Deconstructing grammaticalization
Section snippets
Overview
To a certain degree, the different research programs of different schools of linguistics have led their practitioners to investigate — and attempt to explain — a different set of natural language phenomena1
What is the ‘true nature’ of grammaticalization?
There are a variety of opinions in the literature on whether grammaticalization requires an inherent set of explanatory devices or is an epiphenomenal result of other principles. The following two sections outline these positions in turn (see Campbell et al., this issue).
The epiphenomenal nature of grammaticalization
This section is devoted to arguing for the correctness of the view that the historical changes observed in grammaticalization are the product of well understood forces (see also Campbell, and Janda, this issue). Grammaticalization, as I will argue, is nothing more than a label for the conjunction of certain types of independently occurring linguistic changes. I begin in Section 3.1 by showing that grammaticalization cannot sensibly be conceived of as a distinct process. Indeed, the very idea
On unidirectionality
This section probes further the question of the purported unidirectionality of the conjunction of effects associated with grammaticalization. In Section 4.1, I phrase the issue in such a way as to give unidirectionality the status of an empirical hypothesis. Section 4.2 makes the point that if grammaticalization were a distinct process, then unidirectionality would be expected as a natural consequence. The lengthy Section 4.3 provides numerous counterexamples to unidirectionality, while the
Two issues in grammaticalization research
In this section, I will address two prominent themes in functionalist-oriented research on grammaticalization, one methodological and one theoretical. The first involves the disturbing trend to use reconstructed forms as evidence, that is, to take reconstructions as ‘results’ that can be accorded the same methodological status as attested historical changes. The second is the hypothesis of a ‘panchronic grammar’, in which synchronic and diachronic statements find equal place.
Does grammaticalization refute generative grammar?
As noted above in Section 1, some grammaticalization researchers have expressed the opinion that the historical changes that constitute this phenomenon challenge the core ideas of generative grammar. Traugott and König (1991), as we have seen, point to an undermining of the langue–parole dichotomy and refutation of the idea that grammatical distinctions can be expressed categorially. The former conclusion is apparently drawn from the fact that many of the important diachronic changes associated
Conclusion
We have examined the associated set of diachronic changes that fall under the rubric of ‘grammaticalization’ and have found that no new theoretical mechanisms, nor mechanisms unique to grammaticalization itself, are needed to explain them. Far from calling for a ‘new theoretical paradigm’, grammaticalization appears to be no more than a cover term for a conjunction of familiar developments from different spheres of language, none of which require or entail any of the others.
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2017, Journal of PragmaticsCitation Excerpt :In the criticism, the basic tenets of so-called “grammaticalization theory” is questioned. As Newmeyer (2001: 188) puts it, “there is no such thing as grammaticalization, at least in so far as it might be regarded as a distinct grammatical phenomenon requiring a distinct set of principles for its explanation.” It is true that grammaticalization is a change among a series of changes that are not peculiar to grammaticalization.
The grammaticalization of evidentiality in English
2022, English Language and LinguisticsGrammaticalization as Conventionalization of Discursively Secondary Status: Deconstructing the Lexical–Grammatical Continuum
2023, Transactions of the Philological SocietyA Functional Discourse Grammar Theory of Grammaticalization Volume 1: Functional Change
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