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This article confronts a multifunctional grammaticalized form in Mandarin, the preverbal morpheme yǒu (有). Since its appearance in the Chinese mainland around the 1990s, there has been controversy about whether it is an aspect marker or not. In response to this question, we conducted a questionnaire survey to investigate how native Mandarin speakers generally understand sentences with preverbal yǒu. The results not only show that preverbal yǒu can serve as a perfective viewpoint marker that makes the terminal boundary of an event semantically visible, but also provide evidence of its other function as an existential marker. The concrete function of preverbal yǒu (perfective or existential) depends on pragmatic inference based on the temporal properties of a given situation. With this observation, the paper resolves the controversy of which of these two functions actually applies to preverbal yǒu, and integrates this marker into the broader context of pragmatics-based multifunctionality as it is widely found in Sinitic and mainland Southeast Asian languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the common grammaticalization path of the LIKE/LOVE constructions into expressing habitual aspect in Mainland East and Southeast Asian languages. The stages and degrees of grammaticalization for the LIKE/LOVE constructions vary cross-linguistically and different stages of evolution co-exist in one and the same language. Based on the synchronic data from a sample of six national languages in that region, it is found that the grammaticalization process in Chinese, Thai, and Lao is advanced while the process in Vietnamese, Khmer, and Burmese is incipient. At the initial stage of their grammaticalization, there are three context-induced intermediate steps of development before the constructions in question are compatible with inanimate subject referents and the habitual meaning becomes the only possible interpretation. At the later stage, languages vary in their combinability with stative verbs and in their possibility of occurring in future temporal context. The common human experience that if one likes/loves doing something, one tends to do it frequently renders it highly unlikely that this grammaticalization pattern is an areal feature confined to Mainland East and Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lexicalization of perception verbs has been of widespread interest as a route into understanding the relationship between language and cognition. A recent study finds global biases in colexification patterns, suggesting recurrent conceptual associations between sensory meanings across languages. In this paper, drawing on a balanced sample of 100 languages, we examine cross-modal semantic associations in word formation. Confirming earlier proposals, we find derived verbs are lower on a proposed Sense Modality Hierarchy (sight > hearing > touch > taste, smell) than the source perception verbs on which they are based. We propose these findings can be explained by verb frequency asymmetries and the general tendency for sources of derivations to be more frequent than their targets. Moreover, it appears certain pairings (e.g., hear–smell) are recurrently associated via word formation, but others are typologically rare. Intriguingly, the typological patterning partially diverges from the patterning reported for colexification in the same domain. We suggest that while colexification is driven by conceptual resemblance between sensory meanings, cross-modal word formations tend to arise from grammaticalization processes of lexical specification, where additional material (e.g., a sensory noun) is collocated to a polysemous verb in order to disambiguate it in context. Together, these processes can account for the typological similarities and divergences between the two phenomena. More generally, this study highlights the need to consider conceptual, communicative and diachronic factors together in the mapping between words and meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 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]

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]

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.

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.

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.

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 VERB tak), 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.

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]

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]

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]

In this paper, I revisit the continued debate surrounding manner of grammatical innovation, i.e. whether it is abrupt or gradual. I show that the debate is complicated by different diagnostics for manner and argue that it is best understood in terms of degree of similarity (how similar the innovative use is to existing uses of a construction). However, even when adopting degree of similarity as a diagnostic, approaches differ with regards to how similar they find innovative and existing uses. The gradualness account argues that innovative uses are similar but distinct from existing uses, as they imply a new form-meaning pairing. A seamlessness account instead argues that innovative and existing uses are so similar that no new form-meaning pairing is required. I develop seamlessness into a theoretical position for semantic innovation in grammaticalization, which holds that grammatical innovations are maximally similar to existing uses i.e. they exhibit considerable conceptual overlap and the existing use is semantically underspecified. Seamlessness is empirically tested using semantic innovations in be going to as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that indexation markers (i.e., argument-indexing agreement markers and/or pronouns) show a wider range of formal mismatches across languages than the exponents of other inflectional categories. These mismatches are defined in terms of mixed behavior with respect to different criteria of wordhood. The mismatches that the indexation markers (or “indexes”) show include extrametricality with respect to reduplication and “mobility” in that they can occur in different slots of otherwise identical word forms. Other indexes can freely occur on either member of a phrase-level construction or behave like full-fledged affixes in one context but like full-fledged words in another. The claim that the range of these traits is extraordinary is based on a larger project, (Zingler, Tim. 2020. Wordhood issues: Typology and grammaticalization. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico PhD dissertation), which in addition to indexes investigates mismatches among case, definiteness, and tense markers. The explanations offered for this behavior primarily rely on the manner in which reference is established in discourse and on the different diachronic pathways for which these usage patterns pave the way. Another major conclusion is that the indexes described here constitute a formally heterogeneous set that cannot be easily subsumed under the label of “clitics.”

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This paper is the first survey of verbal affixes encoding the day period ('at night','in the morning' etc.) or the yearly seasons ('in winter' etc.) when the action takes place. It introduces the term 'periodic tense' to refer to this comparative concept, explores the attested paradigms, their interactions with other verbal categories (including the more usual deictic tense), and investigates their diachronic origins. It shows that periodic tense markers are not restricted to incorporated nouns of time period but constitute a highly grammaticalized verbal category in some languages, which can redundantly co-occur with free adverbs or nouns indicating time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the evolution of grammaticalized evidentiality in the Moldavian dialect of Hungarian. It documents how the suffix -a/e, originally the marker of narrative past, became a rare, elevated marker of past tense highlighting significant past events; how it assumed a mirative overtone; and how the features ʻwitnessedʼ and ʻimmediate pastʼ, often present in mirative utterances, became inherent parts of its meaning. This grammaticalization path has resulted in an evidential system with typologically unique features. It is a two-term system based on the opposition of direct evidentiality and no evidentiality – violating the alleged universal that if a language has grammaticalized direct evidentiality, it has also grammaticalized indirect evidentiality. Mirative meaning is expressed by the same -a/e suffix that also encodes direct evidentiality – whereas it is claimed to be the extension of inferred evidentiality elsewhere. The unique properties of Moldavian Hungarian evidentiality are derived from the historical evolution of the -a/e suffix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studies in Hispanic & Lusophone Linguistics is the property of De Gruyter 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 provides data from a regional dialect of Persian, Hamedanian Persian, where a verb is grammaticalized to be used as epistemic modality marker, frequently used in interrogatives. The verb didan, objectively means 'to see', but subjectivized in many instances to mean 'understand'. However, in this dialect, bini, originally the subjunctive second person singular form of the verb didan 'to see', is used as epistemic marker. It is used in content and polar questions, where uncertainty is a common feature. Our fieldwork data show that the verb didan is used rarely to mean 'to see' and it extended to mark epistemic modality, used as probability marker. This modal marker is only used in questions, which share the stance of uncertainty with epistemic markers. The various features of this grammaticalization path are discussed and an explanation based on egophoricity is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Typological studies have repeatedly expressed doubt about the possibility of relative clause markers grammaticalizing from possessive markers. At the same time, cross-linguistic studies of attribution have provided substantial evidence for markers of adjectival attribution deriving from possessive markers. Given that simple adjectival attributive constructions are accepted to expand readily into relative clause constructions, there is an apparent discordance in the typological literature on the diachronic sources of their markers. Using data from the Timor-Alor-Pantar languages of south-eastern Wallacea, the present article argues that the link between possessive and relative clause markers, by way of an adjectival attributive marker, should also be uncontroversial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the documentation, typology and diachrony of a single inflectional paradigm expressing inalienable attributive possession in Roon, a language of the South Halmahera West New Guinea subgroup of Austronesian. The paradigm in question exhibits a substantial amount of variation both within and across speakers. Formally, the paradigm is exceptional in that, in some of its variants, it makes use of an H toneme, the only attested usage of tonality in the entire language. Functionally, the paradigm is remarkable in that, in some of its variants, the possessor is distinguished not for person but rather for distal deixis. Historically, the H toneme forming part of the paradigm is argued to derive from the grammaticalization of a High Extended Intonation contour expressing excessivity along a scalar dimension, characteristic of many languages of New Guinea and Australia. In some languages of North West New Guinea, this intonation contour anchors to certain particles, resulting in ideophones such as the Papuan Malay eeeH. One such ideophone, it is suggested, was subsequently incorporated into the expression of inalienable attributive possession in Roon. The proposed analysis thus provides a case study of how intonation may develop into tone, and, more generally, how gesture may be incorporated into grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More recently, grammaticalization theorists have become increasingly aware of the role of collocations in grammatical development. One of these roles is to define phonetic reductions and fusion in frequent collocations as constructionalization. Based on frequency of occurrences, the present study explores the implications of high-frequency collocations in Turkish Sign Language for grammaticalization and offers a novel account of constructional change of değİl 'not' on usage-based grounds. Specifically, the study suggests that (i) the chunking process is not language-specific within the spoken modality, as noted previously in the literature, (ii) the frequency of collocations is strongly correlated with phonetic reduction and duration, (iii) the fusional characteristics of [sign + değİl] collocations can be classified under four reduced constructional schemas, (iv) the monosyllabicity of a scheme appears to be criterion for it to be productive in signed modality and (v) the semantic changes of frequent [sign + değİl] collocations are related to the notion of subjectification in TİD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Jahrbuch für Germanistische Sprachgeschicht is the property of De Gruyter 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.)

Much of the typological research on the middle voice has so far largely focused on the cross-linguistic definition and status of the middle as a voice category and its relationship to other voice operations such as reflexives and passives. Diachronic research on the middle, especially in a cross-linguistic perspective, remains to these days comparatively marginal. Overall, the existing studies have argued that middle markers generally originate from reflexive markers, and that the reflexive > middle diachronic path is unidirectional. This special issue collects a number of papers that address the diachrony of middle markers cross-linguistically, with the goal of either contributing to refine our understanding of already known diachronic pathways leading to middle markers or challenging assumptions on their possible historical sources (which go well beyond reflexives only) and the purported unidirectionality in their development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In German (and Dutch), main clauses and dependent clauses differ clearly with respect to form. Main clauses are always V2 and autonomous (with speech act status) while dependent ones are verb-final/VL (V-last) and nonautonomous (without speech act status). This paper is about autonomous clauses with the form of dependent clauses (i.e. VL-form, also captured in the literature under the term insubordinate subordination, coined by Evans, Nicholas. 2007. Insubordination and its uses. In Irina Nikolaeva (ed.), Finiteness: Theoretical and empirical foundations, 366–431. Oxford: Oxford University Press). In the recent literature, it has been argued that in order to explain the occurrence of autonomous dependent clauses in the historical development of German, the introducing main clause fell elliptically leaving behind a dependent form with autonomous status. The present paper argues that this account is false. Dependent forms can exist independently. Since speech act autonomy of dependent forms exists with certain (albeit not all) complementizers, a special account is provided. It is argued that this development typical of modern German, matches with the tendency toward an illocutionary semantics in its own right. Parallels for the latter path of grammaticalization are drawn from several languages other than German. The importance of the concerns for modern generative grammar is a twofold one: first, it provides insights into how independent (autonomous), but formally dependent sentences divide into several kinds of modality that are expressed in the left sentential periphery; and, second, it shows in which ways speaker-perspective is grammaticalized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I investigate the diachronic path of the Portuguese verb achar 'to find/consider', from a main propositional verb (in the sense of Traugott 1989), in earlier stages of the language, to a verb with epistemic reading, which is the default interpretation in Contemporary European Portuguese (CEP). Based on a sample corpus of texts comprehended between the 13th and the 17th century, I have concluded that the epistemic reading of achar was incipient until the 16th century, despite the existence of a few examples in the 13th century. This grammaticalization process seems to be recent in the language since epistemic readings remain infrequent until the 17th century and I did not find parenthetical uses in the corpus. Nevertheless, data under analysis allowed me to identify two possible syntactic contexts that may have favoured the semantic change: complement clauses and transitive-predicative constructions. The evolution of achar 'to find/consider' seems to follow the pattern of semantic change proposed by Traugott (1989) and Traugott/Dasher (2002) under the notion of subjectification, with achar starting with an objective meaning and later acquiring an epistemic reading, following the assumption that meanings tend to become centered in the subjective belief or attitude of the speaker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers new insights into the marking of (in)definiteness by Polish-German bilinguals. In contrast to monolinguals, some bilinguals speaking Polish use the demonstrative ten and the numeral jeden in contexts that are restricted to articles only. Both the distance that the speaker's variety of Polish is from the norm to which they were exposed and pattern replication seem to play an important role in this context. For the analysis, a corpus was created from nine transcripts of interviews (2,253 word types and 10,311 word tokens) with Polish-German bilinguals recorded in 2006 and 2010 by using the AntConc toolkit. The findings indicate that bilingual speakers follow the pathways of grammaticalization from a demonstrative to a definite article and from a numeral to an indefinite article that have been established in cross-linguistic work: demonstratives and the numeral 'one' are common sources of grammaticalization. Therefore, I suggest that these structural changes can be explained as resulting from contact-induced grammaticalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview, based on field data, of the adpositional system in Akebu, a Kwa (Ghana-Togo Mountain) language of West Africa. Like other Kwa languages, Akebu has both linear types of adpositions. Prepositions are not numerous and are fully grammaticalized. Two prepositions are used very widely, one of them expressing a comitative meaning and a number of related ones, the other having a generalized locative meaning, as well as other ones. In contrast, postpositions are more numerous, but most of them are weakly grammaticalized relator nouns that express the meanings of locational orientations and keep nominal morphology and independent uses. Still, grammaticalized postpositions are also present, the most common of them being a postposition that expresses apudessive, i.e. near, next to, orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores a typologically unusual but recurrent evolutionary path of innovated future formations neglected by typological research: the change of predicative deverbal nouns (understood here in the broad sense of any deverbal nominal expression/formation) – namely agent nouns and participles – denoting actions typical of referents to future verb-forms via hypoanalysis. Starting with an overview of typologically recurrent ways of creating new future formations, the article seeks to demonstrate that the l-future found in the three Nuristani languages Nuristani Kalasha, Ashkun and Katë developed from active participles designating actions typical of their referents. As a typological parallel of this development the Vedic Sanskrit tā́-future is established, and it is shown by the example of the English will + infinitive future and the futurate use of Russian perfective non-past verb-forms how the change of predicative deverbal nouns denoting actions typical of referents to future verb-forms is brought about by means of hypoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore the function and linguistic status of non-central members of the class of “degree words,” focusing on specific cases in English and Spanish, namely, the English adverbs way and proper, the Spanish trendy phrase “Adj no, lo siguiente” and the adverb muy. These intensifiers will be explored in the light of the architecture of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), specifically in relation to the levels of linguistic representation that are distinguished in this theory, mainly the Interpersonal (or pragmatic) Level (IL) and the Representational (or semantic) Level (RL) and in terms of FDG’s distinction between lexical and grammatical units. It will be shown that the various functional properties of these expressions can be easily accommodated in this theory. As intensifying devices, these expressions are represented as units specifying the Lexical Property at the RL. In addition, some of these expressions can be used with an emphatic function, pertaining to the set of pragmatic distinctions that are represented at the IL.

This article discusses the diachronic development and the different uses of the reportative word dizque (diachronically based on diz que ‘she/he/it says that’) using data from Colombian and Mexican Spanish. The study presents a predominantly qualitative analysis of diachronic, twentieth- and twenty-first-century written data. The theoretical framework applied in this article is Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), which is particularly useful in this context as it distinguishes between the interpersonal and representational functions of language. The main points made are: (i) dizque is an adverb that arose from a process of lexicalization rather than grammaticalization; (ii) in most of its uses, dizque has an interpersonal function in the sense that the Speaker instructs the Addressee that she/he is not the source of the information provided; (iii) by means of diachronic, dialectal, and typological data, it is shown that the scope of dizque is gradually decreasing; (iv) the only scope decrease that leads to a functional change of dizque is its application outside the context of speech-reports. FDG serves to account for each step in the scope decrease of dizque by means of its hierarchical approach to the actional and descriptive functions of verbal interaction.

This study traces the relationship between two erstwhile separate linguistic elements, just and so, within the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). In keeping with FDG’s form-oriented function-to-form approach, the study proceeds semasiologically by, first, examining the uses of relatively independent forms (i.e. the focus particle just modifying so as a degree word and a manner proform), then turning to more tightly-knit structures (i.e. just so as a subordinator of purpose and condition), and finally, looking at the fixed expression just so used as a part of a pragmatic marker. Using data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the Corpus of Historical American English, we argue that the different meanings of just so raise a number of issues related to the analysis of modification in FDG, namely the status and function of the modifier just in the constructions under discussion and the concomitant representation of so. Furthermore, the analysis shows that FDG can model very precisely the interplay of semantic and pragmatic information in the stages when just so is still compositional, with just providing interpersonal (i.e. pragmatic) and so representational (i.e. semantic) information, as well as its development into the non-compositional and purely pragmatic discourse marker just so you know.

This article scrutinizes the use of two competing Russian prepositions, tipa and vrode ‘like, such as’, in online student discourse. Both are associated with the crosslinguistically attested grammaticalization of taxonomic nouns, with tipa having derived from the noun tip ‘type’ and vrode from the noun rod ‘kind’. A prior study contemporary to the fairly recent grammaticalization of tipa forecasted a substitution scenario for the two competing forms. Forty years later, the present article shows that in the current discourse of younger speakers (i) there is indeed a selectional bias in favor of the prepositional tipa (which does not extend to the items’ particle uses) and (ii) the two prepositions demonstrate a high degree of attraction. However, this article also provides quantitative evidence that suggests the presence of a counterforce – subjectification. The selection is modeled on the basis of the items’ functions, realizations of the right- and left-side slots, the speaker’s gender, their evaluative attitude to the referent of the construction, and the perceived casualness of the discourse situation proxied by neutral or markedly informal expression styles.

One of the structures denoting the future in Sanskrit is the so-called -tā́-future, based on an agent noun and a present tense copula. Typologically, this grammaticalization path is unique. In this paper, this astonishing fact is tied to another unique feature of hysterotone -tŕ̥-nouns, their situative semantics, which forces a presupposition relating the event depicted by the noun to another event taken from the context. In ambiguous contexts, this relation could be (re-)interpreted by hearers as one between the event and the speech act itself. The grammaticalization, then, is hearer-based and triggered by semantic reanalysis. The process is essentially identical to phonemicization. The scenario developed in this paper thus further strengthens the position that grammaticalization is ontologically not distinct from other types of language change based on speaker–hearer interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The linguistic properties of the three most common verbs of posture, which express positions, such as zuò 'sit', zhàn 'stand', tǎng 'lie' have been thoroughly studied in a wide range of languages belonging to typologically different language families, but they have never been extensively investigated in Chinese. Our article traces the diachrony of these verbs from the Archaic Chinese period (5th - 2nd centuries BCE, corresponding to the Classical Chinese by excellence) to the present-day Chinese, showing that they have very rarely been grammaticalized into aspect markers, as has been the case in other languages. We also examine the semantic distinction between the expression of a dynamic vs. static action, as well as the syntactic behavior of these positional verbs. We finally discuss their links with locative / existential verbs from the Early Medieval Chinese onwards (3rd c. CE) and the grammaticalization path that has been hypothesized according to which the posture verbs have been first reanalyzed into locative/existential verbs before being grammaticalized into aspectual markers will be tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article follows the early grammaticalization path of a durative adverb to an aspect marker for a range of aspectual uses including durative, focalized, and habitual. In a usage-based approach, we investigate the behavior of hamē(w) in a Middle Persian database with respect to several grammatical variables, and we check its developmental path against the model proposed for the Romance languages by Bertinetto, Ebert and de Groot, aiming to uncover the amount of similarities/differences between those Romance languages and Persian. The results show that the lexical origin of the structure investigated locates Middle Persian in stage (iii) of the model, and the development documented deviates from the rest of the model in various respects. Furthermore, the usual priority of past tense in progressive developments is not observed: the adverb is originally present-oriented, but past tense usage increases as the grammaticalization proceeds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Slavic and Baltic show a curious way of overt definiteness marking by means of a specific type of adjective inflection. It arose when the adjective merged with a definiteness marker of pronominal origin. This paper aims at a comprehensive explanation of the rise of the definite adjective morphology in the former branch. First of all, it is argued that contrary to what has been claimed, there is no need to posit loss of trapped morphology to plausibly account for the definite adjective inflection. It can be explained by a series of well-established processes, i.e., sound change, reanalysis, and analogy. An interplay of these processes led to an increase in the phonological fusion of the adjective and the definiteness marker and ultimately resulted in their merger. In discussing the involved changes and in identifying factors that may have motivated them, the paper contributes to the general study of how new inflectional morphology emerges from the coalescence of two formerly independent elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and compares the strategies used in Arabic dialects to encode the progressive aspect, in order to show their similarities and what sets them apart from one another, as well as to situate them within cross-linguistic tendencies. Drawing on a wide variety of data, the paper shows the different ways the progressive aspect was (or is being) grammaticalized in Arabic dialects in light of the typologically common paths of grammaticalization. These paths involve for some dialects the reorganization of their aspectual categories, and thus provide an interesting perspective to look at the evolution of aspectual systems in Arabic varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every language has at least two demonstratives or deictic terms, a proximal one and a distal one, and some languages in addition have a medial (or some other additional) demonstrative. Demonstratives exhibit a variety of grammatical and pragmatic functions, and they also serve as major sources for the development of various important grammatical devices, such as copulas, relativizers, definite articles, and complementizers. However, lexical sources for demonstratives remain largely unknown, as do the mechanisms leading to their emergence. Based on a database of more than 1000 subdialects of Chinese, this article demonstrates that the distal demonstratives in these subdialects are phonologically derived from their corresponding proximal demonstratives, which were themselves grammaticalized from classifiers in Late Medieval Chinese. This finding identifies a new type of mechanism leading to the emergence of grammatical items: within a pair of two closely related grammatical elements, the basic and unmarked member originates from a lexical source, and gives rise to the other member through certain phonological principles. The domain of demonstratives thus illustrates how processes of grammaticalization and phonological derivation can interact giving rise to the emergence of new grammatical forms.

This study explores fuzzy boundaries, or weak cesuras, in the particle combination OH + OKAY as used in informing sequences in ordinary English talk-in-interaction. The focus is on the third position in such sequences, where OH + OKAY responds to information that has been solicited by the speaker in a prior turn. Based on a collection of approximately 45 instances of OH + OKAY in recent American English telephone and face-to-face interactions, this study adopts the methodology of Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics to examine the prosody and phonetics of OH + OKAY as a feature of turn design. It asks: (i) when does the speaker use a combination of OH and OKAY in the third position rather than a simple OH or OKAY? and (ii) to what extent does the prosodic–phonetic delivery of OH + OKAY contribute to an interpretation of what the turn is doing? The study finds that (i) OH + OKAY is used when responding to a solicited informing that not only supplies information but also accomplishes another action with consequences for the recipient and (ii) if OH + OKAY is delivered with a strong cesura between its parts, its actions are distributed in separate turn-constructional units, creating a multi-unit turn that proposes sequence closure. If the cesura in OH + OKAY is weak, the component parts are fused into a compound particle that can preface more talk by the same speaker. Weak boundaries between OH and OKAY can be exploited by participants for the purposes of turn construction and epistemic positioning.

This typological study based on data from a parallel text corpus is a two-step investigation of selectives ("topic markers"). First, a set of selectives in 81 languages from all continents is compiled on the basis of their occurrence with emphatic personal pronouns in contrast constructions. In a second step, it is explored how this set of markers is used across 19 subordinate clause domains. The results indicate that, despite much crosslinguistic diversity, the distribution of selectives across subordinate clauses is strongly constrained. Selectives in subordinate clauses are distributed following a tendency scale (no strict hierarchy, but no blatant exceptions): general relative clauses rank highest followed by conditional and temporal clauses with concessive and purpose clauses ranking lowest. No postposed subordinate clauses attract selectives. It is further found that selectives tend to occur at the end of the constituent which they have scope over where there is minimal risk of scope ambiguity. Despite the frequent occurrence of selectives on conditional clauses, selectives tend not to be conditional connectives unless this happens to be their grammaticalization source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that I en plan i has undergone a bidirectional process of subjectification, first moving from more concrete meanings - as in (1) - towards the grammar through a process of grammaticalization, and away from the grammar and towards discourse through a process of discursivization - as in (2) - (cf. [33]; [45]). 2.2 Grammar, Discourse and Meaning This work puts forward the idea that I en plan i has undergone a bidirectional change, first towards the grammar through a grammaticalization process, and then towards discourse through a process of discursivization. When Planning Means No Plan: Bidirectional Subjectification in Peninsular Spanish en plan- From Adverbial Phrase to Discourse Marker Functions Keywords: grammaticalization; discursivization; subjectification; discourse marker; Peninsular Spanish EN grammaticalization discursivization subjectification discourse marker Peninsular Spanish 255 290 36 09/06/22 20220901 NES 220901 1 Introduction The present study analyzes the evolution of Spanish I en plan i "in plan" from its origin in the 13th century to the present. It is worth to notice the way this study documents the variability of the structure, which is found to alternate between I en plan i , I en plan de i and I en plan de que i , before gaining ground to its final way as a more fixed structure under the form I en plan i at the discourse level. [Extracted from the article]

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