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Dear Jürgen,<br>
<br>
before considering your specific question, let me ask about its
presupposition: If a process is optional, it seems doubtful to you
whether it can be considered a grammatical process.<br>
<br>
Now if something is (structurally) obligatory, it is grammatical.
The inverse does not hold, because although obligatoriness has been
regarded by some as the most important feature of
grammaticalization, it is not the only one. Moreover, there are
degrees of optionality/obligatoriness (s. Lehmann, <i>Thoughts on
grammaticalization</i>).<br>
<br>
Thus, the grammatical rules concerning determination may say that
determiners are optional in certain contexts, but obligatory in
others; that if there is a determiner, it has to go in such and such
a syntagmatic position; that determiners are chosen from a small
closed paradigm and cannot be combined syntagmatically; etc.
Compare, e.g., adjectives, for which there are such rules, too; but
they are less strict.<br>
<br>
During the documented history from Vulgar Latin to the modern
Romance languages, articles have been developping from absent to
increasingly obligatory. At which point has determination by
articles become "a grammatical process"?<br>
<br>
Best, Christian<br>
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