Search

Studies in grammaticalization have established that processes of grammatical change frequently have lexical items as their source, and more specifically nouns and verbs. But there is at least one potential exception: As argued by Holger Diessel in a number of publications, demonstratives cannot be historically derived from other entities, such as lexical items. Based on a survey of languages from different parts of the world and belonging to different language families, the present paper argues that this generalization is in need of reconsideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some recent lines of research suggest that there are two different domains of discourse processing where one is concerned with the form and meaning of sentences and their parts and the other with the organization of discourse beyond the sentence and the relationship between linguistic material and the extra-linguistic situation of discourse. One important mechanism relating the two domains to one another is provided by cooptation, a cognitivecommunicative operation whereby pieces of discourse located in one domain are transferred to another domain. In the present paper, the nature of this operation is looked at in more detail based on the framework of Discourse Grammar (Kaltenböck et al. 2011, On thetical grammar. Studies in Language 35(4). 848-893; Heine et al. 2013, An outline of Discourse Grammar. In Shannon Bischoff & Carmen Jeny (eds.), Reflections on functionalism in linguistics, 175-233. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blocking, as traditionally defined, refers to a situation where the mere presence of a form or pattern in language preempts the application of another form or pattern. Recent studies on blocking, especially in derivational morphology, have provided many examples which seriously cast doubt on the assumed discreteness of the notion. Using data from sizeable corpora, this paper seeks to address this issue in inflectional morphology. Within that domain, it is illustrated that - throughout time - there may have been an alternation between competing morphological patterns. In particular, pluralization by suffixation and transfixation, may have alternated in assuming the role of a blocker. On the basis of frequency data of inflectional classes in New Persian, it is shown that whenever there is an increase in the usage of either of these two strategies, there is also a decrease in application of the other. This alternation follows a neat and systematic pattern strongly suggesting that transfixation and suffixation have relative blocking effects on each other. It can therefore be concluded that there is essentially no need for one form, or a number of forms, to be eliminated in favor of a more productive one. In fact, competing forms can co-exist, decline and flourish alternatively, and thrive for centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue addressed in the present study is contact-induced change involving the appearance of new linguistic structures for the expression of grammatical categories. The paper builds a case for the exisgence of a particular type of grammaticalization, areal grammaticalization, in a particular language contact area, the Bantu-Nilotic borderland in Eastern Africa. In this area it is possible to observe ‘loan translation’ on a large scale, which is not confined to lexical semantics; it relates to patterns that involve grammatical categories. My main concern is with two languages in the Bantu-Nilotic borderland area, Gusii (Bantu, Niger-Congo) and Nandi (Southern Nilotic, Nilo-Saharan). A particular emphasis is put on the domain of nominal classification in these languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the structure 'sit'/'stand'/'lie' + and + main verb, which has come to express the continuative/durative/progressive in Bulgarian as we//as in a number of other languages. It is argued that the auxiliation of 'sit'/'stand'/'lie' + and + main verb results as the "sedimentation'' (i.e. grammaticalization) of all-too-common usage of the bodily posture verbs in the languages in which we observe it. The main claims made are that i. the use of the posture-verb construction as an aspectual marker correlates with the use of the posture verbs as the UNMARKED/CANONICAL ENCODINGS OF SPATIAL POSITION OF OBJECTS,' ii. the tendency for a language to encode the spatial position of an entity in terms of the notions of' sitting, or standing, or lying elevates the corresponding verb structures to the status of basic, most common verb expressions and thus makes them appropriate source structures in auxiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]