101. Grammaticalization and semantic reanalysis

Modeling the Semantic and Pragmatic Evolution ofne … pasin French

“…It began to be used more and more frequently in contexts where ne ... point had been common. This is consistent with the theories of Traugott (1989), Eckardt (2007), Kiparsky and Condoravdi (2006) and Schwenter (2006) that postulate an "emphatic" stage of presupposition denial.…”

“…However, medieval France was a very religious society, and there is also a possibility that the phrase could have been borrowed through allusions to that section of Acts. What is clear is that pas did not evolve "from step to negation", as claimed by Eckardt (2007), but "from pace (or foot) to negation" ; it was already being used as a measurement of area before it became part of a negative construction. A measurement, especially a small one relative to territory, makes more sense as an item of minimal value, and as a minimal unit of both distance and territory passu could be expected to occur in a much wider range of contexts than just verbs of motion.…”

“…Diez (1882 : 1079), Vaananen (1967 : 240), Stein (2002) and Eckardt (2007) give evidence that punctum, micam and gutta, the antecedents of point, mie and goutte were already being used as items of minimal value in Latin, particularly in the work of Plautus and Jerome. The expression ne punctum quidam (temporis) "not a single point in time" was common in the work of Cicero and other authors ; note how, as with passum, its sense was a more general, abstract one as opposed to the concrete sense of "stitch" sometimes given.…”

Chapter 10. RATHER – On a modal cycle

“…The idea that meaning change is more than lexical change or pragmatic conventionalization of single items is not new, but its more systematic exploitation is relatively recent (cf. Eckardt 2007 andDasher 2001, among others). What I would like to add to the picture is how a semantically motivated (and realized) movement such as the type observed in QR may effect a language change phenomenon.…”

“…Alongside potential morphological and phonological change, both the surrounding tree geometry of the word (including LF for the purposes of interpretation) and the way its lexical entry combines with the other nodes of the clause can thus typically change; cf. Eckardt (2007) for a perspicuous illustration of the latter based on going to.…”