Introduction

In the Introduction and Chapter 1 we provided the theoretical framework that underlies our approach to grammaticalization, focussing on issues pertaining to language change and its relation to acquisition and the nature of parameters. Within this setting we proposed that grammaticalization can be seen as the result of upward reanalysis which affects a subclass of lexical items. As such, its effects in the grammar can be explained and indeed predicted, without at the same time postulating a distinct process or mechanism of change. The empirical evidence for our approach was given in Chapters 2, 3 and 4 where we concentrated on the grammaticalization of T, C, and D elements respectively. Some of the cases we have considered have been treated as typical examples of grammaticalization to the extent that they involve lexical to functional reanalysis (the cases in Chapter 2 for example), while others have not been considered as such, partly because they involve functional to functional reanalysis (e.g. most of the cases in Chapters 3 and 4). In this chapter, we return to the theoretical issues raised in the Introduction and in Chapter 1. Our goal here is to elucidate these as far as possible, in the light of the analyses of the various cases of grammaticalization we have analysed in the preceding three chapters.

We identified three main questions as themes in the Introduction: (i) the ubiquity of grammaticalization – why is this kind of change so common?

Introduction

Most of the work on grammaticalization that we have discussed so far was conducted within the framework of a relatively monogenetic view of change. This approach arose out of a tradition that started with comparative linguistics and persisted in the very largely different context of generative grammar. However different they have been, nevertheless both of these traditions have idealized homogeneity of language and of transmission, whereas in fact most actual situations involve contact, at the minimum with speakers of other dialects, whether social, regional, or stylistic (see Weinreich, Labov, and Herzog 1968; Thomason and Kaufman 1988 for landmark studies of the consequences of heterogeneity for an understanding of how language changes).

We turn in this chapter to the question whether studies of contact situations raise special issues regarding grammaticalization (see also Heine and Kuteva 2002). We ignore situations of contact that entail only partial external influence on subparts of a linguistic system. One such situation is that of “borrowing,” which often involves extensive incorporation of foreign elements in only one or two areas of the language, typically the lexicon, with minimal influence elsewhere. Ordinarily the kinds of items borrowed are independent words and morphemes (Weinreich 1953), although very occasionally morphological paradigms may be borrowed (Thomason and Kaufman 1988: 20 cite the unusual case of Mednyi Aleut, with Russian finite-verb morphology but with other largely Aleut grammar and vocabulary).

Introduction

Ordinary discourse does not consist of isolated, context-free utterances, but of linked discourse units comprising reports, orders, comments, descriptions, and other kinds of linguistic activity. These units, usually expressed by clauses, typically consist of a verb and indicators of the arguments of the verb, in the form of lexical nouns, pronouns, or pronominal affixes. All languages have devices for linking clauses together into what are called complex sentences. These tend to be classified in grammars according to functional—semantic principles, for example, whether a clause functions as an NP (complements, or “noun clauses,” that are arguments of the clause), modifies an NP (relative clauses), or has adverbial functions (e.g., temporal, causative, or conditional clauses). However, the form of a “complex sentence” may differ quite radically among languages and among speakers and occasions of speech in one and the same language, from fairly simple juxtapositions of relatively independent clauses characteristic of casual speech, such as (1), to complex dependent rhetorical constructions typically arising in the context of traditions of written grammar, such as (2):

1. (1) Within the decade there will be an earthquake. It is likely to destroy the whole town.

2. (2) That there will be an earthquake within the decade that will destroy the whole town is likely.

It has been customary to discuss the development of markers of clause linkage such as the two instances of that in (2) in terms of grammaticalization.

In this book we have introduced the major theoretical and methodological issues under discussion in work on grammaticalization. As indicated in Chapter 1, the approach we have taken is two-pronged. Specifically, we have considered grammaticalization as (ⅰ) a research framework for studying the relationships between lexical, constructional, and grammatical material in language, whether diachronically or synchronically, whether in particular languages or cross-linguistically, and (ⅱ) a term referring to the change whereby lexical items and constructions come in certain linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions and, once grammaticalized, continue to develop new grammatical functions. The term is, however, used in different ways by different linguists, and we have outlined some differences in approach, most especially in Chapters 2 and 5.

Chapters 3 and 4 discussed the major mechanisms of change that can lead to grammaticalization: reanalysis and analogy at the morphosyntactic level, conceptual metonymy and metaphor at the semantic, both driven initially by pragmatic inferencing. We have argued that grammaticalization can be thought of as the result of the continual negotiation of meaning that speakers and hearers engage in in the context of discourse production and perception. The potential for grammaticalization lies in speakers attempting to be maximally informative, and in hearers attempting to be maximally cooperative, depending on the needs of the particular situation. Negotiating meaning may involve innovation, specifically, pragmatic, semantic, and ultimately grammatical enrichment.

When we wrote the first edition of this book in the early 1990s, our aim was to present an overview of grammaticalization for the benefit of those students of linguistics to whom this was a new or only vaguely familiar framework for understanding linguistic phenomena. We defined grammaticalization as the process whereby lexical items and constructions come in certain linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions, and, once grammaticalized, continue to develop new grammatical functions. We also characterized it as the process whereby the properties that distinguish sentences from vocabulary come into being diachronically or are organized synchronically. In the last ten years grammaticalization has become a major field of study, and work on the topic has flourished in both “functional” and “formal” frameworks, that is, on the one hand frameworks that privilege the interplay of language structure and use and consider language as both a cognitive and a communicative force, and on the other frameworks that privilege language structure and consider language primarily from the perspective of internalized systems. As work has progressed, it has become clear that the definition of grammaticalization as a “process” has been misleading. To some it has suggested that grammaticalization is conceived as a force with an impetus of its own independent of language learners and language users. This was never intended. Only people can change language.

Introduction

Although it is possible to describe change in terms of the operation of successive strategies of reanalysis (rule change) and analogy (rule generalization), the important question remains why these strategies come about — in other words, what enables the mechanisms we have outlined, most especially those involved in grammaticalization. It is tempting to think in terms of “causes” and even of “explanations” in the sense of “predictions.” However, the phenomena that give rise to language change are so complex that they will perhaps never be understood in enough detail for us to state precisely why a specific change occurred in the past or to predict when one will occur and if it does what it will be (Lass 1980). Rather than referring to “causes” or “explanations,” we speak more cautiously of motivations or enabling factors, understanding always that we are referring to potential and statistically preferred, not absolute, factors (see, among many others, Greenberg 1978b; Romaine 1982; Croft 2000; Maslova 2000).

As mentioned previously, among motivations for change three have been widely discussed in recent years. Of greatest interest within generative linguistics has been the role of language acquisition, especially child language acquisition. Sociolinguists, by contrast, have tended to focus attention on the role of communities and different types of contact within them. Of special interest to those working on grammaticalization has been the role of speakers and hearers negotiating meaning in communicative situations.