[Lingtyp] grammaticalized v grammaticized

Sun Jun 9 11:15:37 UTC 2019

This distinction accords well with how many people use the two terms, I
think.

The study of grammaticization focuses on  functionally motivated patterns
that arise in synchronic language use (discourse profiles), defining the
environment to which grammars adapt via emergence.

Grammaticalization focuses on the historical processes that create new
grammar, driven by the discourse profiles plus additional principles
intrinsic to cultural evolution and historical change.

The two are closely intertwined, of course. A key task for functional
linguistics is to clarify how they interact to provide an explanation for
why grammars are as they are.

Best,
John

==============================
John W. Du Bois
Professor of Linguistics
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California 93106
USA
dubois at ucsb.edu

On Sat, Jun 8, 2019, 9:11 PM Bill Palmer <bill.palmer at newcastle.edu.au>
wrote:

> Dear all
>
> Juergen's email prompts me to ask a question I'd be interested to get
> people's thoughts on.
>
> What is the relationship between the terms grammaticalized and
> grammaticized? I use them to refer to different things, but I don’t know to
> what extent my usage corresponds to others' understandings.
>
> I use grammaticized to refer to a synchronic situation, and
> grammaticalized to refer to a diachronic process. For example, I would say
> that the category of auditory evidentiality ("I heard [X happen]") is
> grammaticized in language X, meaning that the category is expressed in the
> language by a grammatical form; and I would say that the verb 'hear' has
> grammaticalized as an evidential marker in language X, meaning that a form
> with a lexical meaning has developed into a grammatical marker of some kind.
>
> Does this accord with anyone else's understanding of these terms?
> Apologies if there's some obvious literature on this I have missed.
>
> Best
> Bill Palmer
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> On Behalf Of
> Bohnemeyer, Juergen
> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2019 12:26 AM
> To: David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>
> Cc: Stephanie Evers <saevers at buffalo.edu>;
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Glossed corpora of languages w/o grammaticalized
> definiteness marking
>
> Dear David — Good point! We use ‘definiteness’ to denote a variety of
> similar language-specific semantic categories that characterize the
> discourse status of a nominal in terms of its referent being discourse-old,
> previously mentioned (etc.), and/or otherwise uniquely identifiable to the
> interlocutors. Since unique identifiability may be conferred by the speech
> situation, we require that candidate devices not be restricted to exophoric
> (spatial) reference in their regular uses.
>
> What we mean by ‘grammaticalized’ is that the language has a particle,
> function word, or inflection that is routinely used by the speakers of the
> language to express the semantic category in question. For illustration, I
> would assume (perhaps wrongly so) that it is possible in any language to
> use demonstratives to indicate ‘definiteness’, including in Russian - but
> Russian speakers, so far as I know (and so far as Stephanie Evers, the
> student working on this project, was able to show in her Qualifying Paper),
> do not regularly use demonstratives for this purpose, at least not unless
> they wish to place contrastive narrow focus on the nominal in question.
>
> Why the restriction to particles, function words, and inflections? Well,
> it is hard for me to see how expressions that are for all intents and
> purposes regular content words could be used to indicate the ‘definiteness’
> of another expression. But, the ultimate goal of the project is to test
> hypotheses about the conditions under which dedicated definiteness marking
> emerges vs. does not emerge in a language (family) or area. So if such
> borderline cases exist, I suppose they would in fact be of great interest
> to the project, even if they do not meet the criteria laid out above.
>
> Best — Juergen
>
> > On Jun 7, 2019, at 1:32 AM, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Juergen,
> >
> > Ian Joo mentioned our Indonesian corpus; a better way of accessing a
> more complete version is described at
> https://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-2007.html.
> >
> > However, I am puzzled by your criteria, specifically by the notion of
> "grammaticalized definiteness (marking)", and a bit surprised nobody so far
> in this thread has picked up on it.
> >
> > Both terms are problematic, as can be exemplified via Indonesian.
> "Definiteness": well, Indonesian has a couple of nominal markers, =nya and
> itu, that are sometimes described as marking definiteness, though I believe
> that they are more appropriately analyzed otherwise, namely as marking
> possession/association and deixis respectively.  So does Indonesian fail to
> meet criterion 1, or does it in fact offer a nice example of "alternative
> strategies" for marking definiteness?  Depends on your analysis.
> >
> > Then there's the notion of "grammaticalized":  what does it mean to say
> that  =nya and itu are grammaticalized?  The former marker, =nya, exhibits
> some properties that suggest that it might be a clitic, but otherwise,
> these markers would seem to exhibit grammatical behaviour similar to most
> other content words in the language.  So are they "grammaticalized"?  Well
> it depends on what you mean by "grammaticalized".
> >
> > I use Indonesian here merely as an illustration; similar issues arise in
> very many other languages.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > David
> >
> >
> > On 06/06/2019 22:02, Bohnemeyer, Juergen wrote:
> >> Dear colleagues — An advisee of mine is looking for glossed texts to
> investigate the use of strategies alternative to grammaticalized
> definiteness marking. Basically, she’s trying to identify about half a
> dozen genealogically and areally unrelated languages each of which meets
> all of the following criteria:
> >>
> >> 1. The language lacks grammaticalized definiteness marking.
> >>
> >> 2. A text or corpus of texts is available for the language that has
> Leipzig-standard interlinear glosses and translations in English or Spanish.
> >>
> >> 3. The text (corpus) comprises at least about 1000 clauses, but ideally
> twice that or more.
> >>
> >> 4. The individual texts should be long-ish and their referring
> expressions shouldn’t be predominately proper names.
> >>
> >> If you’re aware of a language so resourced, please let me know!
> >>
> >> Many thanks! — Juergen
> >>
> >>
> >> Juergen Bohnemeyer, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
> >> Department of Linguistics and Center for Cognitive Science University
> >> at Buffalo
> >>
> >> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus * Mailing address: 609 Baldy
> >> Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
> >> Phone: (716) 645 0127
> >> Fax: (716) 645 3825 * Email:
> >> jb77 at buffalo.edu * Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
> >>
> >>
> >> Office hours M 12:30 – 1:30pm / W 1:00 – 1:50 / F 12:30 – 1:50pm
> >>
> >>
> >> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In (Leonard
> >> Cohen)
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
> >
> > --
> > David Gil
> >
> > Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution Max Planck Institute
> > for the Science of Human History Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena,
> > Germany
> >
> > Email:
> > gil at shh.mpg.de
> >
> > Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834 Mobile Phone (Indonesia):
> > +62-81281162816
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> > http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
> Juergen Bohnemeyer, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Department
> of Linguistics and Center for Cognitive Science University at Buffalo
>
> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus * Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall,
> Buffalo, NY 14260
> Phone: (716) 645 0127
> Fax: (716) 645 3825 * Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu * Web:
> http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
>
> Office hours M 12:30 – 1:30pm / W 1:00 – 1:50 / F 12:30 – 1:50pm
>
>
> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In (Leonard
> Cohen)
>
> _______________________________________________
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