Cover not available
Part of
On Multiple Source Constructions in Language Change
Edited by Hendrik De Smet, Lobke Ghesquière and Freek Van de Velde
[Benjamins Current Topics 79] 2015
► pp. 43–61

An inquiry into unidirectionality as a foundational element of grammaticalization

On the role played by analogy and the synchronic grammar system in processes of language change

| University of Amsterdam | ACLC

This paper assumes that in order to explain rather than describe language change, historical linguists should not only consider what happens diachronically at the language output level but also, crucially, what speaker-listeners do at the processing level. The reason for this is that the structure of the language is shaped by the properties of the neurolinguistic mechanism underlying both language use and language learning. It will be argued that analogy as an important principle in grammar formation is the main mechanism in grammaticalization and in change in general when looked at from a processing point of view. The paper discusses the workings of analogy in a number of cases in the history of English which have traditionally been interpreted as unidirectional cases of grammaticalization . It will be shown instead that multiple source constructions were involved, which influenced one another and thus gave direction to the change.

Keywords: analogy, epistemic modals, grammaticalization, language processing, pragmatic markers, processing errors, syntactic change, unidirectionality
Published online: 25 November 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.79.03fis
References
Aitchison, Joan
2001 Language change. Progress or decay? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Berg, Thomas
1998 Linguistic structure and change: An explanation from language processing. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bod, Rens
2009 From exemplar to grammar: A probabilistic analogy-based model of language learning. Cognitive Science 33. 752–793. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Borensztajn, Gideon, Willem Zuidema & Rens Bod
2009 Children’s grammars grow more abstract with age — Evidence from an automatic procedure for identifying the productive units of language. Topics in Cognitive Science 1. 175–188. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boye, Kasper & Peter Harder
2012 A usage-based theory of grammatical status and grammaticalization. Language 88. 1–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J
1988 The development of English aspectual systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. & William Pagliuca
1985 Cross-linguistic comparison and the development of grammatical meaning. In Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Historical semantics, historical word formation, 59–83. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L., Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca
1994 The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chapman, Don & Royal Skousen
2005 Analogical modeling and morphological change: The case of the adjectival negative prefix in English. English Language and Linguistics 9. 333–357. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coates, Richard
1987 Pragmatic sources of analogical reformation. Journal of Linguistics 23.319–340. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, William
2000 Explaining language change. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Cutting, J. Cooper & Kathryn Bock
1997 That’s the way the cookie bounces: Syntactic and semantic components of experimentally elicited idiom blends. Memory & Cognition 25. 57–71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deacon, Terrence W
1997 The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
De Smet, Hendrik
2012 The course of actualization. Language 88. 601–633. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diewald, Gabriele
2011 Grammaticalization and pragmaticalization. In Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine (eds.), The Oxford handbook of grammaticalization, 450–461. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Faarlund, Jan Terje
1990 Syntactic change: Towards a theory of historical syntax. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fischer, Olga
1989 The origin and spread of the accusative and infinitive construction in English. Folia Linguistica Historica 8. 143–217.Google Scholar
1996 The status of to in old English to-infinitives: A reply to Kageyama. Lingua 99. 107–133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997 The grammaticalisation of infinitival to in English compared with German and Dutch. In Raymond Hickey & Stanislaw Puppel (eds.), Language history and linguistic modelling. A Festschrift for Jacek Fisiak on his 60th birthday, 265–280. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Morphosyntactic change. Functional and formal perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fischer, Olga, Ans van Kemenade, Willem Koopman & Willem van der Wurff
2000 The syntax of Early English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gaeta, Livio
2007 Is analogy economic? In Fabio Montermini, Gilles Boyé & Nabil Hathout (eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 5th Décembrettes: Morphology in Toulouse. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, available online at [URL]Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E
1995 Constructions: A Construction Grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin
1989 From purposive to infinitive — a universal path of grammaticization. Folia Linguistica Historica 10. 287–310.Google Scholar
Hawkins, John. A
2004 Efficiency and complexity in grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd
1994 Grammaticalization as an explanatory parameter. In William Pagliuca (ed.), Perspectives on grammaticalization, 255–288. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi & Friederike Hünnemeyer
1991 From cognition to grammar — Evidence from African languages. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds.), Grammaticalization, vol. 1, 149–187. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott
2003 Grammaticalization, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Itkonen, Esa
2005 Analogy as structure and process. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Itkonen, Esa & Jussi Haukioja
1997 A rehabilitation of analogy in syntax (and elsewhere). In András Kertész (ed.), Metalinguistik im Wandel. Die ‘kognitive Wende’ in Wissenschaftstheorie und Linguistik, 131–177. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul
1968 Lingusitic universals and linguistic change. In Emmon Bach & Robert T. Harms (eds.), Universals in linguistioc theory, 170–202. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
1974 Remarks on analogical change. In John M. Anderson & Charles Jones (eds.), Historical Linguistics, vol. I, 257–275. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Christian
1995 [1982] Thoughts on grammaticalization. Munich: Lincom Europa (first published in the series Arbeiten des Kölner Universalien-Projektes 48, University of Cologne).Google Scholar
Malkiel, Yakov
1993 Etymology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mithun, Marianne
1991 The role of motivation in the emergence of grammatical categories: The grammaticization of subjects. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds.), Grammaticalization, vol. 1, 159–184. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nicolle, Steve
2011 Pragmatic aspects of grammaticalization. In Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine (eds.), The Oxford handbook of grammaticalization, 401–412. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Noël, Dirk
2005 The productivity of a “source of information” construction: Or, where grammaticalization theory and construction grammar meet. Paper presented at the Fitigra Conference , Leuven, Belgium, February 2005.
Plank, Frans
1985 Prädikativ und Koprädikativ. Zeitschrift für germanische Linguistik 13. 154–185.Google Scholar
de Saussure, Ferdinand
1922 [1983] Cours de linguistique générale. Publié par Charles Bally et Albert Sechehaye, avec la collaboration de Albert Riedlinger. Paris: Payot [translation by Roy Harris. London: Duckworth].Google Scholar
Skousen, Royal
1989 Analogical modeling of language. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
1992 Analogy and structure. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slobin, Dan I
1985 Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-making capacity. In Dan I. Slobin (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Vol. 2. Theoretical issues, 1158–1256. Mahwah N.J.: Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Sprenger, Simone A., Willem J.M. Levelt & Gerard Kempen
2006 Lexical access during the production of idiomatic phrases. Journal of Memory and Language 54. 161–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tabor, Whitney & Elizabeth Closs Traugott
1998 Structural scope expansion and grammaticalization. In Anna Giacalone Ramat & Paul J. Hopper (eds.), The limits of grammaticalization, 229–272. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, Michael
2003 Constructing a language: A Usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs
1995 The role of the development of discourse markers in a theory of grammaticalization. Paper presented at ICHL 12 , Manchester University. Available at [URL]
Wanner, Dieter
2006 The power of analogy. An essay on historical linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Warner, Anthony R
1982 Complementation in Middle English and the methodology of historical syntax. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Zimmer, Ben
2008 Green behind the ears? Available online at [URL]
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Hoffmann, Thomas & Graeme Trousdale
2022. On Multiple Paths and Change in the Language Network. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 70:3 ► pp. 359 ff. DOI logo
Molencki, Rafał
2021. The Grammaticalization of the Epistemic Adverb Perhaps in Late Middle and Early Modern English. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 56:s1 ► pp. 411 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.