticalisation alongside context extension, decategorisation, and (phonetic) erosion (Narrog & Heine 2021, pp. ...
Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions
The empirical goal of the paper is to document the linguistic distribution and patterning as well as the sociolinguistic conditioning of intensifiers in English spoken by educated young adults from Germany. Here, I also seek to understand how the empirical data presented here informs our understanding of the mechanisms underlying language change in those forms of English that emerge through the combined impact of naturalistic L2 acquisition and instructed foreign language learning (henceforth, EFL or Learner English).
Design/methodology/approach
The study reports intensification data from 53 advanced learners of English from Germany and compares it with that reported for L1 English vernaculars. The data were elicited with the help of sociolinguistic interviews tapping into learners’ natural linguistic behaviour. The processes of language change are explored against the backdrop of grammaticalisation theory, as espoused by variationist sociolinguists.
Data and analysis
The study employs two methods of analysis: distributional percentages and fixed-effects logistic regression analyses. These allow pinpoint rates and patterns of intensification as well as its language-internal and language-external conditioning.
Findings/conclusions
Systematic comparisons of language-internal conditioning underlying the occurrence of linguistic variants pinpoint ‘functional specialisation’ (also ‘entrenchment’) as a driving mechanism of and a potent constraint on language change.
Originality
While demonstrating how functional specialisation is operative in the system of German Learner English intensification, the present study highlights the relevance of EFL data to empirical testing and advancement of (socio-)linguistic theory. The study also highlights the relevance of learners’ linguistic identity and the sociopsychological construct of ‘relatedness’ in the adoption of the globally available features of the English language.
Significance/implications
The study pleads for more research at the intersection of historical/general linguistics and SLA as such an approach adds to knowledge about language acquisition, language variation and, ultimately, language change.
This paper provides a critical overview of previous research on the diachronic behavior of subordinate vs independent clauses. It is shown that most prior studies present considerable issues: the terms 'clause' and 'subordination' have been used with different meanings depending on the conceptualization of grammar, and the phenomena that have been analyzed are hardly comparable with each other. Additionally, most studies have either performed a quantitative analysis of one single language or compared a selective number of changes and linguistic features in a few languages from a qualitative point of view. Accordingly, the need for empirical studies drawing on large-scale cross-linguistic databases is highlighted. Moreover, on the basis of the papers gathered in this issue, we formulate the generalization that subordinate clauses may, in some cases, develop asymmetries with respect to independent clauses either through innovation or through preservation of archaic features, perhaps as a communicative need to formally distinguish different kinds of clauses. However, a general tendency is for subordinate clauses to change much in the same way as independent clauses.
Resumo: Este capítulo apresenta fenômenos de mudança do português brasileiro (PB) que ocorrem em três contextos de construções complexas: orações adverbiais que expressam condicionalidade e contraste, orações completivas cujas matrizes instanciam modalidade epistêmica e funções textuais e orações relativas que restringem a referência do nome. Essas construções são retratadas com base em pressupostos básicos do Funcionalismo, como o princípio de que o uso efetivo da língua é o lócus da mudança e que as estruturas linguísticas são, por natureza,
variáveis e gradientes, características essenciais para sua descrição sincrônica e para a compreensão dos processos de mudança que as afetam. Os processos, quer em uma dimensão sincrônica ou diacrônica, são guiados por motivações cognitivas e interacionais, de modo que funções semânticas e pragmáticas prevalecem sobre aspectos sintáticos na compreensão do funcionamento de tais construções complexas em diferentes fases da história do PB. Conclui-se que tais processos muitas vezes se conformam a tendências translinguísticas, mas também podem revelar e revelam singularidades e contingências do português.
Palavras-chave: funcionalismo, mudança sintática, construção complexa
This article analyzes the use of the general extender e tals, a discourse-pragmatic element which
functions include category marking and requesting solidarity. A general extender is a lexical item that
usually occurs at the end of a sentence, consisting of a conjunction plus a noun phrase. They are present in
a wide variety of languages, and have been more studied in English and Spanish. We tested the hypothesis
that the item is undergoing a process of grammaticalization on X (Twitter), a social network which presents
a language with many marks of orality and informality, and is a very representative corpus of the young
language of contemporary Brazilian Portuguese in the first half of the 21st century. Four stages of semantic-
pragmatic change of the general extender e tals were tested, and the three that were found were the most
evolved in relation to multifunctionality, subjectivity and abstraction, among other aspects.
Keywords: general extender; item e tals; discourse-pragmatic marker.
This study examines the distributional and morphological characteristics of oci as observed in Manchu texts, aiming to demonstrate that oci has undergone grammaticalization. To verify the grammaticalization of oci, the study employs the five principles of grammaticalization proposed by Hopper (1991): layering, divergence, specialization, persistence, and decategorialization. Evidence of these principles in oci can be seen in its contracted forms, its use as a topic marker, and the frequency difference between oci and ohode. In the contracted forms of oci, the principles of layering, persistence, and decategorialization are observed. When oci functions as a topic marker, the principles of divergence and decategorialization are applicable. Furthermore, the frequency differences between oci and ohode indicate that oci has specialized in expressing conditions, concessions, cognitions and topics. The distributional and morphological features discussed in this study suggest that oci has indeed become a grammaticalized form.
There is a debate concerning the history of demonstratives. Are they primitive or grammaticalized elements in languages? Moreover, notwithstanding the relevance of demonstratives to NP, nominals are not regarded as a potential source of grammaticalized demonstratives. The present study, based on synchronic observations, argues that the proximal demonstratives ða ‘this’ and ʔulaaʔ ‘these’, which constitute the nucleus of the demonstrative system of Standard Arabic, are grammaticalized elements. It also offers a new grammaticalization pathway and a new source of demonstratives. Arabic proximal demonstratives evolve from possessive adjectives, which are themselves grammaticalized from nominals that mean ‘oneself’ and ‘companion’. The motive underpinning this pathway is that the lexical sources and the grammaticalized elements share the property of being egocentric. Concerning medial and distal demonstratives, two further stages of grammaticalization occur: (1) the phonological derivation of two medial demonstratives from their corresponding proximal demonstratives and (2) the phonological derivation of two distal demonstratives from their corresponding medial demonstratives. The extended grammaticalization pathway is as follows: nominals that mean ‘self’ and ‘companion’ > possessive adjectives > proximal demonstratives > medial > distal. This pathway implies that the source of demonstratives may comprise more than one lexical word; however, they are meaningfully related, and their grammaticalization pathway towards forming the demonstrative system of Standard Arabic applies uniformly.
Résumé
Cet article est consacré à l’évolution du verbe de perception 听 [t ɦ jɑŋ ²¹⁵ ]/[t ɦ in ²¹⁵ ] « écouter » en cenchuanais (xiang, sinitique) en Chine. Le développement de 听 « écouter » dans ce dialecte est multidirectionnel, car il évolue non seulement en un verbe causatif employé dans la structure NP 1 (causateur) + 听 [t ɦ in ²¹⁵ ] + NP 2 (causataire) + V dénotant une causalité non interventive, mais aussi en un subordonnant concessif signifiant « peu importe que » ou encore en un adverbe « n’importe comment ». Dans cet article, nous étudions surtout ses propriétés syntaxiques et ses particularités sémantiques lorsqu’il fonctionne comme un verbe causatif, et nous essayons d’élucider ses différentes étapes d’évolution en cenchuanais.
Mais uma realização do grupo de pesquisa PROHPOR (Programa para a História da Língua Portuguesa), Do Português Arcaico ao Português Brasileiro é a terceira coletânea realizada pelos especialistas do Departamento de Letras Vernáculas da Universidade Federal da Bahia, depois do sucesso de A Carta de Caminha: Testemunho Lingüístico de 1500 e O Português Quinhentista: Estudos Lingüísticos. Esta obra, organizada pelos ilustres pesquisadores da área, Américo Venâncio Lopes Machado Filho e Sônia Bastos Borba Costa, recobre estudos que vão do português arcaico e avançam ao português brasileiro contemporâneo, passando pelos séculos XVI, XVII, XVIII e XIX, recuando, em alguns casos, ao latim.
Throughout the history, English has developed a category of the present perfect that can be considered prototypical when compared to the same categories in other typologically similar languages. Although the present perfect in Standard British English has not reached the final stage of acquiring preterit semantics, data from diachronic corpora provides evidence that the English present perfect had the potential to follow a similar path of grammaticalization like the German Perfekt, for instance. This paper presents an investigation of data collected from several diachronic English corpora and employs a usage-based approach to elicit the mechanisms underlying the incipient semantic shift of the present perfect. It is argued that a functional overlap with verbs in the simple past at an early stage of its evolution and later movement towards perfective past tense, though not attested on a large scale, reflect developments in certain pragmatic contexts, in particular with topicalized temporal adverbials. It is claimed that in passages where new information becomes crucial, alongside the completion of the action, temporal properties of the 'hot news' perfects tend to be foregrounded.
Este estudo parte do arcabouço teórico-metodológico da Teoria da Variação e Mudança Linguística (Labov, 1994, 2001, 2008; Weinreich; Labov; Herzog, 2006), e objetiva analisar, em tempo real de curta duração, a variação pronominal de primeira pessoa do plural, nós e a gente, no falar culto de Fortaleza-CE. Utilizamos uma amostra de 1990, composta por 50 informantes, e uma amostra de 2010, composta por 54 informantes, provenientes do banco de dados Projeto Descrição do Português Oral Culto de Fortaleza (PORCUFORT). Através do software R (R Core Team, 2020), por meio do ambiente RStudio, obtivemos um total de 4.597 observações de nós e a gente nas amostras analisadas. Em termos totais, houve um aumento significativo nas frequências e proporções da forma inovadora na amostra 2010, quando confrontada com a amostra 1990. Em termos de tendência, este estudo demonstrou um padrão geral nas duas amostras, indicando para uma certa estabilidade da variação e mudança linguística das formas pronominais nós/ a gente na comunidade de fala fortalezense.
En este trabajo describo el proceso de cambio por el que atravesó incluso en la historia del español, de participio a partÃcula con funciones semántico-pragmáticas –marcador de foco escalar, foco de inclusión y marcador discursivo–. Argumento que el cambio corresponde a un proceso de gramaticalización motivado por reanálisis, que concluye con la subjetivización del término como partÃcula discursiva. Identifico y caracterizo seis etapas cronológicas a partir de su comportamiento gramatical a lo largo de siete siglos (xiv-xx).
Apoiados na abordagem da Linguística Funcional Centrada no Uso (LFCU), em estudo qualiquantitativo, observamos o percurso de mudança linguística da combinação chega aí até sua constituição como nova unidade simbólica de função convidativa na variante do português brasileiro. Baseados em Traugott e Trousdale (2021 [2013]), Bybee (2016 [2010]), Rosário e Oliveira (2016), e Teixeira (2015), entre outras referências da LFCU, observamos a trajetória de construcionalização de chega aí como um novo marcador discursivo, codificado como [chega aí]MD. Ao longo do processo de mudança, as subpartes verbal (chega) e locativa (aí) são recrutadas para uso contíguo em distintas situações comunicativas em que passam por neoanálises em micropassos, as quais resultam em maior vinculação entre os termos, ademais, a construcionalização de [chega aí]MD é motivada também pela relação analógica com o padrão construcional [VLoc]MD. Os resultados da investigação constatam distintos contextos de uso da combinação chega aí na atual sincronia e ratificam sua recente construcionalização e paradigmatização na categoria dos marcadores discursivos.
Response signals (RS) have emerged as a powerful interaction tool, but they have yet to be fully understood. The current study analyzes 16 h of daily conversations using discourse-pragmatic frameworks to discuss certain aspects of the most prevalent primary and secondary Persian RSs. An RS is identified as a brief interactive response to a prior speaker’s statement, typically expressing (dis)confirmation, (un)acceptance, or backchannel (including assessment and continuer feedback). The research also differentiates and compares the functional and distributional differences and similarities between confirmation and backchannel signals. Following that, it takes a semasiological approach and discusses how the emergence, overlap, and markedness of certain functions for an item can be determined by the persistence of its original propositional meaning as well as the item’s grammaticalization and cooptation. The paper thus reviews the markedness of the backchannel function for na ‘no’ compared to this function’s development for ɂāre ‘yes’. Last but not least, cross-linguistic phonological tendencies, such as the integration of the phoneme /ɂ/ or /h/ in positive RSs and click sounds in negative ones, are supported by Persian RSs and their variants.
The focus of this study is on the function and grammaticalization of nominalizations in Thai and the nominalization categories and nominalizing strategies in Thai are described. The Thai language exhibits a composite of derivational and clausal nominalizations marked with three nominalizers: kaan 1 derives nouns or nominalized clauses from lexical verbs and relative or complement clauses; khwaam 1 derives nouns from lexical verbs and adjectives; and kaan 1 thii 3 is used for clauses. The current study posits diachronic developments for nominalizers and addresses related issues. It is concluded that nominalizers kaan 1 and khwaam 1 were originally lexical nouns meaning ‘work’ and ‘matter’. The essential features of the use of nominalizations have remained constant, but certain developments have occurred, which include lexical nominalization to clausal nominalization and the emergence of a new nominalizer, kaan 1 thii 3 . It is found that nominalizers kaan 1 , khwaam 1 and kaan 1 thii 3 are basically in complementary distribution, and language internal evolution and external contact are the primary motivations for nominalization in Thai.
This paper explores the ongoing semantic change of a discourse marker in Japanese social media. An analysis of 140 instances of the sentence-final tteyuu on Twitter, renamed X in July 2023, suggests that this discourse marker is shifting from a textual function of elaboration to a stance marker of lighthearted mockery. I argue this transition is attributed to its recurrent use in specific contexts, leading to invited inferences about the writer's intentions in expanding upon an idea, which extend beyond purely informational to interpersonal and social concerns. The functional ambiguity of these examples suggests an intermediate stage in tteyuu's evolution. The findings of this study underscore the centrality of pragmatic inferencing in semantic changes as well as the context-dependent nature of meaning creation.
The objective of this article is twofold: First, we compare the modal be going to-VP construction in English with the qu-VP 'go-VP', VP-qu 'VP-go', and qu-VP-qu 'go-VP-go' constructions in Chinese and propose that neither qu 'go' nor lai 'come' in Chinese has been grammaticalized to a modal auxiliary, as has occurred in the be going to construction in English: as Sweetser (1990) shows, in the history of grammaticalization, epistemic modality develops out of deontic modality, and this applies to the English be going to construction (Bybee (2015)); in Chinese, however, no evidence has been found to show that the verb qu 'go' has been grammaticalized to a modal auxiliary with the root modal meaning. While certain epistemic meanings are found in verb-verb compounds such as kan lai 'look come', and kan qu 'look go', we analyze this limited set of V-V compounds as instances of lexical rather than grammatical constructionalization (Traugott and Trousdale (2014)). Second, we discuss the qu in the VP-qu construction and the second qu in the qu-VP-qu construction and argue that these collocations have taken a small-step toward grammaticalization to forming semi-lexical verb of motion, a kind of light verb (Cardinalletti and Giusti (2001)). Drawing on a current theory of syntax, we demonstrate how these differ from purely lexical verbs of motion.
Este estudo tem como base teórica e Teoria da Variação e da Mudança Linguística, delineado por Weinreich, Labov e Herzog (1968) e por Labov (1997, 2001, 2003), e objetiva analisar a variação pronominal entre nós e a gente em redações escolares do ensino médio de uma escola pública de Fortaleza-CE. Para tanto, utilizamos uma amostra composta por 360 textos. Os informantes foram estratificados de acordo com o sexo/gênero e a série de estudo. Com o auxílio do programa computacional GoldVarb X, analisamos 1265 ocorrências de nós e a gente nas redações escolares. Com esse total, verificamos que a variante nós é utilizada com mais frequência que a forma inovadora a gente (89,4% e 10,6%, respectivamente). Além disso, constatamos que os fatores mais relevantes que condicionam o uso da variante padrão em nossa amostra foram: grau de referencialidade do pronome (sentido específico), paralelismo discursivo (pronome antecedido por nós) e preenchimento do sujeito (sujeito nulo).
Despite extensive research on the ba-construction in Chinese, the diachronic change in the alternation between the ba and jiang constructions has received little attention. The present study takes a multifactorial approach to examine the factors that probabilistically condition the alternation based on diachronic data across twelve centuries. The results suggest two general trends. First, the odds of the ba-construction have increased over time at the expense of the jiang-construction. Second, over time, the effect size of the significant preference for the jiang-construction in informal genres has reduced from the 10th to the 19th century, and this preference has disappeared in modern times; accordingly, both informal and formal genres have converged to favor the ba-construction in modern times. Regression modeling also shows that there are both stable linguistic constraints (parallelism/syntactic priming, verb type, NP2 animacy, and NP2 length) and fluid constraints (adjunct semantics, and genre). This study advances our knowledge of the two disposal constructions and their evolution, sheds light on the Principle of No Synonymy (Bolinger, Dwight. 1977. Meaning and form. New York: Longman; Goldberg, Adele E. 1995. Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Goldberg, Adele E. 2002. Surface generalizations: An alternative to alternations. Cognitive Linguistics 13(4). 327–356), and makes a methodological contribution to the empirical testing of hypotheses. It can also provide insight into grammatical alternations in Mandarin.
Il contributo presenta i risultati inediti di un’indagine sul futuro sintetico nel siciliano nord-orientale, assumendo come principali criteri di riferimento: la diffusione diatopica; la persistenza dia-generazionale; la presenza di flessione completa della persona del verbo; la tipologia di forme e di impieghi. L’indagine è stata condotta su un vasto areale che comprende, oltre a Messina, punti recessivi/conservativi e centri dinamici/innovativi situati all’interno dell’area nordorientale, lungo il versante ionico e lungo il versante tirrenico. Il campione d’informatori, misto tra uomini e donne, è stato selezionato secondo i parametri sociolinguistici dell’età e del grado di istruzione. I dati sono stati escussi tramite un Questionario di quesiti traduttivi (italiano → dialetto). I risultati della ricerca evidenziano, in prospettiva sincronica, una presenza compatta del futuro sintetico nell’area nord-orientale e un’alta vitalità di impieghi modali e temporali presso l’intero campione; in prospettiva diacronica, essi consentono di esibire importanti evidenze a favore dell’endogenesi del futuro siciliano. In ultimo, verrà proposta una possibile interpretazione in merito alla resilienza del fenomeno nelle varietà messinesi.
The upper ranks of corpus word frequency lists are primarily populated by functional items, as well as by other small words characterised by their polysemy that reward focussed attention and research. Exploring these items has resulted in rich and fruitful insights from a corpus pragmatic perspective. This paper focuses on the nature and value of 'there' as a discourse-pragmatic marker in Irish English (IrE). We focus on intimate discourse (i.e., the language used between family and friends), and use corpora of IrE to trace and investigate the varietal nuances of 'there' in this context. Our analysis acknowledges the expected existential and locative functions and illustrates that 'there' has specific discourse pragmatic properties in the intimate sphere in IrE. We argue that 'there' has acquired additional pragmatic dimensions and is used in the language of family and friends as, for example, an involvement marker or mitigator. In the discussion of the development of 'there' as a discourse-pragmatic marker, we consult historical data that matches our focal context, and discuss the processes by which 'there' has come to fulfil a range of discourse-pragmatic functions in IrE.
The 20 th century is characterized by important changes in the sociohistorical context of Spain, which have led to the steady process of colloquialization of Spanish, in both spoken and written language. Still, these major developments contrast sharply with the scarcity of oral conversational data. This paper investigates whether the apparent-time construct offers a solution for the data problem. According to this method, a linguistic phenomenon is analyzed across the speech of different generations during one time period. The basic assumption is that differences between generations mirror historical developments in language. This study investigates whether generational differences in the use of the Spanish pragmatic marker sabes 'you know' corresponds to the grammaticalization cline previously observed in real-time data.
This paper aims to investigate the usage pattern of ‘be-’ with complex and prefixal predicates in present subjunctive mood and imperative mood. Our corpus and the statistics come from linguistic judgements passed by 12 Persian speakers about the presence or absence of ‘be-’ with complex and prefixal predicates, and the speakers entered their usage priorities in the questionnaires (31,548 tokens for 3,588 types of complex and prefixal predicates, altogether). The research findings show that the degree of obligatoriness of ‘be-’ with prefixal predicates is generally lower than complex predicates, and that the highest proportion of optional appearance of ‘be-’ among complex predicates belongs to ‘kærdæn’ and ‘shodæn’ as light verbs. In addition, among non-verbal elements, the highest statistics of obligatoriness go to the categories of adverb and prepositional phrase, and the lowest to the adjective. The authors believe that the variation in the use of ‘be-’ observed for some light verbs and non-verbal categories, as well as the very high level of its obligatoriness for some complex and prefixal predicates, and its almost complete obligatory status for simple verbs, all indicate an ongoing change in the mood system of Contemporary Persian. The future of linguistic changes cannot be easily predicted, but it is probable that the optional uses of ‘be-’ become obligatory gradually, and even some unpermitted instances gradually become optional, and ultimately obligatory.
Studies on the constitution of the Spanish periphrastic system show that there is a great ease with which verbal periphrases admit different lexical items in the second verb slot as they go through their grammaticalization process. However, it has not been sufficiently explored whether the evolution of combinatorial patterns in near-synonymous periphrases follows similar grammaticalization paths. Adopting a constructionist, usage-based approach, we investigate the evolution of the so-called near-synonymous periphrases dejar de + inf and parar de + inf, as in Deja de/Para de gritar, ‘Stop shouting.’ More specifically, we discuss the semantic areas they cover, the functional distribution between the two throughout time, their evolution in terms of collostructional patterns, and their realized and potential productivity, paying special attention to the Aktionsart of the predicates in the Vinf slot. All tokens in the corpus were extracted from CORDE and analyzed in terms of morphosyntactic and semantic-pragmatic parameters, as well as contextual elements. We conduct a distinctive collexeme analysis to investigate which lexemes are strongly attracted or repelled by the Vinf slot in each construction. This analysis shows that the evolution of parar de + inf is not parallel to that of dejar de + inf and that there is a clear distribution of labor between the two constructions.
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