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Part of
Studies in Historical Ibero-Romance Morpho-Syntax
Edited by Miriam Bouzouita, Ioanna Sitaridou and Enrique Pato
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 16] 2018
► pp. 195–222

Chapter 9
Allative to purposive grammaticalisation

A quantitative story of Spanish para

| The Pennsylvania State University
| The Pennsylvania State University

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.

Keywords: chunking, compositionality, frequency, grammaticalization, preposition, allative, purposive, Spanish
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
  • References
Published online: 17 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.16.09tor
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