Thoughts on grammaticalization 3rd edition 2015 Christian Lehmann language Classics in Linguistics 1 science press Classics in Linguistics Chief Editors: Martin Haspelmath, Stefan Müller In this series: 1. Lehmann, Christian. Thoughts on grammaticalization 2. Schütze, Carson T. The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology 3. Bickerton, Derek. Roots of Language Thoughts on grammaticalization 3rd edition 2015 Christian Lehmann language science press Christian Lehmann. 2015. Thoughts on grammaticalization. 3rd edition 2015 (Classics in Linguistics 1). Berlin: Language Science Press. 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Contents Prospect of Volume II v Series Editors’ preface to the 3rd edition vii Preface to the 1982 working paper version ix Preface to the 1995/2002 editions xi Abbreviations xiii 1 The history of research in grammaticalization 1 2 Grammaticalization: characterization and delimitation of the concept 11 2.1 The term “grammaticalization” ................... 11 2.2 The meaning of “grammaticalization” ............... 13 2.3 Degrammaticalization ........................ 18 2.4 Renovation and innovation ..................... 22 2.5 Reinforcement ............................ 24 3 Grammatical domains 27 3.1 Verbal complexes .......................... 28 3.1.1 Existence and possession .................. 28 3.1.2 The copula .......................... 28 3.1.3 Modals and moods ..................... 29 3.1.4 Tense and aspect ...................... 31 3.1.5 Passive and emphasis .................... 34 3.1.6 Auxiliaries and alternative sources ............ 35 3.2 Pronominal elements ........................ 40 3.2.1 Definite pronominal elements ............... 40 3.2.2 Indefinite pronominal elements .............. 52 3.3 Nominal complexes ......................... 58 3.3.1 Nominal categories ..................... 58 Contents 3.3.2 Nominalization ....................... 65 3.3.3 Attribution ......................... 72 3.4 Clause level relations ........................ 79 3.4.1 Adverbial relations ..................... 79 3.4.2 Main actant relations .................... 115 3.5 Conclusion .............................. 128 4 Parameters of grammaticalization 129 4.1 Theoretical prerequisites ...................... 129 4.2 Paradigmatic parameters ...................... 134 4.2.1 Integrity ........................... 134 4.2.2 Paradigmaticity ....................... 141 4.2.3 Paradigmatic variability .................. 146 4.3 Syntagmatic parameters ...................... 152 4.3.1 Structural scope ....................... 152 4.3.2 Bondedness ......................... 157 4.3.3 Syntagmatic variability ................... 167 4.4 Interaction of parameters ...................... 170 4.4.1 Quantifiability of the parameters ............. 170 4.4.2 Correlation among the parameters ............ 173 4.4.3 Lack of correlation ..................... 179 4.4.4 Reduction to zero and fixation of word order ...... 181 Epilogue to the third edition 189 References 197 Index 211 Name index ................................. 211 iv Prospect of Volume II1 5. Processes cognate to grammaticalization 5.1. Semantic processes 5.2. Lexicalization 5.3. Phonological processes 5.4. Analogy 6. Traditional problems in new perspective 6.1. Grammatical meaning 6.2. Grammatical levels 6.3. Markedness 6.4. Arbitrariness of the linguistic sign 6.5. Semantic representation 7. Comparison of languages 7.1. Contrastive linguistics 7.2. Language typology 7.3. Language universals 8. Language history and linguistic evolution 8.1. Development of grammatical categories 8.2. Linguistic evolution 8.3. Historical reconstruction 9. Language theory 9.1. Language activity 9.2. The causes of grammaticalization 1 Volume II was planned but was never written; see the preface to the 1995/2002 editions. Series Editors’ preface to the 3rd edition This is the third edition of Christian Lehmann’s Thoughts on grammaticalization, a book which has had great impact on the development of grammaticalization studies since the 1980s in spite of its unusual publication history. The first version was circulated in 1982 as a working paper of the University of Cologne’s UNITYP project. At that time, its full title included the indication “Volume I”, because the author had planned a second volume. The first published edition appeared in 1995 with Lincom Europa. The second edition appeared again as a working paper, this time of the University of Erfurt (ASSidUE), in 2002. We are happy that Christian Lehmann accepted our proposal to publish it again as a regular book. We feel that it deserves more prominence, as it provides an excellent overview of grammaticalization processes and its theoretical ideas have not been superseded. The third edition contains few changes compared to the second edition from 2002; the main addition is an epilogue at the end of the book. Otherwise the author and editors limited themselves to a few stylistic modifications such as corrected typos, more consistent use of abbreviations and a few adaptations to the usual Language Science Press style. Note that the post-1982 work that corresponds to the various chapters of the planned Volume II is mentioned in the preface of the 1995 edition. Berlin/Leipzig, October 2015 The Series Editors Preface to the 1982 working paper version As we will be going a long way, through involved and ramified discussions, until we arrive at something like a definition of grammaticalization, the reader who wants to know beforehand what this book is all about is asked to accept this as a preliminary characterization: Grammaticalization is a process leading from lexemes to grammatical formatives. A number of semantic, syntactic and phono- logical processes interact in the grammaticalization of morphemes and of whole constructions. A sign is grammaticalized to the extent that it is devoid of con- crete lexical meaning and takes part in obligatory grammatical rules. A simple example is the development of the Latin preposition ad ‘at, towards’ into the Spanish direct object marker a. It must be made clear at the outset that this treatment is preliminary, incom- plete and imperfect. It presents little more than what has been found out inthe two centuries in which the subject has been studied, and probably it contains even less than that, because I have been unable to take notice of all the relevant literature. I must also warn the reader that I have great conceptual difficulties with the present subject, and I will leave many questions open. The problem is not so much an empirical one: there are sufficient analyzed data, and the em- pirical phenomena in themselves appear to be reasonably clear. What is highly unclear is how the phenomena are to be interpreted, classified and related to each other. Grammaticalization is such a pervasive process and therefore such a comprehensive notion that it is often difficult to say what does not fall under it. The present essay will therefore be concerned, first and foremost, withthe question: what is grammaticalization? The discussion will not be couched in terms of a specific theory of grammar, one reason being that existing grammatical models are inadequate for the repre- sentation of the gradual nature which is essential to the phenomena comprised by grammaticalization. As many of the problems involved are traditional ones, they can be discussed in traditional terms. The theory of language which is to account for the systematicity, goal- directedness and dynamism inherent to grammaticalization must be structural, Preface to the 1982 working paper version functional and operational in nature. It is essentially the theory of Wilhelm von Humboldt (1836), which has been elaborated in more recent times by Eugenio Coseriu (1974) and Hansjakob Seiler (1978). This theory has never been made fully explicit; but it will become transparent through all of the present treatment, and an attempt to make it more explicit will be presented in the last chapter. The work is organized as follows. We start, in Chapter 1, with a brief historical review of the relevant literature. Chapter 2 will supply some first clarifications to the concept of grammaticalization and will delimit it against related concepts. Chapter 3 contains the bulk of the empirical data which illustrate grammatical- ization, ordered according to semantically defined domains of grammar. From this