Grammaticalization of sentence adverbs and modal particles revisited
This paper investigates the development of sentence adverbs (SAdvs) and modal particles (MPs) by
especially focusing on the German language. By exploring their common grammaticalization paths, we claim that these are much
more restricted than previously assumed. In particular, we argue that two pathways seem to play a major — if not exclusive —
role, namely one starting from lower adverbs and one from parenthetical clauses, and that syntactic ambiguity in the middle
field plays a fundamental role in this process. In addition, we show that there is no evidence of secondary grammaticalization
occurring within the class of sentence adverbs and modal particles.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Two major paths
- 2.1Path I: Lower event-related adverbials > SAdvs/MPs
- 2.2Path II: Clausal parentheticals > SAdvs/MPs
- 3.Syntactic ambiguity and reanalysis in the middle field
- 4.Secondary grammaticalization?
- 4.1From strong to weak SAdv?
- 4.2Syntactic climbing within higher adverbial domains?
- 5.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
Corpora
-
References
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References (49)
Corpora
DeReKo = Deutsches Referenzkorpus / Archiv der Korpora geschriebener
Gegenwartssprache. Mannheim: Institut für Deutsche Sprache. [URL]
DGD = Datenbank für Gesprochenes
Deutsch. Mannheim: Institut für Deutsche Sprache. [URL]
DTA = Digitaler Teil des Deutschen
Textarchivs. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften Deutsches
Textarchiv. [URL]
MWB = Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch. [URL]
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