What is it about?

This paper presents an approach to the well-known diachronic phenomenon of grammaticalization in terms of a modified version of Chomsky's (1995: chapter 4) minimalist approach to syntax, combined with the general approach to language change outlined in Clark and Roberts (1993). The central idea is that grammaticalization involves the reanalysis of lexical material as functional material, as an instance of structural simplification. A number of well-known cases of grammaticalization are discussed: the development of English modal auxiliaries, the development of agreement markers from pronouns, the development of negation and N-words, and the development of wh-pronouns. In the last two cases a different kind of simplification is involved: the lexical subset principle, which requires lexical items to be interpreted in the smallest set of contexts consistent with the input.

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Why is it important?

It sets a research programme to account for diachronic changes, without invoking a separate process. In this context, grammaticalization is an epiphenomenon, which arises from more primitive syntactic processes, such as loss of movement affecting certain lexical items which in turn become new exponents for functional heads.

Perspectives

This novel account of grammaticalization offers a framework that allows us to consider the relation between the syntax and the lexicon more closely.

Professor Anna Roussou
University of Patras

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This page is a summary of: A formal approach to “grammaticalization”, Linguistics, January 1999, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/ling.37.6.1011.
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