Some Observations on What Grammaticalization Is and Is Not

Bibliographic Data

ID5082549
AuthorsBrian D Joseph (0000-0002-5963-9322, The Ohio State University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume2
Issue1
Pagese343
Publication date2021-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCadernos de Linguística e Teoria da Literatura (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais) (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2675-4916 • E-ISSN: 2675-4916
PublisherAssociacao Brasileira de Linguistica (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.25189/2675-4916.2021.v2.n1.id343
OpenAlexW3189822411
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited45

The notion of 'grammaticalization' - the embedding of once non- (or less-) grammatical phenomena into the grammar of a language - has enjoyed broad acceptance over the past 30 years as a new paradigm for describing and accounting for linguistic change. Despite its appeal, my contention is that there are some issues with 'grammaticalization' as it is conventionally described and discussed in the literature. My goal here is to explore what some of those problems are and to focus on what grammaticalization has to offer as a methodology for studying language change. Drawing on case studies from the history of English and the history of Greek, I reach a characterization of how much of grammatical change can legitimately be called "grammaticalization" and how much is something else. In this way, I work to achieve a sense of what grammaticalization is and what it is not

Grammar · Grammaticalization · Historical linguistics · History of English · Language change · Linguistics · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · History · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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