Home Linguistics & Semiotics Chapter 2. Areal diffusion and parallelism in drift
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Chapter 2. Areal diffusion and parallelism in drift

Shared grammaticalization patterns
  • Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
View more publications by John Benjamins Publishing Company
To Publisher Page
Shared Grammaticalization
This chapter is in the book Shared Grammaticalization

Abstract

Shared features, and especially shared grammaticalization patterns, may result from geographic proximity, contact, and borrowing (“copying”). Related languages “will pass through the same or strikingly similar phases”: this “parallelism in drift” (Sapir 1921: 171‒172) accounts for additional similarities between related languages, even for those “long disconnected”. Parallelism in drift may also account for shared patterns of grammaticalization. The paper explores the ways in which patterns of shared grammaticalization which are demonstrably due to areal diffusion may differ from patterns which can be shown to result from parallelism in drift. To work towards an answer, we focus on the data from two different areas of substantial linguistic diversity: the Arawak languages of northwest Amazonia, and the Ndu languages of the Sepik region of New Guinea.

Abstract

Shared features, and especially shared grammaticalization patterns, may result from geographic proximity, contact, and borrowing (“copying”). Related languages “will pass through the same or strikingly similar phases”: this “parallelism in drift” (Sapir 1921: 171‒172) accounts for additional similarities between related languages, even for those “long disconnected”. Parallelism in drift may also account for shared patterns of grammaticalization. The paper explores the ways in which patterns of shared grammaticalization which are demonstrably due to areal diffusion may differ from patterns which can be shown to result from parallelism in drift. To work towards an answer, we focus on the data from two different areas of substantial linguistic diversity: the Arawak languages of northwest Amazonia, and the Ndu languages of the Sepik region of New Guinea.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of tables ix
  4. List of figures xi
  5. List of contributors xiii
  6. Acknowledgements xv
  7. Chapter 1. Towards a typology of shared grammaticalization 1
  8. Part I. Shared grammaticalization: Typological and theoretical aspects
  9. Chapter 2. Areal diffusion and parallelism in drift 23
  10. Chapter 3. Demystifying drift 43
  11. Chapter 4. Contact-induced replication 67
  12. Chapter 5. Isomorphic processes 101
  13. Part II. Shared grammaticalization in the Transeurasian languages
  14. Chapter 6. Scalar additive operators in Transeurasian languages 113
  15. Chapter 7. Genealogically motivated grammaticalization 147
  16. Chapter 8. Verbalization and insubordination in Siberian languages 177
  17. Part III. Shared grammaticalization in the Altaic languages
  18. Chapter 9. Personal pronouns in Core Altaic 211
  19. Chapter 10. Postposed indefinite articles in Mongolic and Turkic languages of the Qinghai-Gansu Sprachbund 227
  20. Chapter 11. Growing apart in shared grammaticalization 251
  21. Chapter 12. Incipient grammaticalization of a redundant purpose clause marker in Lamunxin Ėven 259
  22. Part IV. Shared grammaticalization in Japanese and Korean
  23. Chapter 13. Grammaticalization of space in Korean and Japanese 287
  24. Chapter 14. Grammaticalization of allocutivity markers in Japanese and Korean in a crosslinguistic perspective 317
  25. Chapter 15. A possible grammaticalization in Old Japanese and its implications for the comparison of Korean and Japanese 341
  26. Language index 355
  27. Subject index 359
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.132.07aik

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of tables ix
  4. List of figures xi
  5. List of contributors xiii
  6. Acknowledgements xv
  7. Chapter 1. Towards a typology of shared grammaticalization 1
  8. Part I. Shared grammaticalization: Typological and theoretical aspects
  9. Chapter 2. Areal diffusion and parallelism in drift 23
  10. Chapter 3. Demystifying drift 43
  11. Chapter 4. Contact-induced replication 67
  12. Chapter 5. Isomorphic processes 101
  13. Part II. Shared grammaticalization in the Transeurasian languages
  14. Chapter 6. Scalar additive operators in Transeurasian languages 113
  15. Chapter 7. Genealogically motivated grammaticalization 147
  16. Chapter 8. Verbalization and insubordination in Siberian languages 177
  17. Part III. Shared grammaticalization in the Altaic languages
  18. Chapter 9. Personal pronouns in Core Altaic 211
  19. Chapter 10. Postposed indefinite articles in Mongolic and Turkic languages of the Qinghai-Gansu Sprachbund 227
  20. Chapter 11. Growing apart in shared grammaticalization 251
  21. Chapter 12. Incipient grammaticalization of a redundant purpose clause marker in Lamunxin Ėven 259
  22. Part IV. Shared grammaticalization in Japanese and Korean
  23. Chapter 13. Grammaticalization of space in Korean and Japanese 287
  24. Chapter 14. Grammaticalization of allocutivity markers in Japanese and Korean in a crosslinguistic perspective 317
  25. Chapter 15. A possible grammaticalization in Old Japanese and its implications for the comparison of Korean and Japanese 341
  26. Language index 355
  27. Subject index 359
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 22.12.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/slcs.132.07aik/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button