grammaticalization

[Ziegeler, D.]

Just a thought with regard to Spike Gildea's queries on whether 'it is
appropriate to use grammaticalization to refer to the kind of suppletive
paradigms for the surviving word' - it must be the case that suppletive
forms are one of the resulting consequences of grammaticalization,
rather than a part of the processes, since surely the progressive
decrease of lexical functions for a grammaticalizing element would leave
behind a 'vacuum' in lexical domains, to be filled by a new suppletive
form. Also (and this is just off the top of my head), did the form
'wended' assume the place of the former 'went' at the time that
irregular past forms were becoming historically less frequent? Perhaps
if this is the case, then was the incoming past form 'wended' merely in
accord with the historical changes of the time?

Debbie Ziegeler