Grammaticalization from Minimizer to Focus Marker as Upward Reanalysis along the Nominal Spine*

Abstract

This article demonstrates that Japanese minimizers, which are originally used as Negative Polarity Items in a negative context, can sometimes behave as focus markers when used postnominally. I will review a previous syntactic analysis of English minimizers, and propose a revised syntactic analysis of Japanese minimizers, based on newly discovered synchronic and diachronic facts. I argue that the usage of Japanese minimizers as focus markers was developed through grammaticalization as Upward Reanalysis along the nominal spine.

Comparison of the Verb of Motion GO in English and Chinese in Terms of Grammaticalization

“…The second token of qu cannot be replaced by another verb of motion such as zou 'walk' and pao 'run', whether or not it is doubled by the modified verb on the first token of qu, as shown in (41) and (42); this is another piece of evidence that suggests that the second token of qu in the double qu construction undergoes grammaticalization: (41) Moreover, the doubling (copying) of the verb in a V 1 -VP-V 2 construction, where V 1 is the same as V 2 , is limited to cases where both V 1 and V 2 are qu 'go' or lai 'come'. Even if both qu tokens are replaced by the same verb of motion, such as zou 'walk' and pao 'run', the result is not acceptable, as shown in ( 43): (43) The second token of qu cannot be replaced by any other verbs of motion than lai, and the doubling (copying) of the verb in V 1 -VP-V 2 construction is limited to qu 'go' and lai 'come', which leads us to conclude that the second token for qu (and lai) has been grammaticalized, under the natural assumption that in Chinese, as in English (and many other languages), GO and COME are the only two candidates for grammaticalization to semi-lexical verbs of motion, likely due to their semantic lightness.…”

“…The two morphosyntactic options for qu exist precisely because of the semi-lexical nature of the verb, as is commonly assumed to be possible for an element in the process of grammaticalization (Simpson and Wu (2001), Roberts and Roussou (2003), Nishiyama and Ogawa (2014), Ogawa (2014Ogawa ( , 2022Ogawa ( , 2023).…”