36.1455, Reviews: Ten Lectures on Grammaticalization: Egizaryan (2025)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1455. Tue May 06 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1455, Reviews: Ten Lectures on Grammaticalization: Egizaryan (2025)

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Date: 06-May-2025
From: Pavel Egizaryan [pavel.egizaryan at gmail.com]
Subject: Historical Linguistics: Egizaryan (2025)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35-2571

Title: Ten Lectures on Grammaticalization
Subtitle: An Introduction
Series Title: Distinguished Lectures in Cognitive Linguistics
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: Brill
           http://www.brill.com
Book URL: https://brill.com/display/title/69636

Author(s): Christian Lehmann

Reviewer: Pavel Egizaryan

SUMMARY
The book “Ten Lectures on Grammaticalization” is authored by Christian
Lehmann, Professor Emeritus of General and Comparative Linguistics at
the University of Erfurt, Germany. It is based on a series of online
lectures delivered in 2023 as part of the China International Forum on
Cognitive Linguistics. Designed as an accessible introduction to the
topic, the lectures do not presuppose any specialized background,
making the book suitable for a broad academic audience, including
students and scholars new to the field.
The first two lectures serve as an overview of what grammaticalization
is and how it can be analyzed. Lecture 1, “Introduction,” provides a
basic definition of grammaticalization and presents illustrative
examples of classical grammaticalization processes, such as the
development of definite and indefinite articles, the progressive
aspect, and the synthetic future. These processes are traced in their
historical evolution — for example, from Old to Modern English, and
from Latin to Spanish and Portuguese. The lecture also introduces key
concepts that are explored in greater depth throughout the book,
including paradigmatization, obligatoriness, variability, and
fixation.
Lecture 2, “Basic Concepts of Grammaticalization Theory,” offers a
brief historical overview of grammaticalization studies and introduces
foundational linguistic notions essential for understanding the
phenomenon. Lehmann discusses the organization of the language system
and explains how linguistic elements lose their original motivation as
they acquire structural constraints. The lecture also explores the
criteria for identifying linguistic units undergoing
grammaticalization and highlights the relationship between synchronic
and diachronic perspectives in grammaticalization research.
The next three lectures are devoted to establishing the unique status
of grammaticalization among other processes affecting language
structure. Lecture 3, “Types of Variation in Grammar,” examines
grammaticalization in contrast to analogical change and reanalysis.
Analogy is described as a process that alters linguistic forms
independently of their original state, whereas grammaticalization is
inherently grounded in the historical development of existing
linguistic elements. Reanalysis, in turn, is a one-time structural
reinterpretation of a linguistic unit, while grammaticalization is a
multi-layered, gradual process. Although reanalysis may accompany
grammaticalization, it can also occur independently. In addition, the
lecture explores the possible structural consequences of
grammaticalization: it may either renew an existing grammatical
category or introduce a completely new one.
Lecture 4, “Criteria and Parameters of Grammaticalization,” focuses on
the internal mechanisms and dimensions of the grammaticalization
process. Lehmann identifies three aspects of a linguistic element’s
autonomy — cohesion, variability, and weight — each of which can be
analyzed from either a paradigmatic or a syntagmatic perspective. This
framework yields the core processes that characterize
grammaticalization: paradigmatization, obligatorification,
desemanticization/erosion, coalescence, fixation, and condensation.
Together, they offer a detailed understanding of how linguistic items
shift from lexical to grammatical status, both structurally and
functionally.
Lecture 5, “Delimiting Grammaticalization,” addresses the challenge of
distinguishing grammaticalization from other, often conflated,
linguistic processes. Lehmann emphasizes that phenomena such as
lexicalization, morphologization, and conversion are sometimes
mistakenly labeled as grammaticalization, despite their differing
mechanisms and outcomes. The lecture aims to clarify these
distinctions.
In Lectures 6 to 8, the author continues examining the internal
characteristics of grammaticalization. Lecture 6, “Semantic and
Pragmatic Aspects of Grammaticalization,” focuses on the development
of grammatical meaning. It explores how such meaning can emerge from
desemanticized or metaphorically extended linguistic elements, and how
this process affects the pragmatic functions of these elements within
discourse.
Lecture 7, “Grammaticalization in Some Functional Domains,” offers an
in-depth exploration of three specific cases of grammaticalization.
These include the evolution of copular verbs, the development of case
relations, and the emergence of aspectual markers across languages
from different families. The lecture demonstrates how
grammaticalization processes manifest within distinct functional
domains, illustrating both universal tendencies and language-specific
paths of change.
Lecture 8, “Directionality of Grammaticalization,” addresses the
question of whether grammaticalization is a directed and largely
unidirectional process. The author argues that grammaticalization
typically follows a consistent path from lexical to grammatical, and
from less to more grammatical. Cases of degrammaticalization — where
grammatical forms revert to lexical or less grammatical ones — are
discussed as extremely rare and controversial, requiring further
investigation to be fully understood.
The last two lectures offer a broader perspective on
grammaticalization. Lecture 9, “Grammaticalization and Linguistic
Typology,” explores how syntactic, morphological, and lexical features
can be examined cross-linguistically through the lens of
grammaticalization theory. The author also addresses the role of
grammaticalization in processes of language contact and in the genesis
and evolution of language itself.
Finally, Lecture 10, “Cognitive Basis of Grammaticalization,” builds a
bridge between linguistic theory and cognitive science by addressing
processes such as consciousness, control, and automation in human
activity. Lehmann formulates verifiable and falsifiable hypotheses
concerning the cognitive mechanisms that underlie grammaticalization.
EVALUATION
“Ten Lectures on Grammaticalization” is a brilliant and comprehensive
introduction to grammaticalization studies. Exceptionally detailed,
the book provides a multifaceted perspective on a wide range of issues
related to the role of grammaticalization in language evolution.
Moreover, it addresses a number of theoretical and methodological
questions in a way that could serve as a valuable model even for
research in adjacent areas of linguistics.
The structure of the book is remarkably coherent and logically
organized. As outlined in the summary, it is divided into several
thematic blocks, guiding the reader from general introductory topics —
such as the differentiation of grammaticalization from other processes
— through formal and typological discussions and toward more cognitive
and theoretical reflections. One of the book’s key strengths lies in
its consistent historical approach to demonstrating
grammaticalization. Each proposed case is supported by contextual
evidence from earlier stages of language development, showing how the
same construction was once used in a less desemanticized, less
bounded, and less grammaticalized way. Lehmann is meticulous in laying
out his methodology and consistently highlights the structural
principles underlying his analysis.
The theoretical foundation of the book is equally solid. The author
draws on a wide range of influential scholars — from Humboldt and
Meillet to Jakobson, Coseriu, Bybee, and Wierzbicka — integrating
their contributions into a reflective and cohesive narrative.
Despite maintaining exceptionally high standards in data selection and
interpretation, Lehmann presents dozens of diverse examples drawn from
languages around the world. In addition to many Indo-European
languages, the book includes data from Chinese, Vietnamese, Mayan, and
Cabécar, reflecting the author’s extensive typological expertise and
fieldwork experience. This breadth will undoubtedly appeal to scholars
seeking a more comprehensive perspective beyond the boundaries of
their own areas of specialization.
That said, a work of this complexity naturally raises some questions
and invites discussion. For example, the treatment of Brazilian
Portuguese verbal conjugation (pp. 11–12) appears somewhat simplified.
Firstly, it seems terminologically more accurate to refer to Old
Portuguese rather than European Portuguese as the intermediary stage
between Latin and Brazilian Portuguese. More importantly, the claim
that “an affix may be directly reduced to zero” seems imprecise here,
since most forms in Brazilian Portuguese are not the result of
straightforward erosion. While the author notes that the second person
normally triggers third-person verb agreement, similar developments
occur elsewhere: the normative first-person plural pronoun “nós” is
increasingly replaced by “a gente”, which requires third-person
singular agreement (Taylor 2009). Even the third-person plural “eles”
may be replaced by the formally singular “o pessoal” (Novaes 1997),
again taking third-person singular verbs.
Some ideas in the book would also benefit from further elaboration.
For instance, the claim that modern feminist language users contribute
to the re-semanticization of grammatical gender (pp. 59, 135) is
intriguing but underexplained. As a native speaker of Russian, a
language with grammatical gender, I find it difficult to understand
how the assumption that gender encodes sex could lead to
degrammaticalization. This association seems rather intuitive, and it
remains unclear how it would undermine the grammatical status of the
category.
Another potentially ambiguous case is the interpretation of elements
like German “zig” as instances of degrammaticalization (pp. 134–135).
While these morphemes may indeed show signs of increased syntactic
autonomy, one might wonder whether the numerals they derive from are
accessed holistically rather than analytically — a criterion that
Lehmann himself associates with lexicalization rather than
grammaticalization (p. 74). This raises the question of whether such
developments might be better viewed as instances of lexical change
following morphologization, rather than clear cases of a reversal in
grammatical status.
These comments are not intended as criticism but as invitations to
dialogue. They in no way undermine the outstanding quality of the
book, which will undoubtedly prove highly valuable both to students
and experienced researchers seeking a deeper understanding of current
theoretical developments in grammaticalization studies.
REFERENCES
Taylor, Michael. 2009. On the pronominal status of Brazilian
Portuguese “a gente”. NYU Working Papers in Linguistics 2. 1–36.
Novaes, Celso. 1997. Representação mental do sujeito nulo no Português
do Brasil. Revista de Estudos da Linguagem 6(2). 59-80.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Pavel Egizaryan is an independent researcher specializing in Romance
linguistics. He received his Ph.D. from Lomonosov Moscow State
University, with a dissertation focused on lexical and grammatical
means of expressing futurity in modern European Portuguese,
particularly the distribution of verb forms influenced by phonetic,
aspectual, modal, and pragmatic factors. His broader interests include
tense–aspect systems, deixis, diachronic linguistics, and the
intersection of grammar and discourse. He is also engaged in science
communication and popularization of the humanities.



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