On analogy as the motivation for grammaticalization

The number of phenomena which are gathered together under the term 'grammaticalization' is quite large and in some ways quite diverse. For the different types of grammaticalization similar motivating factors have been suggested, similar principles, clines and hierarchies. Some of Lehmann's (1982[1995], 1985) parameters, which have long been considered to characterize processes of grammaticalization, are now under attack from various quarters, and indeed the phenomenon of grammaticalization itself has been questioned as an independent mechanism in language change. This paper addresses a number of problems connected with the 'apparatus' used in grammaticalization and with the various types of grammaticalization currently distinguished. It will be argued that we get a better grip on what happens in processes of grammaticalization and lexicalization if the process is viewed in terms of an analogical, usage-based grammar, in which a distinction is made between processes taking place on a token-level and those taking place on a type-level. The model involves taking more notice of the form of linguistic signs and of the synchronic grammar system at each stage of the grammaticalization process

Morpheme Boundaries and Structural Change: Affixes Running Amok

Diachronic morphosyntacticians of all theoretical persuasions agree that there is a tendency for more lexical linguistic material to develop more functional characteristics over time, a process generally known as grammaticalization. While most previous work on grammaticalization has been conducted in surface-oriented functionalist frameworks, this dissertation aims to illuminate the deeper structural properties of a sub-set of these phenomena, diachronic affixation, as well as its much rarer opposite, de-affixation, a phenomenon in which previously bound material becomes a syntactically independent form. This approach differs from previous generative approaches to this problem in utilising a non-lexicalist, piece-based, syntactic approach to morphology, Distributed Morphology (DM), according to which both words and phrases are built by the same generative system. Besides providing a schematic typology for the structural properties of affix-genesis and highlighting the theoretical advantage of DM, this dissertation has four main theoretical points. First, it makes explicit predictions about the locus of newly affixed material. Second, it argues, that affix-exodus is no less natural a change than affix-genesis. Third, it explores the similarities between affix-exodus and two other varieties of linguistic change: morphological re-cuttings and the disintegration of complex heads. Finally, it demonstrates that similar phenomena can also occur within a word. This is predicted by a theoretical framework with the properties of DM specified above. In addition to its specific contribution to work on diachronic morphosyntax, this dissertation has implications for morphology, morphosyntax, and historical linguistics more broadly, and argues that no additional diachronic-specific component is needed in the grammar

Old English se: from demonstrative to article

Die vorliegende Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit dem altenglischen Demonstrativum se (seo - þæt) und dessen diachroner Entwicklung zum bestimmten Artikel the. Grundsätzlich wird die altenglische Nominalphrase und der Einfluß ihrer generellen, formalen Struktur auf die Emergenz des Artikels analysiert. Theoretisch ist die Frage nach der Entstehung des Artikels in eine breitere Diskussion der Themen ʽGradualness’, ʽGradience’, ʽGrammaticalization’ und ʽReanalysis’ eingebettet. Empirisch basiert die Dissertation auf einer großen qualitativen und quantitativen Korpusstudie früher altenglischer Prosatexte (syntaktisch annotierte Manuskripte im York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE)). Zur Analyse wurden weitgehend das CorpusSearch und das Antconc Programm benutzt. Die zwei Hauptfragen der Dissertation sind a) WANN der definite Artikel im Altenglischen auftritt und b) WARUM sich eine englische Grammatik etabliert, welche das obligate Markieren von definiter Referenz verlangt. Ein zentrales Ziel der Arbeit ist es, die definite Nominalphrase im Altenglischen näher zu beleuchten und klare testbare Kriterien für die Kategorie ‚Artikel’ zu erstellen. Es soll überprüft werden, ob diese Kriterien auch erfolgreich auf ältere Sprachstufen angewendet werden können. Im Laufe der Dissertation wird sichtbar, dass es kein leichtes Unterfangen ist, die Kategorie ‚definiter Artikel’ von anderen Kategorien wie dem ‚Demonstrativum’ im Altenglischen einwandfrei abzugrenzen. Dies ist eine Konsequenz der historisch gesehen graduellen Grammatikalisierung des Demonstrativums hin zum definiten Artikel. Um der möglichen Existenz des bestimmten Artikels im Altenglischen auf den Grund zu gehen, wird das semantische und syntaktische Verhalten des Demonstrativums an Hand von mehreren frühen Manuskripten, mit einem besonderen Fokus auf dem Peterborough und Parker Chronicle, analysiert. Grundsätzlich wird argumentiert, dass die Entwicklung des definiten Artikels von der vorangehenden Entwicklung eines so genannten, syntaktischen ‚determination slots’ abhängt. Dieser Slot ist innerhalb der NP formal fixiert und lexikalisch unterspezifiziert. Die Grammatikalisierung des Demonstrativums wird also hauptsächlich von der Grammatikalisierung einer größeren syntaktischen, lexikalisch nicht spezifizierten ‚construction’ (im Sinne der Konstruktionsgrammatik) vorrangetrieben. Das Demonstrativum grammatikalisiert in diesem Sinne nicht allein, sondern eingebettet in eine größere syntaktische Konstruktion (vgl. van de Velde 2010: 291; Trousdale & Traugott 2010: 12; Bybee 2003a,b, 2007; Traugott 2006; De Smet 2008). Die empirischen Studien weisen darauf hin, dass dieser determination slot bereits im frühen Altenglischen existiert. Weiters wird die Entwicklung des Artikels als sogenannter „form-driven change“ (Fischer 2007: 66) verstanden. Neben semantisch-pragmatischen Faktoren werden system interne Faktoren (z.B. strukturelle Vereinfachung als Prinzip der Ökonomie; vgl. Hawkins 2004) als Auslöser für die Grammatikalisierung gesehen. Grammatikalisierung wird zum Epiphänomen und basiert auf grundlegenderen Mechanismen. Einer dieser Mechanismen ist ‚analogical reasoning’ (formales Mustererkennen und deren Transfer) (vgl. Fischer 2007; De Smet 2010). Analogie wird als psychologisch reales Phänomen verstanden und nicht nur als deskriptiver Terminus. In der Dissertation wird Analogie als ‚rule generalization/ extension’ interpretiert, was wiederum Sprachwandel motivieren kann (vgl. Traugott & Trousdale 2010: 36; Fischer 2007). Obwohl die Entwicklung des Artikels definitiv ein multi-kausaler Prozess ist, wird argumentiert, dass hauptsächlich komplexe Analogie- und Frequenzeffekte für dessen Emergenz verantwortlich sind (vgl. Fischer 2007: 4, Hawkins 2004). Im Speziellen scheinen die hohe Frequenz von gewissen NP Mustern, der Einfluß von verwandten, nominalen Konstruktionen sowie psychologische Präferenzen im kognitiven ʽOn-line Processing’ für den Sprachwandel verantwortlich zu sein. Die Druckversion der Arbeit enthält eine MultimediabeilageContributing to the ongoing debate about the existence of a definite article in Old English, the present thesis discusses patterns of nominal determination in Old English and their influence on the phenomenon of the emergence of the category ‘article’. Specifically, a usage-based study of the Old English demonstrative se (seo - þæt) and its development into the definite article the is carried out. Theoretically, this study is embedded into a broader discussion of linguistic gradience, diachronic gradualness, grammaticalization and reanalysis. Empirically, it is based on a large quantitative and qualitative analysis of definite NP patterns in several early Old English prose texts in the The York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE)). For analysis, the CorpusSearch Program and AntConc were used. To shed some light on the causal mechanisms behind the given observable linguistic change ‒ from a grammar that has no definite article to a grammar that employs this functional category ‒, this study elaborates a possible WHEN and WHY. A central aim in this regard was to set up clear, testable criteria for ‘articlehood’ and to check if these criteria can be successfully applied to an older language stage. It is shown that demarcating the category ‘article’ from other categories like the ‘demonstrative’ is by no means a simple task. To answer the question of whether the article already existed in Old English, the semantic and syntactic behavior of the demonstrative pronoun is investigated thoroughly by analyzing a large data set with a special focus on the Peterborough and Parker Chronicle. It is argued that the article category developed due to the previous emergence of a positional, syntactic, lexically underspecified ‘determination slot’, which becomes functional itself. Thus, it is proposed that the change from demonstrative to definite article is a change driven by a “lexically underspecified [syntactic] construction” (van de Velde 2010: 291) – in other words, the grammaticalization of a schematic construction with a slot (Trousdale & Traugott 2010: 12; cf. De Smet 2008; Bybee 2003a,b 2007; Traugott 2006). The empirical evidence adduced suggests that this determination slot already existed in early Old English. Next to being influenced by semantic-pragmatic factors, the development of the definite article is conceptualized as a so-called “form-driven change” (Fischer 2007: 66), where mostly formal ‘system-internal’ factors (e.g. structural simplification as a principle of economy) are responsible for the grammaticalization of the demonstrative (cf. Hawkins 2004). It is demonstrated that the grammaticalization of the schematic construction was mostly triggered by analogical reasoning (formal pattern recognition and transfer) (cf. Fischer 2007; De Smet 2010). Grammaticalization is seen as an epiphenomenal result and a notion which should be split up “into more fundamental mechanisms […] including (among others) analogy” (De Smet 2009: 1730). Analogy is treated as a “psychologically real phenomenon which has causal efficiency both in language as in culture” and is not simply a “descriptive device” (Itkonen 2005: xii). Analogy is thus conceptualized in a wider sense as ‘rule generalization/ extension’ at a higher meta-linguistic level (Traugott & Trousdale 2010: 36; Fischer 2007). Although the development of the article category is definitely a multi-causal phenomenon, this study suggests that complex analogy and frequency effects are the main driving forces behind the observable linguistic change (Fischer 2007: 4). The frequency of linguistic surface forms (i.e. concrete tokens), the influence of taxonomically related constructions, and preferences in cognitive on-line processing are in particular seen as reasons for the diachronic development. The print version contains a CD-RO

-ish / Ish: Aspects of a suffix turned free morpheme

The topic of the dissertation is the Germanic morpheme -ish / Ish, which forms adjectives and attaches to a variety of base words in its bound form (-ish). Recently, it has detached from host words, now also occurring as a free morpheme (Ish). The suffix is a cognate to German -isch and is recorded in the English language since Old English. These three aspects of -ish / Ish motivate a tripartite distinction of the thesis which investigates them with respect to the following questions: 1)How did the suffix -ish develop historically and how has its semantics changed to account for its present-day polysemy? 2a.) How has it developed into a free morpheme Ish and how can that development be described? 2b.) What is the status of the independent morpheme? 3a) Which position does the suffix take in a cohort of other adjective-forming English suffixes, and in which respects to the German counterparts of these suffixes differ? Can they be described as rivals? These questions guide the three parts of the thesis and they are based on several basic hypotheses. First, in early work suffixes have been analysed with respect to their function of transposition into other word classes, but recent work has recognised their semantic contribution to their base words. In order to show that suffixes have meaning, a lexical-semantic analysis is conducted which bases the development of the suffix with different bases on a diachronic corpus analysis. The analysis shows how the suffix gradually develops meaning components which explains its present-day polysemy. In doing so, a novel lexical-semantic feature is proposed, which serves to complement and extend work by Lieber (2004, 2007, 2016b). Second, the development of the free morpheme is shown to be gradual by classifying its properties on the basis of a corpus analysis. It has been described in the literature with respect to two opposing processes, grammaticalisation and degrammaticalisation and the present investigation points to the latter. Connected to the process is the question of their status and grammaticalisation is frequently considered the process of emergence of discourse markers. Their properties and functions are contrasted with the comparable elements of hedges and the identified properties of Ish align it more convincingly with the latter. Third, similar adjective-forming suffixes are frequently described as rivals which are in competition with each other and which share a common meaning. I show that the previously identified lexicalsemantic feature can also be felicitously applied to the English and German comparative suffixes, which highlights their subtle meaning differences and which identifies semantic niches for each, despite some overlap. A comparative corpus analysis sheds light on their respective frequencies and distribution

La gramaticalización de los tiempos compuestos en español antiguo: cinco cambios diacrónicos

Tesis doctoral inédita. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Departamento de Filología Española. Fecha de lectura: 10-06-201