36.2184, Confs: Grammaticalization and Diachronic Construction Grammar (China)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-36-2184. Wed Jul 16 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.2184, Confs: Grammaticalization and Diachronic Construction Grammar (China)

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Date: 16-Jul-2025
From: C. Alessandro Basile [alessandro.basile at sorbonne-nouvelle.fr]
Subject: Grammaticalization and Diachronic Construction Grammar


Grammaticalization and Diachronic Construction Grammar

Date: 25-Oct-2025 - 26-Oct-2025
Location: Guangzhou, China
Contact: Alessandro Basile
Contact Email: alessandro.basile at sorbonne-nouvelle.fr

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

Submission Deadline: 31-Aug-2025

In present-day, cognitive-functional linguistic research studies in
grammaticalization continue to hold a significant place, having
survived the test of time for more than 100 years since the term
‘grammaticalisation’ was first coined by Antoine Meillet in 1912.
Meillet is cited as having used the term to refer to both analogical
innovation or the ‘attribution of a grammatical character to a
formerly autonomous word’ (Meillet 1912: 131; Heine et al 1991: 9;
Hopper & Traugott 2003: 19). Meillet was not the first to observe such
transitions taking place: Heine et al (1991: 5) refer to records of
similar observations dating back to the Chinese Yuan Dynasty
(1271-1368) in which writers had noted a distinction between “full”
and “empty” symbols (Harbsmeier 1979: 159ff). More recent studies such
as Grossmann & Polis (2014) reveal that grammaticalization processes
were occurring nearly 5,000 years ago in Old Egyptian.
Grammaticalization as we know it today is as old as language itself.
The study of grammaticalization increased significantly in the 20th
century, in particular the latter half of the 20th century, with new
theoretical advances proposed by Kuryɬowicz (1964, 1976), Benveniste
(1968) and Givón (1979) featuring amongst the earliest,
ground-breaking research that was to question the trends of current
structuralist and generative linguistics of the time. Much of this
early work is summarized in Hopper & Traugott’s concise theoretical
reference (1993[2003]: 25-30). Hopper and Traugott, together with
Heine and his colleagues, were probably the main protagonists involved
in establishing the foundations of a revolution in both diachronic and
comparative investigation, which has left an indelible influence on
all aspects of linguistic research over the past four decades.
Landmark publications include, e.g., Hopper 1987, 1991; Traugott 1989;
Traugott & Heine (eds.) 1991; Heine (1993, 1997), Heine & Kuteva
(2002, 2005, 2007), and Kuteva et al (2019).
Since around the beginning of the 21st century, the relatively new
field of constructions and construction grammars has also been rapidly
expanding. Initially discussed with reference to explaining the
routinized meanings arising from colloquialized idioms in English, for
example, much of the earlier research was spurred on by studies such
as Goldberg (1995) in which the syntax of a construction could be seen
to produce a holistic, schematic semantics distinct from the meanings
of its individual, lexical components. Croft (2001) took the approach
more radically, including, as did Traugott (2014), what others would
simply label an isolated, atomic morpheme under the definition of a
construction. More recent accounts (e.g. Gildea & Barðdal 2023) appear
to have attempted to cross the long-established frontiers of
grammaticalization research, and proposed that many processes of
grammaticalization can be subsumed under the rubric of Diachronic
Construction Grammar (DCxG), in a one-size-fits-all theory of
construction development. The term ‘diachronic construction grammar’,
attributed to Ziegeler (2004) by Noël (2013), was first mentioned in a
pre-theoretical context in which it referred to the development of
certain constructions over time and the way in which
grammaticalization takes place within constructions (see also Basile &
Ziegeler, to appear). Others, such as Bybee et al (1994: 11), Heine
(2003), Traugott (2003), Himmelmann (2004), and Noël (2006) had also
noted that grammaticalization must take place and involve the entire
construction in which the relevant lexical morpheme is found; it does
not take place in a vaccum. The term ‘constructionalization’ was first
used by Bergs & Diewald (2008) and Traugott (2008) (according to Noël
& Colleman 2021). Traugott & Trousdale (2013) first proposed the
hypothesis of ‘grammatical constructionalization’ - the development of
a new (grammatical) form with a new meaning - as a more inclusive
means of studying grammaticalization within the confines of
construction-building, and illustrating their hypothesis with such
instances as be going to, and the quantifier a lot (of) in English.
Since then, others have queried attempts to reduce grammaticalization
to conform with the tenets of constructionalization, or DCxG per se,
for example Gregersen (2018) and Hilpert (2018), who question the
emergence of distinct construction types in the incremental stages of
developing grammatical morphology. Basile & Ziegeler (to appear)
propose that even the more periphrastic means of expressing
grammatical functions, in the form of Event Schemas (Heine 1993, 1997;
Heine, Narrog & Long 2016), can be accounted for as
grammaticalization, as the semantics of the source construction are
continuously maintained into the target construction.
Goals:
We are at the point at which urgent questions must be raised for the
purposes of future research in both grammaticalization and DCxG:
should we attempt to (a) eliminate the need for a separate theory of
grammaticalization and throw it all into the kitchen sink of
constructionalism, or (b) cautiously maintain the two theoretical
approaches as useful and distinct in their own right, or (c), endeavor
to find a compromise of integrating grammaticalization within
constructionalization, or constructionalization within a
grammaticalization trajectory? These are the principle aims of the
conference, which we hope will stimulate new grounds for careful
research, discussion and debate, within an open and scholarly fashion.
Topics on such broader, theoretical points of view would be especially
welcome, which may include the following (though the conference theme
is by no means limited to them):
(a) What are the phenomena that are in the scope of DCxG but not of
grammaticalization theory, and vice versa?
(b) What should be the place of the two approaches in a theory of
language change?
(c) What is the relationship between context and meaning in
grammatical change?
(d) Is the distinction between lexical and grammatical change a robust
one?
(e) How to segment linguistic discourse into relevant pieces of
analysis?
We invite presenters to address one or more of these issues in a talk
of the following format:
Format: 35-minute presentation followed by 15 minutes of discussion

Language: English (both presentation and discussion)

Abstracts: Please submit an abstract (up to 500 words) to Haiping Long
(lhpszpt at 126.com) by August 31st.
Practical information:
Venue: School of Foreign Languages, Sun Yat-sen University, China (or
online for those unable to attend in person)

Workshop dates: October 25–26, 2025
Organizers/scientific committee: Bernd Heine (University of Köln);
Debra Ziegeler (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3); Alessandro
Basile (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3); Eric Mélac (Université
Paul Valéry - Montpellier 3); Haiping Long (Sun Yat-sen University).
Conference fee: none.
Any questions related to the workshop can be sent to Haiping Long
(lhpszpt at 126.com).
References
Basile, C. A., & Ziegeler, D. (to appear in 2026). Rescuing
grammaticalization from construction hegemony: The evolution of the
modal BETTER. Folia Linguistica Historica 47(1).
Benveniste, E. (1968). Mutations of linguistic categories. In W. P.
Lehmann & Y. Malkiel (Eds.), Directions for historical linguistics: A
symposium (pp. 83–94). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bergs, A., & Diewald, G. (2008). Introduction: Constructions and
language change. In A. Bergs & G. Diewald (Eds.), Constructions and
language change (pp. 1–12). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bybee, J. L., Perkins, R. D., & Pagliuca, W. (1994). The evolution of
grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Croft, W. (2001). Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic theory in
typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gildea, S., & Barðdal, J. (2023). From grammaticalization to
Diachronic Construction Grammar. A natural evolution of the paradigm.
Studies in Language 47(4), 743–788.
Givón, T. (1979). On Understanding Grammar. New York: Academic Press.
(Revised and reprinted (2018), for John Benjamins).
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Gregersen, S. (2018). Some (critical) questions for Diachronic
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