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Copyright of Russian Linguistics is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper describes the development of the existential sign var 'there' in Turkish Sign Language from a synchronic point of view. The sign has been previously described as being restricted to clause-final predicate position and typically used for two main linguistic functions: (i) existential and (ii) possessive. However, abundant corpus evidence indicates that var can also be used for other linguistic functions in post-verbal position, which have not been reported in the literature before. Following Construction Grammar, this study presents a theoretical framework to investigate how the construction [verb + var] arose and what its semantic motivation is, paying particular attention to the notion of possession. It is argued that this construction has three different functions: (i) habitual, (ii) evidential, and (iii) assumptive. According to this account, var originated as an existential marker and subsequently developed into a marker of possession, before evolving to encompass its other linguistic functions in three stages. Using Labov's Apparent Time Hypothesis (Labov, William. 1963. The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19(3). 273–309), closer examination also revealed that a progressive difference exists between age groups. Younger TİD signers use the construction [verb + var] more frequently, and as the age of the TİD signer decreases, the usage of this construction in the assumptive function increases considerably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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: kaan1 derives nouns or nominalized clauses from lexical verbs and relative or complement clauses; khwaam1 derives nouns from lexical verbs and adjectives; and kaan1thii3 is used for clauses. The current study posits diachronic developments for nominalizers and addresses related issues. It is concluded that nominalizers kaan1 and khwaam1 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, kaan1thii3. It is found that nominalizers kaan1, khwaam1 and kaan1thii3 are basically in complementary distribution, and language internal evolution and external contact are the primary motivations for nominalization in Thai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the syntactic behavior and the discoursal roles of hala? in Jordanian Arabic, which corresponds to the English 'now' and is frequently used as a discourse marker. Specifically, the syntactic distribution of this discourse marker in everyday conversations, its function in establishing coherence between discourse units, and its communicative and discoursal meanings are scrutinized. The data necessary for the study was obtained from almost a 15-hour corpus of naturally-occurring conversations recorded by the researchers through 30 interviews with 80 (40 males and 40 females) Jordanian students from Al-Balqa Applied University. The data analysis revealed that hala? can be used as an adverb conveying temporal meaning and as a discourse marker conveying coherence-related meanings. Semantically, it is a temporal adverb that has a semantic meaning parallel to that of its English adverbial counterpart 'now'. However, it was found that hala? can also serve six pragmatic functions: Changing a topic, introducing a contrast or comparison, marking disagreement, initiating reasons, explanations or clarifications, listing, and marking shifts in participation framework (Marking a change in the speaker's orientation and marking a change of footing). The study concludes with a suggested grammaticalization path for the development of this discourse marker from a lexical source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the main notions that are addressed in this special issue, namely evidentiality, modality, and grammaticalization. It defines each notion and briefly synthesizes the literature. It also presents some of the controversies which surround the ideas that prevail in these research fields. Crosslinguistic examples illustrate the main evidential and modal categories, and clarify why the two domains are both distinct and related. The paper then sketches the main pathways of grammaticalization of modal and evidential markers as they have been documented in typological work. Finally, it introduces the contributions to this special issue, highlights the new insights, and discusses what remains to be investigated on the links between evidentiality, modality, and grammaticalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the widespread view that the diachronic processes of grammaticalization and of subjectification go hand in hand, and that highly subjectivized meanings typically correlate with highly grammaticalized forms, should be revised. The point is made on the basis of the case of the diachrony of the Dutch modal verbs. Corpus data show that four of these verbs recently got involved in a process of collective re-autonomization, while the two other modals in the language do not. This correlates with differences in the semantic development of the verbs: the four re-autonomizing verbs do, but the two outliers do not show a regular process of (inter)subjectification. The paper unravels through which mechanisms the grammatical and the semantic developments may correlate, hence why highly subjectivized meanings do not necessarily like a grammatical status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the grammaticalization patterns of evidentiality from a cross-linguistic perspective with a focus on Lhasa Tibetan. It documents the history of the evidential morphemes 'dug, -song, -bzhag, and =ze from Old Literary Tibetan to modern spoken Lhasa Tibetan. Our analyses show that these morphemes started grammaticalizing before encoding evidentiality. We argue that, through pragmatic strengthening, evidentiality tends to infiltrate forms which have already grammaticalized to express other semantic domains. These patterns of grammaticalization are confirmed by diachronic and reconstructed data from genetically unrelated languages. Evidentiality thus tends to be a 'grammaticalization passenger' (i.e., a conventionalized meaning which used to be merely implied from the recurrent contexts of a grammaticalized form) rather than a 'grammaticalization target' (i.e., a functional domain which triggers grammaticalization). This may explain why evidentiality is less often grammaticalized than other notions, such as time or modality, in the world's languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to answer three questions: (1) What is the difference between grammatical and lexical indications of information source? (2) What qualifies an element for grammaticalization as an evidential? (3) How can we identify grammatical evidentials and instances of evidential grammaticalization? The answers proposed are as follows: (1) The difference between grammatical and lexical indications of information source is a difference between indications conventionalized as discourse secondary and indications conventionalized as potentially discourse primary. (2) A candidate for grammaticalization as an evidential must (i) have propositional scope, (ii) belong in the conceptual domain of information source, (iii) be frequent enough to pass the threshold for conventionalization, and (iv) be discourse secondary, but not by convention. (3) Grammatical evidentials and instances of evidential grammaticalization can be identified based on focusablity, addressability and modifiability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics / Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada (John Benjamins Publishing Co.) is the property of John Benjamins Publishing Co. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article focuses primarily on the claim in previous research that finiteness asymmetry occurs less often in imperative negation, due to its illocutionary dynamicity, than in standard negation, due to its stativity. Its secondary aim is to identify the languages suitable to test this hypothesis, with specialized imperatives as well as negative imperatives. The findings of this identification process in a balanced 200-language sample confirm the imperative and its negative counterpart as near-universal sentence types while simultaneously providing evidence for specialization asymmetry and thus for a certain mutual independence between the two. The results about finiteness asymmetry challenge the earlier claim: not only is finiteness asymmetry equally frequent in the two domains of negation; an explicit expression of illocutionary dynamicity can even give rise to it in imperative negation. In general, imperative negation's finiteness asymmetry is found to be relatively unrelated to standard negation's and not to be attributable to one single principle. The article shows that a variety of processes, such as grammaticalization and insubordination, are at work. They are argued to be motivated by the diachronic instability of negative imperatives, itself likely due to competing factors like politeness and negative reinforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to examine the functional and formal features of the construction here’s hoping. Our analysis is informed by the frameworks of construction grammar (Fried, 2010, 2013), grammaticalization (Fried, 2009; Himmelmann, 2004), subjectification (Company, 2006) and impersonalization (Siewierska, 2008). The construction seems to have developed a novel subjectified function, i.e. to express the speaker’s positive expectation while retaining a degree of tentativeness and distance. The data for the analysis was excerpted from the corpus English Web 2021 (enTenTen21). The internal and external features of the construction (e.g. the (non-)deictic function of here, fixedness, syntactic isolation, initial position) together with the overall expansion of the semantic and pragmatic context and the gradual host-class expansion suggest that the process of grammaticalization/subjectification is currently under way (cf. Fried, 2010; Company, 2006). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While speed is a secondary parameter in some associated motion systems, some languages have verbal affixes dedicated to the encoding of speed – celerative markers. Celeratives can encode both quick and slow speed and are in some languages even the main or the sole way of expressing this meaning. However, some morphemes not only encode speed, but also other types of action manner, in particular hurry or suddenness, following colexification patterns also observed in the lexicon crosslinguistically. This paper provides a first overview of this category in the world's languages, and more generally suggests that action manner constitutes a set of comparative concepts that can be be encoded morphologically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is based on a sample of 30 Sinitic languages spoken in the Hunan Province. Its first objective is to explore the types of dative markers, comparing the form of the dative with allative, passive, benefactive, and differential object markers in these languages. Five patterns are identified: (I) DAT = ALL (II) DAT = GIVE = OM ≠ PASS; (III) DAT = GIVE = OM = PASS; (VI) DAT = GIVE = PASS ≠ OM; (V) DAT = BEN. Then, we reveal three main possible grammaticalization pathways that motivate the five synchronic patterns: (a) Allative > Dative; (b) (TAKE >) GIVE > Dative; (c) Benefactive > Dative. It concerns two distinct developments for the second pathway. Based on the areal distribution of the various types of dative markers, we can observe how the dative markers are developed in Hunan Sinitic languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called perífrasis perfectivas in Galician present the action as concluded or realized. This particular aspectual feature constitutes the common ground for an otherwise heterogeneous set of constructions, ranging from rematar de 'finish'+ infinitive (e.g., rematóu de beber '(s/he) finished drinking') to ter 'have' + participle (e.g., teñen ido '(they) have gone (Rep.)'). This work provides a critical assessment of their syntactic and semantic properties in cases where the participle may not show agreement. This is the case for periphrases built on three auxiliaries: ter, levar, and dar, of which ter + participle stands out as the most grammaticalized one. The case of ter is further investigated in relation to European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP), where ter + participle is considered a fully-fledged perfect tense. Additionally, the use of these periphrases in areas where Spanish is also present is evaluated from a contact perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Talmy's (1991; 2000a; 2000b) influential work on motion events provides a strong two-way typology that can examine and account for the typology of a language, but this framework is basically synchronic. It may not be equally valid to explain language change. In this paper, we apply the event integration theory and its latest development, The Macro-event Hypothesis (Li, 2020, 2023), to account for the development of the causative verb 使-shǐ- make (SHI for short) in Chinese. This study reveals that, firstly, the multi-functional behavior of SHI represents a typical case of grammaticalization, with a full verb acquiring the role of conjunction and expressing abstract meanings. Secondly, the semantic division of the causative and non-causative uses of SHI in Contemporary Chinese is the most clear-cut. Thirdly, causative SHI shows a greater level of semantic bleaching, and the construction profiles a single causal activity and has a higher degree of event integration when compared to its lexical verbal use. The constructional grammaticalization of SHI confirms that event integration is key to its development. This study verifies The Macro-event Hypothesis of a continuum of grammaticalization in language and uncovers the process of semantic gradation that takes place in Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an overview of the meanings of the Estonian core verb laskma ('to let'), explains the development and usage of its grammatical constructions, and describes the most common semantic types of the laskmacausative (LET-causative). Data for this study were collected from corpora of written Estonian texts from the 16th century to the present. The first instance of the laskmacausative is impossible to ascertain due to the grammatical constructions of laskma already appearing in written texts in the 16th and 17th centuries (explained as forced grammaticalization). However, the process of grammaticalization can be elucidated through the relationships among the meanings of laskma and bridging constructions. The lexical meanings of laskma were categorized into four groups: 'to move a substance somewhere or in some direction', 'to not hinder', 'to act at full speed', and 'to discharge something from a firearm'. The verb laskma appears in a permissive causative construction (causer + laskma + causee + Vdainf), expressing the meaning of 'to allow'. Laskma + Vdainf also signifies 'to ask someone to do something'. The usage of laskma + Vdainf 'to allow' is the most frequent among all [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Research in Western Iranian Languages & Dialects is the property of Razi University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Southern Min is generally known for not using classifiers [CL] for expressing definiteness/indefiniteness as it is associated with the bare classifier construction [CL N]. This paper offers evidence from Xiamen Southern Min (XSM) that the use of a specific classifier vs. the general classifier é contributes to referentiality in an alternative way by supporting object identification as it is due to the semantic specificity present in specific classifiers and absent in the general classifier. In a dialogic cognitive experiment adapted from the "Hidden color-chips" task (Enfield and Bohnemeyer 2001), 18 participants had to manipulate their addressees' attention toward various objects situated in their immediate physical space through language as well as deictic gestures. The objects were associated with different specific classifiers or with the general classifier, and they were arranged according to the factors of (a) distance from speaker, (b) visibility for speaker, and (c) uniqueness (adjacency of similar items). The results show, among other things, that there is a higher tendency to use the specific CL in the [demonstrative CL N] construction if adjacent similar objects [−unique] are too far away from the speaker for clear identification by a demonstrative or a pointing gesture. This is seen as a last-resort strategy for creating contrast. Further corroboration comes from the use of specific classifiers in later mentions after the general CL failed to achieve clear identification. These findings can be situated in the broader context of other languages with classifiers in contrastive function (Thai, Vietnamese, and Ponapean) and they show the relevance of using dialogic texts for modeling classifier selection in contrast to narrative texts. Finally, dialogic contexts may serve as bridging contexts for grammaticalization from numeral classifiers to definiteness markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article combines ideas and concepts deriving from grammaticalization studies, cognitive linguistics and construction grammar. Specifically, it takes three important ideas developed within grammaticalization research, namely untypical context, bridging or critical context and isolating or switch context (Evans & Wilkins 2000, 2006; Heine 2002), and remodels them with the concepts construct and construction. This enables the definition of three salient construct types present in historical corpora that are placed in the continuum between individual variation and language change: extensional constructs, ambiguous constructs and adaptive constructs. Each construct type characterizes a specific phase in language change. The data presented as illustration of the construct types stem from historical and contemporary corpora of written French, Italian and Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Russian, the subordinator kak 'how' is both a manner question word and an eventive complementizer. The Russian linguistic tradition explains the colexification of the two functions in terms of a semantic shift from manner as characteristic of a situation to event description as a whole. Alternatively, a grammaticalization scenario from manner complements to event/propositional complements has been suggested: manner complements originally have a propositional frame, which is foregrounded concurrently with the loss of the manner meaning, giving rise to both eventive and propositional interpretations. This article is aimed at testing both hypotheses. We study several large Old Russian manuscripts, starting from the first available documents of the 11th century, and show that at the earliest documented period Old Russian kako/kakъ could be used in all types of complement clauses. It could introduce eventive, propositional, manner and irrealis purposive-like complements. Accordingly, the evolution of the subordinator kak in complementation involves a narrowing of its functional domain. We classify Old Russian texts based on the period and trace the gradual loss of particular functions during the centuries. Thus, we show that the Russian data supports the second grammaticalization scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a corpus-based overview of strategies of direct quotation that employ two similative demonstratives, tak 'so' and taki 'such/like this', in colloquial spoken Polish. It will be shown that the ways in which Polish tak and taki encode, respectively, manner and quality in exophoric, endophoric, and cataphoric uses are also reflected in their quotative uses. Further, special emphasis is placed on two verbless quotative strategies: (Conj) NP tak and (Conj) NP taki, to offer two grammaticalization-related accounts: one for tak and another for taki. As will be argued, (Conj) NP tak is a reduced clause (originally NP VERBtak), while (Conj) NP taki is a stacking of two independent quotative strategies: (Conj) NP on the one hand, and taki on the other. The study thus contributes to our understanding of how manner/quality expressions are recruited in clause-combining tasks involving the integration of direct quotes into speakers' utterances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complementation strategies in both ancient and modern Semitic languages include the use of a series of cognate complementizers typically sharing a k-element: e.g., Tigrinya käm, Modern Hebrew ki, Akkadian kī(ma) or Ge'ez kama. The sources and the developments that led to the complementizer use of these multifunctional k-subordinators are not sufficiently clear, and diverse interpretations have been proposed. The present article analyses the oldest written record of k-complement markers in Semitic, focusing on Old Akkadian, Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian. The analysis of the type and distribution of complement constructions suggest a different explanation for their development based on the grammaticalization of similative manner expressions, a process attested in Afro-Asiatic and other languages. The article also highlights the presence and potential role of nominal complementation among the earliest recorded forms of complementation in Akkadian. The data presented here provide insights into the origin of k-complementizers in Semitic languages with less ancient written evidence, from Ancient Hebrew to Ethiosemitic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Turkish nominalizer -(y)Iş demonstrates a broad spectrum of functions ranging from a deverbal word-formation device that forms lexicalized nouns with concrete and abstract meanings to an inflectional marker used in nominal clauses, especially in clausal complementation. In some uses, the item conveys manner semantics. While the item itself has been variously investigated and forms an established part of any Turkish grammar description, there is still a lack of consensus on its functional and semantic properties. This article investigates the morphosyntactic functions and the semantic features of the nominalizer -(y)Iş in light of the claims in the linguistic literature on the one hand, which include manner, countable events, factive imperfective, single instance of an event, direct reference to the inner process of an action, etc., and of examples from primary sources on the other, and evaluates the findings from the perspective of grammaticalization. It will be argued that the range of functions of this item and the fact that it seems to resist any straightforward analysis result from its transition from a derivational marker to an inflectional marker with tasks including complementizer functions, a process in which manner semantics will be argued to play a role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the grammaticalization of ġādi – i.e., the active participle form of a movement verb meaning 'to go/leave/depart in the morning' – in Moroccan Arabic, of which the relevant literature has evidenced its uses as a future marker, describing this case as an instance of the common path 'go (to)' > future. In the light of fresh data, we first review the already documented uses of ġādi as a future marker, and, secondly, present an original preliminary study of its emerging modal values. Finally, by analyzing the correlation between the future values and the modal values of ġādi, we focus on some issues related to its grammaticalization, including the importance of taking into account certain semantic features of the source lexeme so far underestimated, and of considering the co(n)text within which the whole grammaticalization takes place. Ultimately, we argue that a secondary grammaticalization towards epistemic modality is in progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many languages, the present perfect has grammaticalized, gradually displacing the preterit. Within Spanish, this has been documented with the grammaticalization of the present perfect in Peninsular Spanish. To examine this possibility in two Latin American varieties, this study examined present perfect/preterit variation of 36 speakers from Lima and Mexico City from the PRESEEA corpus. While Lima Spanish presented overall more present perfect than Mexico City Spanish, a similar internal constraint hierarchy is predictive of present perfect use in both speech communities. However, Lima Spanish demonstrated a change in progress toward an expansion of the preterit among younger speakers with the indeterminate temporal reference as locus of change. The findings suggest that present perfect grammaticalization may not always be the most common cross-linguistic pathway but rather is subject to source constraints, which may lead to another pathway in which the preterit expands at the expense of the present perfect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of TEME: Casopis za Društvene Nauke is the property of TEME: Casopis za Drustvene Nauke and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of TEME: Casopis za Društvene Nauke is the property of TEME: Casopis za Drustvene Nauke and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Tags, compared to other types of pragmatic markers (PMs), are typically considered as separate yet related phenomena and are usually differentiated by their syntactic positions and discourse functions, among other factors. The current work explores this differentiation utilizing 36 sociolinguistic interviews with Spanish-English bilinguals in southern Arizona, USA. Standard language variation and change (LVC) methodologies were used in the extraction, coding, and statistical analyses of this dataset (n = 591), with four PM variants identified for study through an exploratory methodology: the tags no and qué no and the discourse markers (DMs) you know and saber. The results of our analyses indicate that, while utterance position, self-reported gender, and length of residence were all significant in the multivariate analysis, discourse function was dropped from the statistical model. Therefore, we interpret this finding as an indication that functional differences between these two pragmatic resources have been levelled through grammaticalization, demonstrating that for Arizona Spanish, tags and DMs belong in the same functional category of PMs. Furthermore, an analysis of codeswitching behavior triggered by the incoming variant you know demonstrates that it is becoming incorporated into the Spanish pragmatic system, patterning similarly to its counterpart saber in terms of function and position, without attrition of the native variant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to neighboring Romance languages, Galician currently maintains a more ubiquitous usage of the construction [haber (present) + (de) + infinitive] as a future marker in variation with the periphrastic construction with ir 'go' and the morphological future. We examine this under-studied construction to gain a better understanding of Galician grammar and also contribute new data with which to consider diachronic change regarding the grammaticalization of the future from obligation markers. We conduct a variationist analysis of 1589 tokens of future forms in recorded conversations (CORILGA) in order to determine the frequency of usage, patterns of variation, linguistic conditioning and degree of grammaticalization of the periphrastic forms with haber and ir in contrast to the morphological variant. We find evidence to suggest that the periphrastic construction with haber is highly grammaticalized as a future marker and we identify factors of the production context that modulate the grammaticalization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grammaticalization has long been understood as a process that takes place gradually, but within it, discrete and abrupt changes take place. This tension has been reconciled by claiming that the semblance of a gradual process is given by different parts of a construction undergoing changes at different points in time. Focusing on synchronic microvariation as gradience, this article discusses cases of clitic loss in four Romance varieties (Brazilian Portuguese, Raeto-Romance, some northeastern Italo-Romance varieties, and French), and identifies common patterns in the cells of the paradigms that are most vulnerable to the process of loss. Relating the grammatical and semantic properties of these cells to established typological hierarchies, the paper explores how general cognitive principles can account for the key properties of gradualness and gradience and, ultimately, language change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Beserman, a new converb grammaticalizes from the possessive locative form of the locative noun in (o)ń-ńig. We show that the constructions with the converb have a clausal structure, while the constructions with the locative noun are mostly noun phrases, even if they include an indication of the agent and patient of the situation encoded by the locative noun. Semantically, the two types of constructions are also different. In the converb constructions the situations encoded by the main and the embedded clause must overlap, while with locative nouns this is not necessarily the case. The temporal reference of locative nouns is habitual/iterative, while converbs often have episodic (non-habitual) interpretation. The original locative noun denotes a reference to a fixed location where the situation usually takes place. In the constructions with the converb this meaning is bleached and generalized as an action which takes place in any possible location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodistico is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Desemanticization, a mechanism of language change, is either full or partial. The former is the total loss of the lexical content while developing a gram from a lexical source, whereas the latter is the reduction of the lexical content. One of the merits of partial desemanticization reported in the relevant literature is that the remaining lexical residue in a gram often determines its function, especially through metaphor and metonymy. The present paper, from a broader perspective, sheds light on the role of partial desemanticization in developing grammatical subsystems in natural languages. Based on an acceptability judgment task and the main synchronic characteristics of the target items, this paper argues that partial desemanticization is the underpinning factor in the grammaticalization of a possibility-denoting epistemic modality in northern rural Jordanian Arabic. Its role is manifested in the derivation of the target modal auxiliaries from their lexical counterparts. The content of their sources, mostly lexical, is not fully bleached out when they develop into modal auxiliaries. The semantic residue of the source in each grammaticalized modal auxiliary, in turn, causes the variation in use of these modal auxiliaries, and therefore inevitably leads to developing a possibilitydenoting epistemic modality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish verb-complement (VC) compounds, one of the most common compound types in Spanish, raise interesting questions, because they are inflected, prototypically containing a verb in the third-person singular of the present indicative. This complexity seems paradoxical, given the strong restrictions of Romance languages on word compounding. Based on a self-compiled corpus of over 1,400 VC compounds, we show that the compound's verb may display different persons and illocutionary forces. We claim that all Spanish VC compounds can be parsimoniously accounted for as involving a grammaticalized perspective-indexing structure, setting up a non-actual enunciation. We identify three subtypes of nominal VC compounds according to whether they refer to: (i) the fictive addresser of the non-actual enunciation it is composed of (e.g. metomentodo [I+put+myself+into+everything], 'meddler'), (ii) the fictive addressee (e.g. tentetieso [hold+yourself+upright], 'tilting doll'), or (iii) the fictive conversational topic (e.g. pintalabios [paints+lips], 'lipstick'). We further argue that, despite undeniable morphological constraints, Spanish VC compounds involve a similarly complex semantic and morphological structure as English multi-word compounds like ' wanna-be (s)', ' forget-me-not (s)', or ' bring-and-buy sale'. This reveals that intersubjectivity can be central to word formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a constructional approach to morphosyntax, this study describes a triclausal construction (a type of anankastic conditional construction) and related constructions in the history of Chinese. It demonstrates that the triclausal construction constitutes a context of morphosyntactic vagueness where category boundaries between modals and conditional protasis connectives are underdetermined; consequently, bidirectional rather than unidirectional developments occur. Morphosyntactic vagueness is defined by properties shared between two morphosyntactic categories: distributional and functional similarities. Therefore, changes enabled by morphosyntactic vagueness are argued to be regular processes of change mediated by grammatical equivalence. If grammaticalization is defined as the development of morphosyntactic categories, but not in terms of non-equivalence such as unidirectionality or increased grammaticality, grammaticalization may be systematically bidirectional when enabled by morphosyntactic vagueness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a type of empty morph that attaches to noun forms and that will be called "noun affix" here. Based on six case studies from unrelated African and American genera, I arrive at a diachronic typology of noun affixes that in many ways confirms and in other ways expands on the findings of Joseph Greenberg, whose work on the topic remains the yardstick. One claim is that noun affixes may emerge directly from gender markers and that this is reflected in the paradigm size of noun affixes. Furthermore, there is evidence for the idea that old noun affixes may be repurposed for the creation of phonologically minimal word forms. The main interest of this study is in what the development of noun affixes reveals about processes of grammaticalization. The current literature mostly focuses on the fact that grammaticalization is initiated by semantic changes (mostly semantic reduction) rather than by formal changes. This raises the question of whether semantic reduction is also completed before formal reduction. The noun affixes provide compelling evidence for this idea and thus suggest that empty morphs may arise via grammaticalization. This runs counter to approaches on which form and function erode in parallel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study contributes to the empirical basis of grammaticalization theory by presenting a grammaticalization profile of Zapotec, a language family of Mesoamerica. The discussion centers around co-grammaticalization of lexemes and constructions, polygrammaticalization, interdependence between syntactic and prosodic conditioning of grammaticalization, and mutual feedback between grammaticalization and morphosyntactic typology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Pronominal adverbs in German, which consist of da 'there', hier 'here', or wo 'where' as first element and a preposition as second element, like davor 'before', hierbei 'hereby', worin 'wherein', have often been explained by a movement of the first element out of the complement position of the preposition. This article points out some of the problems of movement analyses and presents an alternative account based on the diachronic development of pronominal adverbs. It is argued that the pattern after which pronominal adverbs are formed can be traced back to the univerbation of two adverbs with spatial meaning. This is accompanied by processes often associated with grammaticalization, such as semantic bleaching, phonological reduction, and a loss of separability in the standard variety. Some of the reduced forms are obligatory in phrasemes and particle verbs, thus constituting a split which can occur during grammaticalization. The reduction of the first element of pronominal adverbs and a doubling of the first element can be seen as part of a grammaticalization cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines the use of the Spanish imperfect progressive in Puerto Rican Spanish to determine if this construction is influenced by English, or if it is responding to internal grammaticalization processes as defined as the process in which a lexical item acquires a grammatical function. 33 Puerto Ricans that lived in Puerto Rico completed a sociolinguistic interview and two retell tasks. The English influence hypothesis is discarded since the results indicate that the imperfect progressive is slowly grammaticalizing as a past imperfective, which explains why it can be used with all verbs classes and to express habitual events. Pre-existing work in the field proposes that progressive constructions can develop as imperfective markers. This finding supports the present progressive hypothesis which states that it grammaticalizes from a locative to a progressive expression, and later develops a habitual meaning. Finally, it is possible that some cases of language variation and change are due to grammaticalization processes, language contact, or language contact induced grammaticalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the use of the reciprocal marker jeden – druhý in contemporary Czech. As I show in the introductory section, although bipartite quantifiers of this type are quite common means of expressing reciprocity across languages, the situation in Czech has not been devoted much attention so far. I thus analyze 1000 randomly selected attestations of the expression jeden – druhý from the SYN2020 corpus, focusing on both their semantic and formal features, including reciprocal/non-reciprocal meaning, type of reciprocity, preposition and case marking of the expression druhý, type of syntactic subject, complexity of the phrase containing jeden/druhý and linearization preferences; correlations between these features are also pointed out. Based on the results of the analysis, I then give a description of five different types of contexts in which jeden – druhý is used and I argue that these structural types can be thought of as successive stages of a grammaticalization process leading to the emergence of reciprocal uses and their gradual spread to new types of contexts; this process includes typical features of grammaticalization such as the decrease in semantic compositionality and morphosyntactic transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I address the evolution of the competition between two Latin patterns, habeo and mihi est, in Romanian. As opposed to the other Romance languages, which replace the mihi est pattern with habeo in possessor and experiencer contexts, Romanian maintains both Latin patterns. The general evolution of these patterns in the Romance languages is well known, however, a detailed usage-based account is currently lacking. Building on the theoretical findings on the role of functional competition in linguistic change, the rivalry between the two patterns in Romanian has already been argued to have settled in terms of differentiation, with each of the two forms specializing in different functional domains by Vangaever and Ilioaia in 2021 in their study "Specialisation through competition: habeo vs. mihi est from Latin to Romanian". With this idea as a starting point, I investigate, by means of a diachronic corpus study, whether the dynamics in the inventory of state nouns occurring in these constructions can affect their evolution and productivity. The preliminary results show that this is indeed the case. Concomitantly, I explore whether the historical changes that the two patterns have undergone over the centuries can be described in terms of grammaticalization, constructionalization, or in terms of constructional change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of German International Journal of Modern Science / Deutsche Internationale Zeitschrift für Zeitgenössische Wissenschaft is the property of Artmedia24 and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Espanola de Linguistica is the property of Sociedad Espanola de Linguistica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper I analyse the shifting usage of the Discourse Marker ἰδού in the Greek papyri corpora of epistolary nature dating from the 3rd c. BC to the 5th c. AD. My methodology is largely based on the account of grammaticalization as presented in Traugott and Dasher (2001), and pays particular attention to the questions of pragmatic inference, syntactic scope, modality and politeness. I claim that the distribution of usages we find in the papyri corpora can be understood as an outcome of development of ἰδού alongside several different paths: first from an exophoric deictic marker to an endophoric deictic marker, and then from a deictic marker to a marker of epistemic force and adversativity, an emphatic marker and a marker of reproach, and a politeness marker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyze, from a compositional perspective, the relevant features to construct the interpretation of immediate succession between a subordinate event and the event that takes place in the main sentence. Among all the components involved in the construction of the meaning of immediate succession, I focus particularly on the subordinators, which present a mosaic of variation in current Spanish. The key ideas that can be derived from the data analysis are the following. First: subordinators of immediate succession are the loci of variation of temporal subordinates. Second: a subordinator of immediate succession is a "linguistic variable" that can be syntactically materialized in different forms by applying general rules that do not change the meaning, although sometimes they do change the grammatical category. Third: in the diachronic evolution of Spanish, several patterns of internal structure have emerged for immediate succession subordinators. However, most of them have ceased to be productive, although some subordinators that were coined with these patterns have survived as fossils in the current language. Fourth: the only productive pattern in the present language can be reduced to the Adv (immediacy) + que scheme, which goes back to Late Latin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the contemporary grammaticalized uses of perdón ('sorry') in two varieties of Spanish, namely Mexican and Peninsular Spanish. Methodologically, the investigation is based on a taxonomy of offenses, organized around the concept of 'face' and based on spoken data of Spanish from Mexico and Spain. This taxonomy turns out to be a fruitful methodological tool for the analysis of apologetic markers: it does not only offer usage-based evidence for previous theorizing concerning the grammaticalization process of apologetic markers, but also leads to a refinement of these previous results from a contrastive point of view. Evidence from both corpora suggests a more advanced stage in the grammaticalization process of perdón in Mexican Spanish, where it can be used not only as a self-face-saving device geared towards the positive face of the speaker, but also in turn-taking contexts oriented towards the negative face of the interlocutor. Peninsular Spanish, on the other hand, resorts to a more varied gamut of apologetic markers in these contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the various uses of the Vietnamese morpheme quá which appears in excessive constructions. Unlike most other degree morphemes in Vietnamese, quá can precede or follow its gradable predicate, and we argue that these two different uses convey excess in very different ways: pre-predicate quá encodes purpose-oriented excessive truth conditions, whereas post-predicate quá is a comparative which projects a not-at-issue malefactive inference. We propose that the two constructions trace back to pre- and post-predicate 過 kua' in Middle Chinese, motivated by comparisons with cognate constructions in contemporary Chinese languages. We also describe two other uses of quá, as an intensifier with speaker commitment and as an exclamative marker, and explain how they developed from the excessives. This study thus offers an explanatory account of the various uses of this multifunctional expression and the relationships between them, grounded in the history of the language and in principles of semantic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]