[Lingtyp] the favorative clitic

[Christian Lehmann]

This continues to be interesting. When talking about grammaticalization 
in languages whose history is not sufficiently deep to have the course 
of things documented, we are doing internal reconstruction, and some of 
the criteria employed in it are semantic. Now I had shown a possible 
course for the grammaticalization of a negative evaluation to 
apprehensive modality or mood. It seems that several of the clauses S  
adduced by Ellison - and maybe some others, too - , which have the 
structure 'S-APPR' can sufficiently be brought under the general 
semantic denominator 'considering the negative evaluation of S'. And 
then modality effects could result from the inference I mentioned. In 
this case, the formative in question could originate in an evaluative 
word like 'bad/undesirable'.

The reverse course of things seems quite possible, too: 'I warn you that 
S (is the case/might happen)' becomes 'S is bad' by desemanticization. 
In this case, one would probably want to postulate a verbal origin for 
an apprehensive formative.

-- 

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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