Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Introduction
Grammaticization is the diachronic process by which:
lexical morphemes in a language, such as nouns and verbs, develop over time into grammatical morphemes; or
morphemes less grammatical in nature, such as auxiliaries, develop into ones more grammatical, such as tense or aspect markers (Bybee et al. 1994).
Thus any given grammatical item, even viewed synchronically, is understood to have an evolutionary history. The development of grammar may be traced along grammaticization pathways, with vestiges of each stage often remaining in the current grammar (Hopper 1991; Bybee et al. 1994), so that even synchronically, lexical and grammatical items that share similar form can be shown to be related. Grammaticization is thought to be a universal process; this is how grammar develops. Bybee et al. claim that this process is regular and has predictable evidence, found in the two broad categories of phonology and semantics. Semantic generalization occurs as the more lexical morpheme loses some of its specificity and, usually along with a particular construction it is found within, can be more broadly applied. Certain components of the meaning are lost when this generalization takes place. Regarding phonological change, grammaticizing elements and the constructions they occur in tend to undergo phonological reduction at a faster rate than lexical elements not involved in grammaticization.
The ultimate source of grammaticized forms in languages is understood to be lexical. Most commonly, the source categories are nouns and verbs. Thus, the origins of numerous grammatical elements, at least for spoken languages, are former lexical items.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.