Tracing processes in auxiliarization
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Mats Johansson✝
Abstract
This chapter considers the Norwegian verb rekke (‘reach’) and its English correspondences in a bi-directional translation corpus (ENPC), as well as occurrences of rekke in Norwegian monolingual corpora. We suggest that rekke is undergoing grammaticalization from a concrete lexical spatial verb towards a (semi-)auxiliary that contains a component of time sufficiency, similar to Swedish hinna (Johansson & Nordrum 2016), but that rekke is at an earlier stage in this development. We base this suggestion on the following observations: (1) Swedish hinna was earlier polysemous between space and time, but can only denote time in present-day Swedish. (2) Norwegian rekke is still polysemous between space and time, but seems to always denote time when used as a (semi-)auxiliary. The study contributes to the semantic description of Norwegian rekke, but also has implications for grammaticalization studies as well as for studies of modality.
Abstract
This chapter considers the Norwegian verb rekke (‘reach’) and its English correspondences in a bi-directional translation corpus (ENPC), as well as occurrences of rekke in Norwegian monolingual corpora. We suggest that rekke is undergoing grammaticalization from a concrete lexical spatial verb towards a (semi-)auxiliary that contains a component of time sufficiency, similar to Swedish hinna (Johansson & Nordrum 2016), but that rekke is at an earlier stage in this development. We base this suggestion on the following observations: (1) Swedish hinna was earlier polysemous between space and time, but can only denote time in present-day Swedish. (2) Norwegian rekke is still polysemous between space and time, but seems to always denote time when used as a (semi-)auxiliary. The study contributes to the semantic description of Norwegian rekke, but also has implications for grammaticalization studies as well as for studies of modality.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Time in languages, languages in time 1
- Slavery and Britain in the 19th century 9
- Diachronic change in the ordering of kinship binomials 39
- Tracing processes in auxiliarization 67
- Translating verbal tenses between tensed and tenseless languages 95
- From language to language, from time to time 129
- Just a moment 155
- Then and now in English and French 181
- Time adverbials in English and Norwegian news discourse 201
- Minutes of action! A contrastive analysis of time expressions in English and Norwegian football match reports 229
- Cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic uses of tensed verb phrases in the methods sections of master’s theses 255
- The expression of time in English and Czech children’s literature 283
- Index 305
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Time in languages, languages in time 1
- Slavery and Britain in the 19th century 9
- Diachronic change in the ordering of kinship binomials 39
- Tracing processes in auxiliarization 67
- Translating verbal tenses between tensed and tenseless languages 95
- From language to language, from time to time 129
- Just a moment 155
- Then and now in English and French 181
- Time adverbials in English and Norwegian news discourse 201
- Minutes of action! A contrastive analysis of time expressions in English and Norwegian football match reports 229
- Cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic uses of tensed verb phrases in the methods sections of master’s theses 255
- The expression of time in English and Czech children’s literature 283
- Index 305
