Grammaticalization
One particular context for semantic change is grammaticalization, the process of semantic bleaching and category change by which grammatical forms develop in a language. Grammaticalization is a complex subject, and we will only touch on it briefly here. Grammaticalization can be defined as the process by which open-class content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) turn into closed-class function forms like adpositions, conjunctions, pronouns, particles and demonstratives, as well as case- and tense-markers, by losing elements of their meaning, and by a restriction in their possible grammatical contexts. Study of these proc esses has revealed a number of regular pathways which recur again and again in the world’s languages, linking particular open-class lexemes with particular grammaticalized functions (see Heine and Kuteva 2002). A simple example is the grammaticalization of the word meaning ‘circle’ into a preposition in many European languages. In Icelandic, German and Latin, for instance, the noun meaning ‘ring, circle’ (kring, Ring and circus respectively) is the source of the preposition ‘around’ (kring, rings and circum). The shift involves a change in both meaning (‘circle’ > ‘around’) and grammatical category (noun > preposition: see Heine and Kuteva 2002: 68 for details). Another example, this time from outside Europe, is that perfect/completive markers are often derived from lexical roots meaning ‘throw’. Examples are Korean pelita, a perfect aspect marker, and Japanese sutsu (utsu, tsu), a completive marker, both of which developed out of the lexical verbs meaning ‘throw away’ (Heine and Kuteva 2002: 297).
The following example from Ewe (Niger-Congo; Ghana) shows different stages in a common grammaticalization process. We start with a content word, the body-part noun ‘back’ (11a), which is grammaticalized into a marker of spatial and other relations:
Here, just as in English, the word for ‘back’, megbé, is used to cover a variety of notions. In (11a) it simply refers to an object, the body part. In (11b) it expresses a spatial relation which we can see as the application of a metaphor: just as in English, the subject is said to be at the house’s ‘back’. In (11c) no obvious metaphorical motivation is any longer present, and megbé conveys the fact that the subject stayed while the others left, while in (11d) it refers to time. Categorial development runs from ordinary noun in (11a), to adverb in (11c), to postposition in (11b) and (11d). This change of syntactic category goes hand in hand with a progressive shifting of the form’s meaning from concrete to abstract.
The history of French negation provides a well-known example of gram maticalization. In Old French, negation could simply be achieved through a negative particle, ne (n’ before a vowel):
But the negation was often strengthened by the addition of a further noun, determined by the context. Some of these nouns were mot ‘word’, mie ‘crumb’, gote ‘drop’, grain ‘grain’ and point ‘point’. Originally, as in (13a), the additional noun has its full lexical value and was only used when semantically appropriate – in contexts of speaking or thinking for mot, eating for mie, drinking for gote and so on: (13a) is an example of this for mot. Often, however, this original value is bleached away and it does no more than reinforce the negation, as in (13b):
Verbs of motion typically formed their negative with ne . . . pas, the noun pas meaning ‘step’:
This was subject to exactly the same sort of bleaching as the other nouns, and often occurs in contexts where no motion is relevant:
In contemporary non-formal French, pas on its own has assumed the role of principal negative (Ashby 1981), as in (16):
In these contexts, pas is no longer a noun, but has been grammaticalized into a negative particle by losing its original sense ‘step’. This coalition of semantic bleaching and change of grammatical category is typical of grammaticalization.
QUESTION Could this grammaticalization chain be described through any of the traditional notions discussed in 11.2.1 (generalization, metaphor, etc.)? If so, how?
