Sequentiality in dialogue as a trigger for grammaticalization
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Alexander Haselow
Abstract
Using the rise of three final particles in spoken English (then, though, anyway) as a case study it will be shown that dialogic interaction is an important domain of grammaticalization. The central idea is that grammaticalization may be induced by the regularization of interactive sequences which, over time, freeze into dialogic schemas and trigger a change of originally lexical or sentence-internal grammatical items involved in such schemas into elements establishing relations beyond the sentence level. The study shows that the proper domain of grammaticalization is not an individual element, but the dialogic context in which it is regularly used. Corpus-based, empirical data are used to document the grammaticalization of the three final particles in different text types within a framework that conceives of grammaticalization as structural and contextual expansion (rather than reduction) and as a functional (rather than formal) change.
Abstract
Using the rise of three final particles in spoken English (then, though, anyway) as a case study it will be shown that dialogic interaction is an important domain of grammaticalization. The central idea is that grammaticalization may be induced by the regularization of interactive sequences which, over time, freeze into dialogic schemas and trigger a change of originally lexical or sentence-internal grammatical items involved in such schemas into elements establishing relations beyond the sentence level. The study shows that the proper domain of grammaticalization is not an individual element, but the dialogic context in which it is regularly used. Corpus-based, empirical data are used to document the grammaticalization of the three final particles in different text types within a framework that conceives of grammaticalization as structural and contextual expansion (rather than reduction) and as a functional (rather than formal) change.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part 1. General issues
- Acquisition Based and Usage Based Explanations of Grammaticalisation. An Integrative Approach 13
- Grammaticalization and Explanation 41
- The perfectivization of the English perfect 53
- Explaining language structure 67
- Toward a constructional framework for research on language change 87
-
Part 2. Case studies
- Grammaticalization of Polish mental predicate prefixes 109
- More Thoughts on the Grammaticalization of Personal Pronouns 129
- The grammaticalization of nomə in the Eastern Abruzzese dialect Ortese 157
- The different developments of progressive aspect markers be in the middle/midst of and be in the process of V- ing 181
- Sequentiality in dialogue as a trigger for grammaticalization 203
- The final particle but in British English 235
- “Final hanging but” in American English 257
- Author index 287
- Subject index 289
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part 1. General issues
- Acquisition Based and Usage Based Explanations of Grammaticalisation. An Integrative Approach 13
- Grammaticalization and Explanation 41
- The perfectivization of the English perfect 53
- Explaining language structure 67
- Toward a constructional framework for research on language change 87
-
Part 2. Case studies
- Grammaticalization of Polish mental predicate prefixes 109
- More Thoughts on the Grammaticalization of Personal Pronouns 129
- The grammaticalization of nomə in the Eastern Abruzzese dialect Ortese 157
- The different developments of progressive aspect markers be in the middle/midst of and be in the process of V- ing 181
- Sequentiality in dialogue as a trigger for grammaticalization 203
- The final particle but in British English 235
- “Final hanging but” in American English 257
- Author index 287
- Subject index 289
