Grammatical Change and Linguistic Theory: The Rosendal Papers (Linguistik Aktuell Linguistics Today, LA 113)

453 Pages·2008·5.6 MB·English

by  Thorhallur Eythorsson

Grammatical Change and Linguistic Theory
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA)
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original monograph
studies into synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Studies in LA confront empirical
and theoretical problems as these are currently discussed in syntax, semantics,
morphology, phonology, and systematic pragmatics with the aim to establish robust
empirical generalizations within a universalistic perspective.
General Editors
Werner Abraham Elly van Gelderen
University of Vienna / Rijksuniversiteit Arizona State University
Groningen
Advisory Editorial Board
Cedric Boeckx Christer Platzack
Harvard University University of Lund
Guglielmo Cinque Ian Roberts
University of Venice Cambridge University
Günther Grewendorf Lisa deMena Travis
J.W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt McGill University
Liliane Haegeman Sten Vikner
University of Lille, France University of Aarhus
Hubert Haider C. Jan-Wouter Zwart
University of Salzburg University of Groningen
Volume 113
Grammatical Change and Linguistic Theory. The Rosendal papers
Edited by Thórhallur Eythórsson
Grammatical Change
and Linguistic Theory
The Rosendal papers
Edited by
Thórhallur Eythórsson
University of Iceland
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grammatical change and linguistic theory : the Rosendal papers / edited by Thórhallur
Eythórsson.
p. cm. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, issn 0166-0829 ; v. 113)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Grammar, Comparative and general--Grammaticalization. 2. Linguistic change.
P299.G73 G722 2008
415--dc22 2007038184
isbn 978 90 272 3377 6 (Hb; alk. paper)
© 2008 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
Introduction 1
Thórhallur Eythórsson
1. Grammaticalization in a speaker-oriented theory of change 11
Henning Andersen
2. ‘Degrammaticalization’ versus typology: Reflections on a
strained relationship 45
John Ole Askedal
3. Cascading parameter changes: Internally-driven change in Middle
and Early Modern English 79
Theresa Biberauer & Ian Roberts
4. The rise and development of analytic perfects in Italo-Romance 115
Michela Cennamo
5. Raising patterns in Old High German 143
Ulrike Demske
6. The New Passive in Icelandic really is a passive 173
Thórhallur Eythórsson
7. A mentalist interpretation of grammaticalization theory 221
Jan Terje Faarlund
8. Linguistic cycles and Economy Principles: The role of Universal
Grammar in language change 245
Elly van Gelderen
9. Explaining exuberant agreement 265
Alice C. Harris
10. From resultatives to anteriors in Ancient Greek: On the role of
paradigmaticity in semantic change 285
Dag Haug
11. Lexical nonsense and morphological sense: On the real importance
of ‘folk etymology’ and related phenomena for historical linguists 307
Martin Maiden
 Table of contents
12. The diffusion of systemic changes through the inflectional system:
Evidence from person-number inflection in the Nordic languages
and German 329
Kjartan Ottosson
13. Left Branch Extraction of nominal modifiers in old Scandinavian 357
Christer Platzack
14. On incorporation in Athapaskan languages: Aspects of language change 375
Keren Rice
15. Argument marking from Latin to Modern Romance languages:
An illustration of ‘combined grammaticalisation processes’ 411
Lene Schøsler
Index 439
Introduction
Thórhallur Eythórsson
Background
This book grew out of the symposium Linguistic Theory and Grammatical Change
held at Rosendal, Norway, May 31–June 4, 2005, and a follow-up symposium at
Lysebu, Norway, December 2–5, 2005. Both symposia were organized by Professor Jan
Terje Faarlund (University of Oslo), under the aegis of The Centre for Advanced Study
(CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Oslo. These events were the
culmination of the work of the research group led by Professor Faarlund during the
academic year 2004–05. The group consisted of Henning Andersen, John Ole Askedal,
Thórhallur Eythórsson, Elly van Gelderen, Alice C. Harris, Dag Haug, Kjartan Ottos-
son, and Lene Schøsler. Furthermore, a number of scholars were invited to participate
in the Rosendal symposium. Those who contributed to this volume, in addition to
the CAS group, were Theresa Biberauer, Michela Cennamo, Ulrike Demske, Martin
Maiden, Ian Roberts, Christer Platzack, and Keren Rice. Speakers at the symposium
who were not able to contribute to the volume included Ulrich Detges, Hans-Olav
Enger, Ans van Kemenade, Marianne Mithun, Ioanna Sitaridou, and John Whitman.
On behalf of the CAS-group I would like to thank the speakers at the Rosendal
workshop, and especially those who contributed to the volume. Furthermore, thanks
are due to the people at CAS for their support and assistance: Willy Østreng and his
competent and friendly staff. Finally, special thanks go to Jan Terje Faarlund for mak-
ing it all happen.
The overall theme of this volume is ‘internal factors in grammatical change’, and so
it was felt appropriate to reverse the title to Grammatical Change and Linguistic Theory.
The chapters focus on fundamental questions in theoretically-based historical linguis-
tics from a broad perspective: syntactic and morphosyntactic change, morphological,
semantic and pragmatic aspects of grammatical change, as well as the much-debated
issue of the nature of grammaticalization.
Theoretical and empirical perspectives on grammaticalization
According to Hopper & Traugott’s (2003: 2) standard definition, grammaticalization
from a historical, functionalist perspective can be thought of as ‘that subset of linguistic
changes whereby a lexical item or construction in certain uses takes on grammatical
 Thórhallur Eythórsson
characteristics, or through which a grammatical item becomes more grammatical’ (see
also Brinton & Traugott 2005). Furthermore, the changes are said (Hopper & Traugott
2003: 7) to constitute a ‘grammaticalization cline’:
(1) content item > grammatical word > clitic > inflectional affix.
Decomposing the notion of grammaticalization, Heine (2003: 578–579) proposes that
it involves four interrelated mechanisms, all of which inolve a ‘loss’ (including ‘exten-
sion’ which involves loss of conditions on use):
i. desemanticization (‘bleaching’, semantic reduction): loss in meaning content
ii. extension (context generalization): use in new contexts
iii. decategorialization: loss in morphosyntactic properties characteristic of the
source forms, including the loss of independent word status (cliticization,
affixation)
iv. erosion (‘phonetic reduction’), i.e., loss in phonetic substance.
These changes can take place in several components of the grammar: semantics, prag-
matics, syntax, morphology, and phonology.
As a major proponent of ‘grammaticalization theory’, Heine (2003: 583) claims that
its principal task is ‘to provide explanations of why grammatical forms arise and develop’
and to make it possible ‘within limits’ to predict changes that will take place in the future.
An important part of ‘grammaticalization theory’ is the principle of unidirectionality,
by which ‘[t]he path taken by grammaticalization is always from less grammatical to
more grammatical’ (Bybee et al. 1994). However, critics such as Newmeyer (1998, 2001),
Campbell (2001), and Janda (2001) have argued that ‘grammaticalization theory’ is not
a theory in the sense that it has any explanatory value. The claim here is that the changes
involved in grammaticalization are causally independent of each other and hence that
grammaticalization is an ‘epiphenomenon’, involving processes which follow from other
factors, which may or may not co-occur.
Several of the chapters in the present volume relate to grammaticalization in different
ways, but are generally critical of ‘grammaticalization theory’. Henning Andersen
(‘Grammaticalization in a speaker-oriented theory of change’) offers a model of change
in which grammaticalization is neither central not indeed a primitive process, in the
tradition of grammaticalization critics (e.g., Campbell 2001 or Newmeyer 2001).
Andersen presents grammaticalization in the context of other types of macro-change
and surveys and illustrates types of change in content, content syntax, expression, and
morphosyntax, showing how individual changes can be analysed into complexes of a
few types of basic innovations. Finally, he emphasizes the special importance in change
of innovative reanalysis and the role played in reanalysis and actualization by principles
of markedness. Andersen counters the impression given by much recent literature (e.g.,
Heine 2003) that suggests that grammaticalization more or less exhausts the study of
grammatical change. In particular, the ‘grammaticalization cline of the 1990s’ is criticized
Introduction 
on the grounds that it ‘blithely confuses’ content change and morphosyntactic change.
The former involves change from less grammatical to more grammatical, whereas the
latter involves morphosyntactic integration or ‘emancipation’, and moreover changes
in index relations and in element order. Thus, Andersen’s chapter effectively challenges
grammaticalization with a more traditional conceptualization of change.
As indicated above, the way that the notion of ‘grammaticalization theory’ is canon-
ically used by non-generativists involves fundamental theoretical and meta-theoretical
issues such as the principle of unidirectionality, claimed by Haspelmath (2004: 21)
to be ‘by far the most important constraint on morphosyntactic change.’ Another such
issue is the concept of change as a gradual process. Jan Terje Faarlund (‘A mentalist
interpretation of grammaticalization theory’) is concerned that there is an underly-
ing view of language as an abstract object independent of speakers. Faarlund empha-
sizes that within a mentalist theory of language this ontology must be rejected. Rather,
‘Grammaticalization is at best a generalization over a set of observations about lan-
guage change.’ Nevertheless, it is granted that some version of the principle of unidi-
rectionality is in accordance with factual observation, and is thus a challenge to gen-
erativists. Faarlund proposes an account of the predominant directionality of change
on the basis of the initial premise of Universal Grammar that there are words and that
they have meaning attached to them. Accordingly, the child acquiring a given language
uses ‘cues’ in the input to assign morpheme boundaries, meaning, and structure to
the string. Grammaticalization follows from failure to assign morpheme boundaries
during the acquisition process. For Faarlund, then, the apparent unidirectionality
follows from the trivial fact that elements (including boundaries) are more likely to be
omitted than inserted in acquisition.
It has been claimed that there are changes in the opposite direction to the gram-
maticalization cline in (1) above. This is ‘degrammaticalization’ (or ‘antigrammaticaliz
ation’). There are essentially two approaches to alleged cases of degrammaticalization.
The first is to take them seriously and consider degrammaticalization a challenge
to grammaticalization theory (Newmeyer 1998; Janda 2001; Campbell 2001;
Joseph 2004; Faarlund, this volume). A second kind of reaction is not to consider
degrammaticalization counterevidence to unidirectionality, but some other kind of
change. According to Haspelmath (2004), unidirectionality is an empirical claim about
a very strong tendency. There are true exceptions, but those are rare cases which need
not be covered by the theory. In fact, Haspelmath (2004: 29) reports on only eight
diachronic developments claimed to be instances of ‘attested antigrammaticalization’
(Haspelmath’s term for degrammaticalization in this context). Confronting the latter
view, John Ole Askedal (‘“Degrammaticalization” versus typology: Reflections on a
strained relationship’) examines in detail the notion of ‘degrammaticalization’ from a
typological and functional point of view, giving a critical assessment of the eight dia-
chronic developments claimed by Haspelmath to be instances of attested ‘antigram-
maticalization’, with regard to the empirical justification of that characterization. Aske-
dal concludes that none of Haspelmath’s ‘antigrammaticalization’ examples allow for