22.2641, Qs: Innovation of Functional Categories

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LINGUIST List: Vol-22-2641. Fri Jun 24 2011. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 22.2641, Qs: Innovation of Functional Categories

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1)
Date: 23-Jun-2011
From: Juergen Bohnemeyer [jb77 at buffalo.edu]
Subject: Innovation of Functional Categories
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:02:13
From: Juergen Bohnemeyer [jb77 at buffalo.edu]
Subject: Innovation of Functional Categories

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I'm looking for examples of functional categories - semantic distinctions 
expressed by inflections and/or function words - that were clearly 
innovated in a given language (family) at some point in a narrow sense 
of the term 'innovation'. Specifically, I'm interested in cases that fulfill 
both of the following criteria:

(i) One or more members of the particular language family at some 
point grammaticalized a functional category that is not evidenced or 
cannot be reconstructed in the common ancestor of the family

(ii) This grammaticalization was not in any obvious way contact-
induced; i.e., there is no conclusive evidence and no obvious candidate 
for a model from which the newly minted category could have been 
diffused.

To put this another way, you could say that what I'm looking for are 
neologisms of grammar. I will post a summary of the responses should 
the responses warrant this. 

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
                     Semantics
                     Syntax
                     Typology







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