Article published in:
The Role of Pragmatics in Cyclic Language ChangeEdited by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen
[Journal of Historical Pragmatics 21:2] 2020
► pp. 289–314
Future markers in Western Romance
Cyclic change, synchronic variation and diachronic competition
Ulrich Detges | Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich
In this article, which examines the cyclic evolution of future markers in Western Romance (mainly French and Spanish), I make use of the “satellite model” in the version proposed by Koch and Oesterreicher (1996) to capture the complex interplay between functional change, synchronic variation and sociolinguistic evolution. This model conceives of linguistic cycles as push-chains. Thus, I will argue, young future markers originally arise from argumentative patterns that are aimed at validating announcements concerning the speaker’s projected actions. The rationale behind these mechanisms is pragmatic efficiency rather than the functioning of the language system itself. Thus, linguistic systems usually contain more items than are technically needed to keep the language system operative. In the categories of the satellite model, a certain number of younger constructions (“satellites”) exist side-by-side with a canonical construction (i.e., a functionally and sociolinguistically unmarked item), which one of the former may eventually oust from its privileged position. As I will show by sketching the evolution of the numerous future markers of peninsular Spanish from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, this perspective allows a fresh look at the evolution of cycles. More often than not, the competition between the canonical form and its satellites does not cause the former’s replacement by the latter; rather, it normally ends with the obsolescence of one the satellites involved. The eventual replacement of the canonical form by a satellite – that is, the completion of a full cycle – represents a very special (and relatively rare) case.
Keywords: argumentative pattern, assertive force, overuse, register variation, satellite model, source determination
Published online: 03 March 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00045.det
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00045.det
References
References
Baker, Philip and Chris Corne
Benveniste, Émile
Berschin, Helmut
Blas Arroyo, José Luis
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins and William Pagliuca
[ p. 311 ]
Cartagena, Nelson
Company Company, Concepción
2006 “Tiempos de formación romance II. Los futuros y condicionales” [‘Tense Markers of Romance Origin II: Futures and Conditionals’]. In Company Company, Concepción (ed.), Sintaxis histórica de la lengua española [‘Historical Syntax of the Spanish Language’], 349–418. (Volume 1.) Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Corne, Chris
Coseriu, Eugenio
Damoiseau, Robert
Detges, Ulrich and Richard Waltereit
Detges, Ulrich
1999 “Wie entsteht Grammatik? Kognitive und pragmatische Determinanten der Grammatikalisierung von Tempusmarkern” [‘How Does Grammar Come About? Cognitive and Pragmatic Aspects of the Grammaticalization of Tense Markers’]. In Jürgen Lang and Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh (eds), Reanalyse und Grammatikalisierung in denromanischen Sprachen [‘Reanalysis and Grammaticalization in the Romance Languages’], 31–52. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Díaz Peralta, Marina
Fleischman, Suzanne
Givón, Talmy
Gougenheim, Georges
[ p. 312 ]
Heath, Jeffrey
Heine, Bernd
Helland, Hans Petter
Hopper, Paul J.
Koch, Peter and Wulf Oesterreicher
Koch, Peter
1995 Zukunft und Mündlichkeit. Zu Genese und Verlust von Futurbildungen in romanischen Varietäten [‘Future and Orality: On the Rise and Loss of Future Contructions within Certain Romance Varieties’]. Paper presented in Bamberg 11/28/1995.
Kuteva, Tania A.
Laurendeau, Paul
Lindschouw, Jan
Lope Blanch, Juan Miguel
Lorenz, Bettina
Lorenz, Sabine
[ p. 313 ]
Ludwig, Ralph
Maingueneau, Dominique
Massot, Benjamin
2003 Éléments linguistiques pour une vision diglossique du français contemporain [‘Linguistic Elements for a Diglossia Account of Contemporary French’]. Mém. de D.E.A., Université Paris 8 Vincennes. Available online at: http://ciel8.free.fr/SPIP-v1-7-2/IMG/pdf/DEA_massot.pdf
Meier, Harri, Leopoldo Sáez Godoy, Klaus Hunnius, Raúl Avila and Larry Grimes
Patard, Adeline, Walter de Mulder and Natalia Grabar
Petré, Peter
Pitloun, Petr
Poplack, Shana and Nathalie Dion
Reed, Cory A.
Reinöhl, Uta and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann
Rohlfs, Gerhard
Schlupp, Daniel
Schrott, Angela
Searle, John R.
Sedano, Mercedes
Silva Corvalán, Carmen and Tracy Terrell
[ p. 314 ]
Söll, Ludwig
Togeby, Knud
Valesio, Paolo
Von der Gabelentz, Georg
Von Wartburg, Walther
Werner, Edeltraud
Wilmet, Marc
Yllera, Alicia
Zeman, Sonja