Chapter 6 Flashcards
Grammaticalisation: precesses and mechanisms
Grammaticalisation
the process by which new grammatical morphemes (grams) come into being
grammatical morphemes vs Lexical morphemes
Lexical Morphemes are open class, grammatical morphemes are closed class
example of gramms
Affixe, auxiliaires, articles, pronouns, preposition and postpositions
how grams are restricted
grammatical morphemes are restricted by where they can occur. they occur in particular constraints.
how “will”changed to become future aux
- in phonetic form. 2. morphosyntactic properties. 3. meaning or function
(this changes happen altogether gradually in the process of grammaticalisation)
what is the verb from which “will” produced?
“WILLAN”= WILL(want) + AN (infinitive suffix)
how was will an used?
- with NP a direct object. 2. with Clause coming with that 3. with infinitive complement
the story of WILL. OE
Old English: Will used with NP, Clause with that and infinitives. the meaning was mostly want. the other meanings was: Willingness, sometimes expressing the future. Singular and Plural was distinguished and 2sg was wilt.
Will in ME
ME: the use of will with infinitives increased. the use of will with np objects decreased. with the infinitive complement the meaning was willingness and intention. with FSG the meaning was promise or resolution. the plural was lost and the final vowel deleted in variations. using will for prediction which is the hallmark of future tense was not common in ME and only happened once.
Early Modern English
the contrsction started to happen. (contraction was less common for she and he). the contraction means phonological reduction. frequency increased. mostly use for intention, promise and willingness. the use for prediction also increased.
Properties of Aux
- inversion with the subject forming question 2.negative not follows them 3. their infinitive is without to. 4. they don’t have 3sg suffix s.
the differences between normal verbs and Aux
main verbs in OE and ME had the first three properties. but they lost their feature. Auxiliaries are highly fixed because they are frequent. and undergone grammaticaization
Case of Have
when a lexical item becomes a suffix:
1. the stem was before Habere
2. H was lost in some cases
3. reduction happened and b is lost
4. it attached to the infinitive
what happens after go and have (another form of future)
subject plus going to Verb
shows intention
reduction happens: gonna
with I it reduces further: Imma get me a beer.
Path of Grammaticalisation
1:discourse: loosely connected sequences of words
2. syntax: constraints with moe fixed structures and meanings
3. Morphology: affixed morphemes appear.
from Auxilary to Suffix