[Lingtyp] Pragmatic cue support: a soft onset of grammaticalization

Sun Oct 15 18:42:35 UTC 2023

Dear all – I’m looking for leads regarding existing research and thinking on a topic of grammaticalization theory (GT) that from my perspective has been neglected a bit. At least it has not to my knowledge been discussed as a separate process in the context of GT (with the arguable exception of Traugott & König 1991, which I discuss below).

In the earliest stages of the grammaticalization of functional expressions (function words, inflections, highly productive derivations), we can distinguish at least two distinct scenarios:

One involves a lexical expression of a semantic relation which subsequently turns into an operator of an argument of the relation. Think a relational noun or serialized verb that turns into an adposition or case marker. This has been dealt with extensively in GT. (In fact, this is probably the kind of phenomenon that the rediscovery of grammaticalization in the 1970s took off from.) To have a label to distinguish this scenario from the one I’m interested in, let’s provisionally call this first kind of scenario grammaticalization of lexical relators.

The other, from my point of view neglected, scenario is what I’d like to call provisionally pragmatic cue support (PCS). This involves a lexical expression or weakly grammaticalized functional expression that is optionally combined with a co-constituent in order to clarify the co-constituent’s intended interpretation, particularly its reference. Examples:

  *   A demonstrative is optionally added to a nominal to indicate definiteness (in a pretheoretical sense). Subsequent grammaticalization turns the demonstrative into a definite article.
  *   A semantically generic noun is combined with a nominal in an appositive or possessive construction or through compounding in order to disambiguate the referent. Subsequent grammaticalization turns the noun into a noun class or gender marker.
  *   Perfective aspect is used to conversationally implicate past time reference. Subsequent grammaticalization turns it into a past tense marker.
  *   Any form of optional inflectional morphology, such as optional case markers and optional plural marking, can be considered instances of PCS, regardless of whether it involves grammaticalization or not.

The distinction between PCS and the grammaticalization of lexical relators is not a trivial matter. Nevertheless, I am for now committed to the assumption that the two are distinct phenomena. (There are also instances of grammaticalization of (what most linguists consider a type of) functional expressions that are not clearly exemplars of either of the two scenarios – particularly, the development of personal pronouns out of demonstratives (Heine & Song 2011). If it’s a forced choice, I would subsume the evolution of pronouns out of demonstratives under PCS, but that would necessitate broadening the definition.)

So, again, I’m looking for literature and thoughts on the PCS phenomenon. I speculate that the reason that PCS has apparently been neglected in GT (as a distinct phenomenon) is that GT as we know it has focused on the semantic and morphosyntactic changes that may occur subsequently to PCS. PCS does not itself involve processes such as coalescence or attrition/bleaching – it is merely a prelude to such processes, a “soft” onset of grammaticalization.

Fwiw., here’s what relevant literature I’m aware of:

  *   PCS might fall under what Lehmann (1985) discusses as ‘creativity’ in grammaticalization, which reflects freedom of expressive choice coupled with the speaker’s desire to “give the fullest possible expression” (p315) to her intended meaning. However, creativity in Lehmann’s sense is a broader phenomenon, since the examples he considers are reinforcements and renewals such as the development of an analytical future tense alongside the existing synthetic one in Vulgar Latin and then again in Romance. (Haspelmath (1999) seems to rechristen Lehmann’s ‘creativity’ ‘extravagance’.)
  *   The closest thing I’ve found to a proper discussion of PCS is the treatment of the conventionalization of conversational implicatures in Traugott & König (1991) (cf. also Hopper & Traugott (2003 [1993]: 71-98)), focusing on semantic shift of temporal connectives to connectives expressing relations of causality, concession, preference, and/or denial. However, although Traugott & König’s paper seems to start out with the premise that the relevant types of grammaticalization processes serve to boost informativeness, and thus facilitate processing, it seems to take a different tack at the conclusion, where the authors propose that the relevant processes instantiate a previous unrecognized form of metonymy. Plus, it does not seem to be the case that all instances of PCS involve implicature.
  *   Traugott & Trousdale (2013: 198-203) bring Traugott & König’s ideas even closer to what I’m looking for, by considering the role of implicatures of the relevant kind as providing onset contexts for grammaticalization.
  *   Lastly, the pragmatics and psycholinguistics of optional case marking has been studied by Fedzechkina et al. (2012), Kurumada & Jaeger (2015), Kurumada & Grimm (2019), and Fedzechkina & Jaeger (2020). But that work does not address the grammaticalization perspective.

Thanks! And, apologies for the long message 🙄 – Juergen

Fedzechkina, M., T. F. Jaeger, & E. L. Newport. (2012). Language learners restructure their input to facilitate efficient communication. PNAS 109(44): 17897-17902.
Fedzechkina, M. & T. F. Jaeger. (2020). Production efficiency can cause grammatical change: Learners deviate from the input to better balance efficiency against robust message transmission. Cognition 196: article 104115.
Haspelmath, M. (1999). Why is grammaticalization irreversible? Linguistics 37(6): 1043-1068.
Heine, B. & K.-A. Song. (2011). On the grammaticalization of personal pronouns. Journal of Linguistics 47(3): 587-630.
Hopper, P. J. & E. C. Traugott. (20032 [1993]). Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kurumada, C. & S. Grimm. (2019). Predictability of meaning in grammatical encoding: Optional plural marking. Cognition 191: Article 103953.
Kurumada, C., & Jaeger, T. F. (2015). Communicative efficiency in language production: Optional case-marking in Japanese. Journal of Memory and Language 83: 152–178.
Lehmann, C. (1985). Grammaticalization: Synchronic variation and diachronic change. Lingua e Stile 20: 303-18.
Traugott, E. C. & E. König. (1991). The semantics-pragmatics of grammaticalization revisited. In E. C. Traugott & B. Heine (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization. Volume I: Focus on theoretical and methodological issues. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 189-218.
Traugott, E. C. & G. Trousdale. (2013). Constructionalization and constructional changes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor, Department of Linguistics
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<mailto:jb77 at buffalo.edu>
Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/

Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)

There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
(Leonard Cohen)
--

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20231015/2e9cb8df/attachment.htm>