A far from simple matter revisited
The ongoing grammaticalization of far
from
In Present-day English far from
belongs to a class of constructions (close to, near to, next
to) which have undergone grammaticalization and/or
constructionalization. The present corpus-based, diachronic study
shows that the development of far from appears to
be a clear case of grammaticalization, with quite significant
changes in the Late Modern English period, including the extension
of the downtoner to attributive contexts and the development of the
emphasizer function. More importantly, the claim that “a well-known
trajectory” (Méndez-Naya
2008a: 215) is from degree adjunct to degree modifier is
not borne out in this case. What we see here is a change from degree
modifier to degree adjunct, a change consistent with Athanasiadou’s (2007)
argument for an increase in subjectivity from degree modifier to
emphasizer.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Far from in Present-day English
- 2.1Adverbial far + from X
- 2.2Downtoner/degree modifier: Far from
- 2.3Pragmatic marker: Far from it/that
- 2.4Synchronic analysis
- 3.Historical development of far from
- 3.1The development of degree adverbs
- 3.2History of far from
- 3.3Timeline
- 3.4Proposed development
- 4.Conclusions
-
Notes
-
Corpora
-
References
References (45)
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Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Herda, Damian
2023.
From space to time and beyond: A corpus inquiry into the grammaticalization patterns of
a
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Studia Neophilologica 95:3
► pp. 376 ff.

Brinton, Laurel J.
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“He loved his father but next to adored his mother”: Nigh(ly), Near, and Next (To) as Downtoners.
Journal of English Linguistics 49:1
► pp. 39 ff.

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