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

[Christian Lehmann]

Dear Jürgen,

I find it difficult to assist you in your search for more than one reason:

  * You assume a division  of grammaticalization into two kinds but do
    not make explicit the criteria which produce such a division.
    Consequently, you also recognize cases like the grammaticalization
    of third person pronouns which do not neatly fit into either of your
    categories. This could be avoided only if there was a binary
    criterion, with two logically contradictory values, producing the
    division. E.g.: 'grammaticalization of a lexical relator vs
    grammaticalization of anything that is not a lexical relator'; or
    alternatively 'grammaticalization of a syntagma consisting of a
    pragmatic cue and its host vs. grammaticalization of anything else'.
  * Also, the grammaticalization of lexical relators specifically
    concerns the initial phase of an ideally complete grammaticalization
    process, while pragmatic cue support may concern any of its phases
    or possibly not be related to grammaticalization at all; which also
    renders this pair an impure contrast.
  * You do not define pragmatics (just as almost nobody defines it). In
    my understanding, pragmatics contrasts with system linguistics, the
    former dealing with discourse, the latter with the language system,
    i.e. exclusively with aspects of language which are coded by
    language signs. Presupposing this, it does not seem that all of your
    examples of pragmatic cue support are actually related to
    pragmatics. This concerns, in particular, the grammaticalization of
    a noun into a noun class or gender formative. The semantic side of
    such a process can be described by semantic changes that abide
    within the language system. The same goes for optional grammatical
    markers: If they are present, they add their bit to the (system)
    meaning of the construction; and otherwise, the meaning of the
    construction is construed without this bit, which may or may not
    lead to the same (message) sense as the combination with the
    formative in question.

If I am right with the above, then maybe your topical area is not a 
subdivision of processes of grammaticalization, but instead the 
theoretical foundation of the notion of pragmatic cue support and its 
empirical outfit.

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
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