Can Grammaticalization be Explained Invisible Handedly?

Klausenburger, Jurgen

doi:10.1075/cilt.164.13kla

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Below in section 4.3 I will give some reasons why I regard Lehmann's approach as superior to Lüdtke's (although Lü dtke's theory is much more rigorous and explicit). ( Klausenburger [1999], too, discusses grammaticalization in the context of Keller's meta-theory, but he does not address the issue of why grammaticalization is irreversible.) 8.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This summarizes a view that has been very widespread in the literature. A recent representative of this approach is Klausenburger (1999), who suggests that in grammaticalization new periphrastic forms are created because the older forms are no longer viable ''due to the inexorable weakening or destructive evolution so characteristic during grammaticalization.'' Similarly, an anonymous Linguistics reviewer suggests that grammaticalization is due (at least in part) to ''the fact that speakers may revert to periphrastic or metaphorical constructions ... because the older construction may have become opaque for purely linguistic reasons.''…”

Section: Previous Attempts At Explaining Irreversibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why is grammaticalization irreversible?

Haspelmath¹

1999

Linguistics

446

174

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Grammaticalization, the change by which lexical categories become functional categories, is overwhelmingly irreversible. Prototypical functional categories never become prototypical lexical categories, and less radical changes against the general directionality of grammaticalization are extremely rare. Although the pervasiveness of grammaticalization has long been known, the question of why this change is irreversible has not been asked until fairly recently. However, no satisfactory explanation has been proposed so far. Irreversibility cannot be attributed to the lack of predictability, to the interplay of the motivating factors of economy and clarity, or to a preference for simple structures in language acquisition. I propose an explanation that follows the general structure of Keller's (1994) invisible-hand theory: language change is shown to result from the cumulation of countless individual actions of speakers, which are not intended to change language, but whose side effect is change in a particular direction. Grammaticalization is a side effect of the maxim of extravagance, that is, speakers' use of unusually explicit formulations in order to attract attention. As these are adopted more widely in the speech community, they become more frequent and are reduced phonologically. I propose that degrammaticalization is by and large impossible because there is no counteracting maxim of ''anti-extravagance,'' and because speakers have no conscious access to grammaticalized expressions and thus cannot use them in place of less grammaticalized ones. This is thus a usage-based explanation, in which the notion of imperfect language acquisition as the locus of change plays no role.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Previous Attempts At Explaining Irreversibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Why is grammaticalization irreversible?

Haspelmath¹

1999

Linguistics

446

174

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“…Pero el modelo no sólo presenta una hipótesis ambiciosa sobre la diacronia de las lenguas en general sino que pretende también tener un poder explicativo desde el punto de vista sincrónico (Lehmann 1985b). Además, varios autores se han empeñado en buscar una explicación cognitiva del cambio: entre las causas posibles que constituirían la base de todo proceso de gramaticalización se han mencionado la simplificación (Roberts 1993), la ley del menor esfuerzo (Newmeyer 1998), el principio de ¡conicidad (Givon 1971), e incluso la ley de la mano invisible (Keller 1994, Klausenburger 1999.…”

Section: Nuevo Paradigmaunclassified

“…la noción de subjectification de Traugott (1988de Traugott ( , 1995) sino también en la búsqueda de las causas: de manera muy general la gramaticalización podría explicarse por necesidades de tipo comunicativo (Heine 2002, Chafe 2002, tanto por un principio de economía (Keller 1994, Klausenburger 1999, Marchello-Nizia 2000 como por un principio de creatividad, llamado extravagance por Haspclmath (1999).…”

Section: Razones Del éXitounclassified

La teoría de la gramaticalización y sus aplicaciones en las lenguas románicas

Lamiroy

2004

ELUA

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ResumenThe paper aims at showing how grammaticalization theory applies to Romance languages. In the first part of the paper we give a short overview of the main definitions and principles of the theory. Since grammaticalization phenomena regard all components of langualkge, we distinguish between semantic, syntactic, morphological and phonetic aspects of the process. Furthermore, we also explore the question why this theory has been so successfull of late. Its success raises antohcr question in turn, viz. whether we are dealing with a new 'paradigm' in linguistics, particular in the field of linguistic typology.The second part is devoted to the study of empirical data taken from two different areas, auxiliary verbs on the one hand and prepositional clauses on the other, in three Romance languages, French, Italian and Spanish. We argue, first, with respect to auxiliaries, that an analysis in terms of grammaticalization is to be preferred over other competing analyses such as raising or transparency because the theory allows to account for heterogeneous data. Auxiliary verbs indeed do not constitute a homogeneous class. Second, from a comparative vantage point, it is shown that French displays many more grammaticalization symptoms than Spanish does. Italian seems to occupy an intermediate position, as far as auxiliaries are concerned. With respect to prepositional complements, we only take French and Spanish into account. Once more, we argue that French is much more advanced on the grammaticalization chain than Spanish is and provide evidence for our claim. INTRODUCCIÓNLa finalidad de este artículo es ilustrar cómo la teoría de la gramaticalización se puede aplicar en las lenguas románicas. La ilustración se hará con dos ejemplos, relativos a las perífrasis verbales por un lado (ejemplo 1) y a los complementos esenciales de tipo preposicional por el otro. Estos últimos adoptarán la forma de un infinitivo o de una subordinada que F (ejemplo 2):(

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Can Grammaticalization be Explained Invisible Handedly?

Cited by 2 publications

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Why is grammaticalization irreversible?

Why is grammaticalization irreversible?

La teoría de la gramaticalización y sus aplicaciones en las lenguas románicas

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