23.4404, Diss: Germanic/ General Ling/ Historical Ling/ Text/Corpus Ling/ Danish/ Norwegian Bokm=?UTF-8?Q?=C3=A5l/_?=Swedish: Beijering: 'Expressions of epistemic modality in Mainland Scandinavian...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-23-4404. Mon Oct 22 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.4404, Diss: Germanic/ General Ling/ Historical Ling/ Text/Corpus Ling/ Danish/ Norwegian Bokmål/ Swedish: Beijering: 'Expressions of epistemic modality in Mainland Scandinavian...'

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Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 10:52:31
From: Karin Beijering [k.beijering at gmail.com]
Subject: Expressions of epistemic modality in Mainland Scandinavian. A study into the lexicalization-grammaticalization-pragmaticalization interface.

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Institution: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen 
Program: Center for Language and Cognition 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2012 

Author: Karin Beijering

Dissertation Title: Expressions of epistemic modality in Mainland Scandinavian. 
A study into the
lexicalization-grammaticalization-pragmaticalization
interface. 

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics
                     Historical Linguistics
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics

Subject Language(s): Danish (dan)
                     Norwegian Bokmål (nob)
                     Swedish (swe)

Language Family(ies): Germanic


Dissertation Director(s):
Jack Hoeksema
Muriel Norde

Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation investigates the rise of epistemic expressions in 
relation to different types of language change, viz. lexicalization, 
grammaticalization and pragmaticalization. Four case studies from the 
domain of epistemic modality in the Mainland Scandinavian languages, 
i.e. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, are discussed. These case 
studies are concerned with the modal auxiliaries 'must/may', the 
interrogative/epistemic adverb 'I wonder', the epistemic adverb 'maybe', 
and the discourse marker 'I think.' These epistemic phenomena pose 
problems for traditional analyses within the framework of 
grammaticalization studies, because they are all at the interface of 
(most current definitions of) grammaticalization, lexicalization and 
pragmaticalization. 


This thesis presents a novel model of analysis and a unified account of 
language change centered on the notion of a composite change. A 
composite change is composed of formal reanalysis and semantic re-
interpretation, accompanying primitive changes at different linguistic 
levels (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, 
discourse/pragmatics), and the concomitants of these (micro-)changes. 
These (micro-)changes cluster with respect to their converging 
properties (=interfaces), but stand out in case they are diverging 
properties (=unique properties). This is the essence of the clustering 
approach to language change. Clusters of correlated changes may 
correspond to a composite change traditionally labeled 
'grammaticalization', 'lexicalization' or 'pragmaticalization', but they may 
also pattern in alternative ways. This is what happens in the case 
studies in the present thesis. 


The case studies in this dissertation defy strict categorization. 
Therefore, it is  proposed to give up the idea that linguistic changes 
can be assigned to predefined categories. Instead, it is argued that it is 
more sensible to reduce lexicalization, grammaticalization and 
pragmaticalization to their basic mechanisms of change, primitive 
changes and the concomitants of these (micro-)changes. The 
advantage of a clustering approach, as opposed to categorization, is 
that one can identify prototypical and marginal instances of 
lexicalization, grammaticalization and pragmaticalization, as well as the 
interfaces between these different types of language change. 






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