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THE LIMITS OF GRAMMATICALIZATION. Anna Giacalone Ramat andPaul J. Hopper (Eds.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1998. Pp. vi + 302. $79.00 cloth, $29.95paper.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2001

Cristina Schmitt
Affiliation:
Michigan State University

Abstract

The papers in this book were presented at the Symposium on Grammaticalization held in Leiden 1995, with the exception of the paper by Tabor and Traugott. This collection of 11 papers deals with a variety of cases of language change that do not fit perfectly into the models of grammaticalization as a unidirectional process by which open-class elements are weakened and become part of the closed-class set. Briefly described case studies in a variety of languages—from Romance, Germanic, and South East Asian languages to Ancient Greek, Hittite, Basque, and others—allow the reader to peer through the overwhelming number of factors and interactions among factors involved in language change. At the same time, one can also examine the struggle to define and determine which facts do and do not belong to the realm of grammaticalization. To illustrate some of the issues addressed in this book, I will briefly describe some of the papers.

Type
Book Review
Copyright
2001 Cambridge University Press

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