[Lingtyp] "grammatically encoded" - replies to Christian, Riccardo and Bill

Wed Mar 22 17:56:10 UTC 2023

Dear Kasper and all,

As far as I can see, you only get "silly" results if you pick the wrong
parameters. I have never claimed that phonological reduction should be a
measure of grammaticality -- as already pointed out by Christian in his
seminal work, phonological reduction is ubiquitous in language, on the one
hand (being involved in so many cases of lexical change), and is not
involved in all cases of grammaticalization, on the other -- i.e. it is
neither a sufficient nor a necessary criterion.
As regards closed-class membership, that is also not a criterion in itself
for me, but it is of course a precondition for the, I believe, much more
interesting notion of paradigmaticity (which I would define in terms of
systematic semantic opposition, e.g. in pronoun or auxiliary systems, and
not just in terms of syntactic behaviour -- lest we reach the paradoxical
conclusion that virtually all nouns, verbs, etc. in a language form a sort
of super-paradigm).

That said, I agree that we need to gain a clear understanding of "what the
symptoms are symptoms of". If you take modifiability and focalizability,
for example, which you also discuss in your papers with Peter Harder, both
seem to be very reasonable parameters to me, because they are both
manifestations of an element's potential for discourse-primary status. Yet,
you do have cases of elements that are focalizable but not modifiable:
since both criteria depend on the same fundamental property, you would in
principle not expect this to happen: if it does, the only way out I see is
to say that elements that pass one test but fail the other are more lexical
(=less grammaticalized) than those that fail both. And this is precisely
the reason why, methodologically, I would maintain that it makes perfect
sense to (i) formulate a definition of grammatical *vs. *lexical status
(which is bound to be a theory-driven decision, I'm afraid, such as your
primary *vs. *secondary discourse status or Christian's notion of
autonomy); (ii) identify several criteria that reflect that single
underlying property (and I say "several" because, as pointed out in my
earlier message, there might be functional and/or morphosyntactic classes
for which the same underlying property manifests itself in different ways);
(iii) use all the criteria that apply to a given class to *calculate* the
degrees of grammaticality of its individual members (and this is where
things get more empirical). In the end, this should lead to a continuum of
more-to-less grammatical(ized) elements, which is consistent with most
models' take on the lexical/grammatical opposition as a matter of
gradience. Needless to say, the results may differ enormously, depending on
your initial defition and the criteria that you pick as a consequence of
that definition.

This is nothing particularly new, as you can see, just my (certainly
imperfect) explanation of why I see no contradiction between "consider[ing]
grammaticity features as *symptoms* of grammatical status" and "score
degree of grammaticity in terms these symptoms".

Best wishes,
Riccardo

Kasper Boye <boye at hum.ku.dk> escreveu no dia segunda, 20/03/2023 à(s) 20:07:

> Replies in order of appearance below (again, apologies to those not
> interested in this discussion!)
>
>
>
> Dear Christian,
>
>
>
> This concerns your important remark that on the account advocated by
> Riccardo and by Peter and me, it might seem as if grammatical status were
> devoid of positive properties.
>
>
>
> At a theoretical level, the basic idea is that grammatical can only be
> understood relative to lexical elements, which they presuppose and upon
> which they depend. I think that at least traces of this idea are found in
> several attempts to understand the lexical-grammatical contrast. For
> instance, “function words” presuppose “content words” in relation to which
> they have a function; “procedural meaning” presupposes “conceptual meaning”
> in relation to which the procedures apply. On our account, this asymmetry
> basically has to do with attentional potential: grammatical elements are
> conventionalized as background, and hence depend on combination with
> lexical elements, which have the potential to be foreground.
>
>
>
> Still at a theoretical level, the implication of this is that grammatical
> elements do indeed share positive properties: they represent a special kind
> of conventions (they are conventionalizations of background status), and
> they show special types of dependencies. In Boye & Harder (2012), we
> suggested ‘ancillariness’ as a cover term for these properties. As captured
> by this term, however, these properties can only be understood in relation
> to the properties of lexical elements.
>
>
>
> Empirically, the implication is that grammatical elements can only be
> identified relative to lexical ones. Since, the basic difference between
> lexical and grammatical pertains to attentional potential, grammatical
> elements can be identified in terms of lack of potential for prominence.
> There is, however, also what may be seen as a positive criterion:
> grammatical elements are dependent on combination with (ultimately lexical)
> elements in relation to which they are secondary.
>
>
>
> Dear Riccardo,
>
>
>
> While there is no necessary conflict between continua and discrete cutoff
> points, I think it is a mistake to score degree of grammaticity in terms of
> number of ‘grammaticity features’ like closed class membership and
> phonological reduction.
>
>
>
> You may of course define grammatical status in terms of these features,
> but then you run into problems: if you don’t require presence of all
> features, you get silly results (e.g. *Kingston *is more grammatical than
> *Georgetown*); if you do require presence of all features, you exclude a
> number of things you don’t want to exclude (e.g.* going to *has a
> grammatical variant prior to phonological reduction to *gonna*).
>
>
>
> Alternatively, you may consider grammaticity features as *symptoms* of
> grammatical status. This is perfectly fine as long as the symptoms can be
> derived from an understanding of the phenomenon of which they are symptoms
> (cf. Boye & Harder 2012). However, if you then score degree of grammaticity
> in terms these symptoms, you confuse the number of symptoms with an
> unwarranted assumption about a property of what the symptoms are symptoms
> of.
>
>
>
> Dear Bill,
>
>
>
> Thanks for bringing the question what makes a concept grammaticalizable
> into the discussion. I think Peter’s and my own account is compatible with
> yours. From our point of view, the alternative to grammatical meaning –
> i.e. meaning conventionalized as discursively secondary – is discursively
> secondary meaning that must be arrived at through context-dependent
> inference. Thus, grammatical meaning represents a shortcut (by way of
> convention) to discursively secondary meaning. This means that what makes a
> meaning, function or concept grammaticalizable must be that it is
> convenient as discursively secondary information across different contexts,
> and useful enough to license conventionalization. I think this is exactly
> the case with the concepts or functions you point at in your 2007 paper.
>
>
>
> With best wishes,
>
>
>
> Kasper
>
>
>
>
>
> *Fra:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *På vegne af *William
> Croft
> *Sendt:* 18. marts 2023 00:17
> *Til:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Emne:* Re: [Lingtyp] "grammatically encoded" - answer to Christian
>
>
>
> I have read this discussion with interest. I have found analyzing the
> lexical-grammatical distinction difficult; I made several attempts. I
> started from Talmy's observations about the semantic categories that recur
> in the inventories of grammatical elements across languages. I should
> mention at the outset that the distinction Talmy was considering is
> grammaticaliz*able* (or "grammaticizable" -- Slobin 1997) concepts vs.
> other, "lexical-only" concepts. This is different from grammaticaliz*ed*
> vs. not grammaticalized concepts. Grammaticalizable concepts may be
> expressed lexically, but may then undergo grammaticalization.
> Grammaticalized concepts are not only grammaticalizable but have undergone
> grammaticalization and hence have acquired additional properties -- more on
> that below.
>
>
>
> At any rate, I decided that the best way forward was to embed the issue in
> a broader theory of the verbalization of experience. I took Chafe's model
> of verbalization (Chafe 1977a,b are the primary original sources) and
> elaborated it in a 2007 paper (which cites other work of Chafe's). In the
> conclusion I suggested some reasons why certain concepts are
> grammaticalizable, based on the model of verbalization.
>
>
>
> This is a functional model, so it is similar in aim to Kasper and Peter's
> proposal. But that is about grammaticalizable concepts. To understand the
> nature of grammaticalized concepts, it is possible, even likely, that at
> least some of the structural considerations that Christian proposes are
> relevant.
>
>
>
> Interjections only partly fit in the verbalization model. But the
> verbalization model is just one part of a larger model of language and its
> role in communication, and the role of communication in joint action. I
> have largely followed Clark's version of the larger model (Clark 1996; he
> calls verbalization 'formulation'); see Croft (2009). Interjections are
> varied and serve a different functions in the larger model.
>
>
>
> Bill
>
>
>
> Chafe, Wallace. 1977a. Creativity in verbalization and its implications
> for the nature of stored knowledge. *Discourse production and
> comprehension*, ed. Roy Freedle, 41-55. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex.
>
> Chafe, Wallace. 1977b. The recall and verbalization of past experience. *Current
> issues in linguistic theory*, ed. Peter Cole, 215-46. Bloomington:
> Indiana University Press.
>
> Clark, Herbert H. 1996. *Using language*. Cambridge: Cambridge University
> Press.
>
> Croft, William. 2007. The origins of grammar in the verbalization of
> experience. *Cognitive Linguistics* 18.339-82.
>
> Croft, William. 2009. Toward a social cognitive linguistics. *New
> directions in cognitive linguistics*, ed. Vyvyan Evans and Stéphanie
> Pourcel, 395-420. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
>
> Slobin, Dan I. 1997. The origins of grammaticizable notions: beyond the
> individual mind. *The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, vol.
> 5*, ed. Dan I. Slobin, 265-323*.* Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum
> Associates.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Kasper Boye <boye at hum.ku.dk>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, March 14, 2023 3:47 AM
> *To:* Christian Lehmann <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de>;
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Cc:* Peter Harder <rgl226 at hum.ku.dk>
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] "grammatically encoded" - answer to Christian
>
>
>
> *  [EXTERNAL]*
>
> Dear Christian,
>
> *Regarding focusability*
>
> The focusability criterion (like the other criteria) depends on language-
> and construction-specific means for focusing, and different means come with
> different limitations. Indeed, the criterion may in many cases be
> impossible to apply. Another criterion (not mentioned in Boye & Harder
> (2012), but in later publications) is modifiability; again, we are not the
> first to suggest that modifiability can be used to distinguish lexical from
> grammatical elements, but the criterion can straightforwardly be derived
> from the claim that grammatical elements are by convention discursively
> secondary.
>
> As already mentioned, there are also limitations to stress as a means for
> investigating focusablity. For instance, stress is not always found exactly
> on the focused element. Your example with *would* seems to belong to the
> group of exceptions that fall under *verum focus*. Therefore, your
> example does not show that *would *can be focused, and hence it does not
> show that *would* is lexical. In principle, however, it is perfectly
> possible that some modal verbs, or variants thereof, are lexical. In Boye
> (2010), I argued that this is the case with some Danish modal verbs. In
> Boye & Bastiaanse (2018) we showed that even a rather course-grained
> distinction between lexical and grammatical modal verb variants in Dutch is
> significant for the description of agrammatic speech: the proportion of
> modal verb items classified as grammatical relative to items classified as
> lexical was significantly lower in agrammatic speech than in the speech of
> non-brain-damaged controls (see Boye et al. 2023 for an overview of similar
> studies, and a usage-based theory of agrammatism).
>
> *Regarding your proposal for a definition of grammatical status*
>
> I would be very interested in seeing your detailed proposal, but my basic
> problem with your proposal is not that it looks circular, but that it looks
> entirely structural. I prefer a functional-cognitive, usage-based
> definition that entails a rationale for the existence of grammar.
>
> *Regarding grammaticalization as a gradual phenomenon*
>
> I agree that grammaticalization is a gradual phenomenon, but not that this
> entails that grammatical status is a matter of degree. In the attached
> preprint (paper to appear in Transactions of the Philological Society), I
> argue that on a strict understanding, grammaticalization is embedded in at
> least three continua (a conventionalization continuum, a splitting
> continuum and a discourse prominence continuum), but does not presuppose or
> show any evidence of lexical-grammatical cline.
>
> *References*
>
> Boye, K. 2010. ‘Raising verbs and auxiliaries in a functional theory of
> grammatical status’. K. Boye & E. Engberg-Pedersen (eds.). *Language
> usage and language structure*. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 73-104.
>
> Boye, K. To appear. ‘Grammaticalization as conventionalization of
> discursively secondary status: Deconstructing the lexical-grammatical
> continuum’. *Transactions of the Philological Society*.
>
> Boye, K., & R. Bastiaanse. 2018. ‘Grammatical versus lexical words in
> theory and aphasia: Integrating linguistics and neurolinguistics’. *Glossa:
> a journal of general linguistics*, 3.1, 29. DOI:
> http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.436
>
>
>
> Boye, K., R. Bastiaanse, P. Harder & S. Martínez-Ferreiro. 2023.
> ‘Agrammatism in a usage-based theory of grammatical status: Impaired
> combinatorics, compensatory prioritization, or both?’ *Journal of
> Neurolinguistics* 65, 101108.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Fra:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *På vegne af *Christian
> Lehmann
> *Sendt:* 10. marts 2023 21:07
> *Til:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Emne:* Re: [Lingtyp] "grammatically encoded" - answer to Christian
>
>
>
> Dear Kasper,
>
> the clearest cases of focusing are cleft-sentences. At the same time, it
> is clear that many sentence components are not amenable to clefting, and
> many of those that are not are nevertheless lexical rather than
> grammatical. Thus I suppose focusability will not, for your purposes, be
> operationalized as amenability to clefting.
>
> Thus you need to consider milder forms of focusing. If contrastive stress
> counts, then it remains true that many items that have otherwise been
> regarded as grammatical can bear contrastive stress. Think of exchanges
> such as this:
>
> Will you do it? - I *would* do it if [so and so].
>
> In my understanding, what is focused here is exactly the conditional
> modality, so what is stressed is its expression.
>
> My attempt at a definition may seem circular until I spell out how
> constraints on the distribution of items and classes of items are
> formulated and quantified. (It has probably been done somewhere in the
> literature.) This is independent of a prior definition of 'grammar'; it
> just refers to cooccurrence of items in constructions. When I have spelled
> out some cases, I may take the liberty of sending you the URL.
>
> Allow me to repeat that if you take grammaticalization seriously as a
> gradual phenomenon, then grammatical status, too, is not a yes-or-no
> matter, but rather one of degree. Consequently, no single binary criterion
> like focusability will suffice for its operationalization.
>
> Best,
>
> Christian
>
> --
>
> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
> Rudolfstr. 4
> 99092 Erfurt
> Deutschland
>
> Tel.:
>
> +49/361/2113417
>
> E-Post:
>
> christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
>
> Web:
>
> https://www.christianlehmann.eu
> <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.christianlehmann.eu%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cboye%40hum.ku.dk%7C1418d03f5344446ad78108db273db16f%7Ca3927f91cda14696af898c9f1ceffa91%7C0%7C0%7C638146918159143384%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=tSt%2F%2FK76H4Y%2B1ZT2LglYCyDqzyIR4PmWCuVyvG%2FqOtA%3D&reserved=0>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Fra:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *På vegne af *Christian
> Lehmann
> *Sendt:* 10. marts 2023 21:07
> *Til:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Emne:* Re: [Lingtyp] "grammatically encoded" - answer to Christian
>
>
>
> Dear Kasper,
>
> the clearest cases of focusing are cleft-sentences. At the same time, it
> is clear that many sentence components are not amenable to clefting, and
> many of those that are not are nevertheless lexical rather than
> grammatical. Thus I suppose focusability will not, for your purposes, be
> operationalized as amenability to clefting.
>
> Thus you need to consider milder forms of focusing. If contrastive stress
> counts, then it remains true that many items that have otherwise been
> regarded as grammatical can bear contrastive stress. Think of exchanges
> such as this:
>
> Will you do it? - I *would* do it if [so and so].
>
> In my understanding, what is focused here is exactly the conditional
> modality, so what is stressed is its expression.
>
> My attempt at a definition may seem circular until I spell out how
> constraints on the distribution of items and classes of items are
> formulated and quantified. (It has probably been done somewhere in the
> literature.) This is independent of a prior definition of 'grammar'; it
> just refers to cooccurrence of items in constructions. When I have spelled
> out some cases, I may take the liberty of sending you the URL.
>
> Allow me to repeat that if you take grammaticalization seriously as a
> gradual phenomenon, then grammatical status, too, is not a yes-or-no
> matter, but rather one of degree. Consequently, no single binary criterion
> like focusability will suffice for its operationalization.
>
> Best,
>
> Christian
>
> --
>
> Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
> Rudolfstr. 4
> 99092 Erfurt
> Deutschland
>
> Tel.:
>
> +49/361/2113417
>
> E-Post:
>
> christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
>
> Web:
>
> https://www.christianlehmann.eu
> <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.christianlehmann.eu%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cboye%40hum.ku.dk%7C1418d03f5344446ad78108db273db16f%7Ca3927f91cda14696af898c9f1ceffa91%7C0%7C0%7C638146918159143384%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=tSt%2F%2FK76H4Y%2B1ZT2LglYCyDqzyIR4PmWCuVyvG%2FqOtA%3D&reserved=0>
>
>
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