A comparison of the early grammaticalization of vado + INF in Catalan, Spanish and French
Same point of departure – different results
The grammaticalization of the <vado + Infinitive> construction to a perfective past is a specificity of Catalan language, even though there is also evidence of this grammaticalization in other Romance languages such as Spanish or French. This paper seeks to explain this Catalan construction from a diatopic and diastratic point of view and shows that a convergence of different factors made possible the extension of this periphrasis. Beside dealing with already well known and discussed approaches, this paper uses a comparison between Catalan on the one side and Spanish and French on the other side to put the focus on three internal aspects: the frequency of use, the use of movement verbs and the specialization of verbal forms.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Cognitive processes within the grammaticalization of ‘go’
- 2.1The metonymic process within the grammaticalization of the future tense periphrasis
- 3.The grammaticalization of anar + INF
- 3.1The Catalan prospective periphrasis anar a + INF
- 4.The grammaticalization of vado + INF in French and Spanish
- 5.Some data from the Corpus in Gemicioglu (2012)
- 6.Conclusions
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Notes
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References