Full Description
Since the 1980s theories and studies of grammaticalization have provided a major source of inspiration for the description and explanation of language change, giving rise to many publications and conferences. This collection presents original, empirical studies that explore various facets of grammaticalization research of both formal and functional orientation. The papers of this selection deal with general issues and specific empirical domains, such as personal pronouns; indefinite pronouns; final particles; tense and aspect markers; comitative markers and coordinating conjunctions. The languages covered include English, German, dialects of Italian, Japanese, Polish, and Walman (Papuan). The book will be of great interest to linguists working on language change in a wide variety of languages.
Contents
1. Acknowledgements; 2. Introduction (by Hancil, Sylvie); 3. Part 1. General issues; 4. Acquisition Based and Usage Based Explanations of Grammaticalisation. An Integrative Approach (by Ohl, Peter); 5. Grammaticalization and Explanation (by Appelbaum, Irene); 6. The perfectivization of the English perfect: is it a case of grammaticalization, after all? The challenge of pluricentrality (by Walker, Jim); 7. Explaining language structure: On categorial misbehavior in Walman (Papua New Guinea) (by Heine, Bernd); 8. Toward a constructional framework for research on language change (by Traugott, Elizabeth Closs); 9. Part 2. Case studies; 10. Grammaticalization of Polish mental predicate prefixes (by Kokorniak, Iwona); 11. More Thoughts on the Grammaticalization of Personal Pronouns: Evidence from the history of Japanese (by Shibasaki, Reijirou); 12. The grammaticalization of nome in the Eastern Abruzzese dialect Ortese: Fromindefinite pronoun to inflectional marker? (by Russi, Cinzia); 13. The different developments of progressive aspect markers be in the middle/midst of and be in the process of V-ing: mechanisms of change (by Van Rompae, Tine); 14. Sequentiality in dialogue as a trigger for grammaticalization (by Haselow, Alexander); 15. The final particle but in British English: an instance of cooptation and grammaticalization at work (by Hancil, Sylvie); 16. "Final hanging but" in American English: Where a formal coordinator meets a functional subordinator (by Izutsu, Mitsuko Narita); 17. Author index; 18. Subject index
