Chapter 9
Allative to purposive grammaticalisation
A quantitative story of Spanish para
The Spanish preposition para arises from fusion of older por
followed by a, via usage-based chunking (Bybee, 2010)
associated with the frequency of the sequence. At an early stage, semantic compositionality involving an independent meaning
contribution from the preposition a is discernible in allative uses with a destination that is a
person. A general decline of allative uses of para with a nominal complement, for both person
and place destinations, ensues after the 14th century. In a second change beginning in the 18th century, para replaces por with infinitive complements to become the majority purposive
variant. Thus, allative-to-purposive grammaticalisation (Heine & Kuteva, 2002)
occurs through changes both in para’s distribution across contexts and in its variation with the
older preposition.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Data
- 3.Chunking:
para < pora < por + a
- 3.1Frequency and fusion
- 3.2Precursors, variant forms and palaeographic abbreviations
- 4.Compositionality of para, and its loss
- 5.Early allative use: Distributions of the preposition across its contexts of use
- 6.Rising purposive: Variation between para and por with infinitives
- 7.Conclusion: A path and process of grammaticalisation
-
Notes
-
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