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Exaptation and Language Change
Edited by Muriel Norde and Freek Van de Velde
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 336] 2016
► pp. 377–401

Exaptation and adaptation

Two historical routes to final particles in Japanese

This article shows that the final-particle development from coordinating conjunctions and that from subordinating conjunctions in Japanese can be best described as ‘adaptation after exaptation’ and ‘successive adaptations’, respectively. Whereas both types of developments are comparable in that conjunctions ordinarily occupying an inter-clausal position become sentence-final particles, they differ in how the conjunctions come to occur in the sentence-final position. Subordinating conjunctions are left behind in the position as a result of an adaptation, while coordinating conjunctions are coopted or exapted into the position. Although some facets of the Japanese final-particle development from conjunctions can be treated as instances of analogy or reanalysis, these notions do not explain the different pathways through which those conjunctions reach the sentence-final position. The paired notions, adaptation and exaptation, are claimed to be useful and necessary for linguistic studies in terms of parallelism between biological and linguistic evolution, permissive environment, and non-metaphorical explanation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Japanese final particles and their development from conjunctions
    • 2.1Development of final particles in Japanese
    • 2.2Truncation and backshift: Two developmental pathways to final particles
  • 3.Final-particle development as linguistic exaptation and adaptation
    • 3.1Syntactic exaptation of the preaptation type
    • 3.2Truncation-based adaptation and backshift-based exaptation
    • 3.3Restriction on reanalysis across sentence boundaries
  • 4.Why exaptation is necessary for linguistic studies
    • 4.1Successive adaptations and adaptation after cooptation
    • 4.2Permissive environment and its pressure
    • 4.3Functional shift: Beyond specific metaphors
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 February 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.336.13izu
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