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Grammaticalization of Polish mental predicate prefixes

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Abstract

This article presents insights into grammaticalization mechanisms in an attempt to elucidate the status of the aspectual prefixes in Polish as semantically ‘heavy’ or semantically ‘light’. The verb myśleć ‘to think’ and its ten prefixes constitute the subject of investigation. The study employs corpus linguistics as a method and applies a number of tests, also proposing a new one, for identifying the degree of grammaticalization of the individual prefixes. The new test consists in analyzing collocation patterns of the transitive verb in its imperfective form and its perfective counterparts. It shows that the sets of collocates differ between the imperfective and perfective forms with a varying degree of overlap. A higher overlap ratio is interpreted to indicate a higher degree of grammaticalization.

Abstract

This article presents insights into grammaticalization mechanisms in an attempt to elucidate the status of the aspectual prefixes in Polish as semantically ‘heavy’ or semantically ‘light’. The verb myśleć ‘to think’ and its ten prefixes constitute the subject of investigation. The study employs corpus linguistics as a method and applies a number of tests, also proposing a new one, for identifying the degree of grammaticalization of the individual prefixes. The new test consists in analyzing collocation patterns of the transitive verb in its imperfective form and its perfective counterparts. It shows that the sets of collocates differ between the imperfective and perfective forms with a varying degree of overlap. A higher overlap ratio is interpreted to indicate a higher degree of grammaticalization.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part 1. General issues
  6. Acquisition Based and Usage Based Explanations of Grammaticalisation. An Integrative Approach 13
  7. Grammaticalization and Explanation 41
  8. The perfectivization of the English perfect 53
  9. Explaining language structure 67
  10. Toward a constructional framework for research on language change 87
  11. Part 2. Case studies
  12. Grammaticalization of Polish mental predicate prefixes 109
  13. More Thoughts on the Grammaticalization of Personal Pronouns 129
  14. The grammaticalization of nomə in the Eastern Abruzzese dialect Ortese 157
  15. The different developments of progressive aspect markers be in the middle/midst of and be in the process of V- ing 181
  16. Sequentiality in dialogue as a trigger for grammaticalization 203
  17. The final particle but in British English 235
  18. “Final hanging but” in American English 257
  19. Author index 287
  20. Subject index 289
Grammaticalization – Theory and Data
This chapter is in the book Grammaticalization – Theory and Data
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.162.07kok

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part 1. General issues
  6. Acquisition Based and Usage Based Explanations of Grammaticalisation. An Integrative Approach 13
  7. Grammaticalization and Explanation 41
  8. The perfectivization of the English perfect 53
  9. Explaining language structure 67
  10. Toward a constructional framework for research on language change 87
  11. Part 2. Case studies
  12. Grammaticalization of Polish mental predicate prefixes 109
  13. More Thoughts on the Grammaticalization of Personal Pronouns 129
  14. The grammaticalization of nomə in the Eastern Abruzzese dialect Ortese 157
  15. The different developments of progressive aspect markers be in the middle/midst of and be in the process of V- ing 181
  16. Sequentiality in dialogue as a trigger for grammaticalization 203
  17. The final particle but in British English 235
  18. “Final hanging but” in American English 257
  19. Author index 287
  20. Subject index 289
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