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Historical Linguistics 2019: Selected papers from the 24th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Canberra, 1–5 July 2019
Edited by Bethwyn Evans, Maria Kristina Gallego and Luisa Miceli
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 367] 2024
► pp. 240–259

Chapter 10
Something out of nothing

Degrammaticalising grammaticalisation

| The Ohio State University
| University of Patras
This paper challenges predictions made within the grammaticalisation framework about what can happen to grammatical material over time. We present two case studies — one from Greek and one from Sanskrit — which demonstrate that claims regarding the origin of grammatical material are too narrow, and that a broader view needs to be taken. We argue that (i) grammatical material can originate in ways other than the downgrading of lexical items; (ii) grammatical change does not unidirectionally move “down” the cline from less tightly bound to more tightly bound; movement “up” the cline is possible too; and (iii) if we focus just on one type of movement involving grammatical material — from less to more dependent — we can miss interesting types of grammatical change.
Keywords: grammaticalization, degrammaticalisation, Greek, Sanskrit, unidirectionality
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Preliminaries I: Clines in grammaticalisation
  • 3.Preliminaries II: Unidirectionality in grammaticalisation
    • 3.1On the value of unidirectionality
    • 3.2More questions about unidirectionality
    • 3.3Known counterexamples to unidirectionality
  • 4.Clines and claims
  • 5.Case study I: -γ- in the Modern Greek imperfect tense
    • 5.1Vowel hiatus
    • 5.2The relationship between [ʝ] and [γ]
    • 5.3Inherited imperfects and their development
    • 5.4The emergence of -γ- in the contract imperfects
  • 6.Case study II — the Sanskrit perfect
  • 7.Conclusion — Consequences for grammaticalisation
  • Notes
  • References
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