8. Variation and grammaticalization in Romance: a cross-linguistic study of the subjunctive
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Shana Poplack
Abstract
Building on studies seeking to position the Romance languages on the cline of grammaticalization, this study targets the evolution of subjunctive into subordination marker in speech corpora of French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. By considering the conditioning of variation between subjunctive and indicative in complement clauses, we operationalize parameters of late-stage grammaticalization, and establish measures of productivity. Results show that, with the exception of Spanish, subjunctive selection is constrained neither by contextual elements consistent with its oft-ascribed meanings nor by semantic classes of governors harmonic with such meanings. Instead, in all four languages, lexical bias is the major predictor of subjunctive selection, abetted by structural elements of the linguistic context. The overriding processes are lexical routinization, which is language-particular, with cognate governors displaying idiosyncratic associations with the subjunctive, and structural conventionalization, which is cross-linguistically parallel, with languages differing merely in degree.
Abstract
Building on studies seeking to position the Romance languages on the cline of grammaticalization, this study targets the evolution of subjunctive into subordination marker in speech corpora of French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. By considering the conditioning of variation between subjunctive and indicative in complement clauses, we operationalize parameters of late-stage grammaticalization, and establish measures of productivity. Results show that, with the exception of Spanish, subjunctive selection is constrained neither by contextual elements consistent with its oft-ascribed meanings nor by semantic classes of governors harmonic with such meanings. Instead, in all four languages, lexical bias is the major predictor of subjunctive selection, abetted by structural elements of the linguistic context. The overriding processes are lexical routinization, which is language-particular, with cognate governors displaying idiosyncratic associations with the subjunctive, and structural conventionalization, which is cross-linguistically parallel, with languages differing merely in degree.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Manuals of Romance Linguistics V
- Acknowledgements VII
- Table of Contents IX
-
Introduction
- 0. Romance sociolinguistics: past, present, future 3
-
Methodological issues
- 1. Annotating oral corpora 27
- 2. Quantitative approaches for modelling variation and change: a case study of sociophonetic data from Occitan 59
- 3. Collecting and analysing creole data 91
- 4. Fieldwork and building corpora for endangered varieties 114
- 5. Romance dialectology: from the nineteenth century to the era of sociolinguistics 134
-
Variation and change
- 6. Speaker variables in Romance: when demography and ideology collide 173
- 7. Speaker variables and their relation to language change 197
- 8. Variation and grammaticalization in Romance: a cross-linguistic study of the subjunctive 217
- 9. Historical sociolinguistics and tracking language change: sources, text types and genres 253
- 10. Speaker-based approaches to past language states 280
- 11. Variation and prescriptivism 307
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Medium, register, text type, genre
- 12. Oral genres: concepts and complexities 335
- 13. Register and text type 362
- 14. New Media: new Romance varieties? 386
- 15. Medium and creole 405
-
Linguae minores / Minoritized languages: status, norms, policy and revitalization
- 16. Language policies in the Romancespeaking countries of Europe 433
- 17. Linguistic diversity in Spain 462
- 18. The languages and dialects of Italy 494
- 19. Multilingualism in Switzerland 526
- 20. Revitalization and the public space 549
- 21. Revitalization and education 570
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Language contact
- 22. Romance in contact with Romance 595
- 23. Language contact between typologically different languages: functional transfer 627
- 24. When Romance meets English 652
- 25. Language contact in a rural community 682
- 26. Code-switching and immigrant communities: the case of Italy 702
- 27. The metropolization of French worldwide 724
- 28. Transnational migration and language practices: the impact on Spanish-speaking migrants 745
- Contributors 769
- Index of concepts 777
- Index of names 790
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Manuals of Romance Linguistics V
- Acknowledgements VII
- Table of Contents IX
-
Introduction
- 0. Romance sociolinguistics: past, present, future 3
-
Methodological issues
- 1. Annotating oral corpora 27
- 2. Quantitative approaches for modelling variation and change: a case study of sociophonetic data from Occitan 59
- 3. Collecting and analysing creole data 91
- 4. Fieldwork and building corpora for endangered varieties 114
- 5. Romance dialectology: from the nineteenth century to the era of sociolinguistics 134
-
Variation and change
- 6. Speaker variables in Romance: when demography and ideology collide 173
- 7. Speaker variables and their relation to language change 197
- 8. Variation and grammaticalization in Romance: a cross-linguistic study of the subjunctive 217
- 9. Historical sociolinguistics and tracking language change: sources, text types and genres 253
- 10. Speaker-based approaches to past language states 280
- 11. Variation and prescriptivism 307
-
Medium, register, text type, genre
- 12. Oral genres: concepts and complexities 335
- 13. Register and text type 362
- 14. New Media: new Romance varieties? 386
- 15. Medium and creole 405
-
Linguae minores / Minoritized languages: status, norms, policy and revitalization
- 16. Language policies in the Romancespeaking countries of Europe 433
- 17. Linguistic diversity in Spain 462
- 18. The languages and dialects of Italy 494
- 19. Multilingualism in Switzerland 526
- 20. Revitalization and the public space 549
- 21. Revitalization and education 570
-
Language contact
- 22. Romance in contact with Romance 595
- 23. Language contact between typologically different languages: functional transfer 627
- 24. When Romance meets English 652
- 25. Language contact in a rural community 682
- 26. Code-switching and immigrant communities: the case of Italy 702
- 27. The metropolization of French worldwide 724
- 28. Transnational migration and language practices: the impact on Spanish-speaking migrants 745
- Contributors 769
- Index of concepts 777
- Index of names 790