Demarcating degrammaticalization: the Swedish s-genitive revisited

Abstract

Ever since its introduction by Christian Lehmann in 1982, the term 'degrammaticalization' has been the subject of much controversy. There has been considerable disagreement about what kind of phenomena the term refers to, and indeed if degrammaticalization exists at all. In this paper I will argue that degrammaticalization is not grammaticalization in reverse, but a separate kind of change worthy of study in its own right. The purpose of this paper will be to show how degrammaticalization changes are best identified, by using existing linguistic tests as diagnostics for establishing changes in the morphological status of certain degrammaticalization suspects, and for assessing the nature of the subchanges involved. One of the stock examples of degrammaticalization literature, i.e. the s-genitive in Swedish, will serve as a case study.

Syntactic Reanalysis of Pronouns as Demonstratives: A Case of Degrammaticalization

“…Demonstratives were replaced with pronouns (such as kare, sonata, anata), the surviving strong pronoun ware was reanalyzed as a demonstrative, and epithets (boku, watakusi) were co-opted into the role of referentially dependent pronouns. Following Norde's (2006) definition stated in (2), I have argued that this process is an instance of degrammaticalization. Roberts and Roussou (2003) propose that grammaticalization always involves structural simplification.…”

“…Based on Norde's (2006Norde's ( , 2009 definition of degrammaticalization in (2), I suggest that reanalysis of the strong pronoun ware as a demonstrative is an instance of degrammaticalization: ware loses its grammatical status and acquires new semantic content. The change is exactly opposite in direction to the change of the Latin demonstrative ille into the Romance strong pronouns, as analyzed by Giusti (1998Giusti ( , 2001.…”

“…Much recent research has, however, focused on what is known as degrammaticalization: changes that run counter to the general direction of (1) (cf. Janda (2001), Norde (2006Norde ( , 2009). Unlike grammaticalization, however, degrammaticalization has been treated as comprising a single change in isolation, such as from affix to clitic, or from function word to lexical item.…”

“…Thus, Willis (2007) discusses degrammaticalization of Welsh eiddo from possessive pronoun 'his' to the noun 'property. ' Norde (2006' Norde ( , 2009) discusses development of the word-marking genitive -s out of the case suffix in Swedish. Based on Kuryłowicz' (1975) classical definition of grammaticalization, Norde (2006) analyzes degrammaticalization as a process that involves an increase in semantic complexity, pragmatic significance, and syntactic freedom:…”

Introduction: The syntax of nominals and noun phrases

“…The constructions are dealt with in many of the studies of Norwegian that we have mentioned here, but an early, thorough study is Fiva (1987). The definiteness associated with the possessive has been questioned by Koptjevskaja-Tamm (2003), and the history and current morphosyntactic status of the genitive -s has been discussed by Delsing (1991bDelsing ( , 1999Delsing ( , 2001Delsing ( , 2002, Norde (1997Norde ( , 2001Norde ( , 2006 and Börjars (2003).…”