Why don’t grammaticalization pathways always recur?
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Malte Rosemeyer
und
Eitan Grossman
Abstract
Many grammaticalization pathways recur across languages. A prominent explanation for this is that the properties of lexical items determine their developmental pathways. However, it is unclear why these pathways do not always occur. In this article, we ask why English did not undergo a cross-linguistically common grammaticalization pathway, finish > anterior. We operationalize this question by testing a theory proposed on results regarding a language that did undergo this change, Spanish, on corpus and experimental data. While English finish constructions are associated with some of the distributional properties of Early Spanish finish, speakers do not show evidence of conventionally associating finish constructions with a particular type of inference crucial for the grammaticalization of the Spanish anterior. We propose that the non-conventionality of this inference blocks the grammaticalization of finish constructions in English, demonstrating that some of the black box of language change currently attributed to chance can be explored empirically.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the reviewers for the constructive and helpful comments, as well as Haim Dubossarsky, Uta Reinöhl, Shira Tal and Freek van de Velde for detailed comments on earlier drafts and to José Andrés Alonso de la Fuente' for comments on a later draft. We are also grateful to the audiences at the workshop ‘Beyond Time’ (Brussels, Belgium, 7 February 2020), the Academia Grammaticorum Salensis Septima Decima (Salos, Lithuania, 28 July 2020) and the Center for the Study of Language and Society (Bern, Switzerland, 28 October 2020), for their valuable feedback. Malte Rosemeyer thanks Albert Wall for his help with the implementation of the experimental paradigm. Eitan Grossman thanks the Mandel Scholion Research Center of the Hebrew University for its support of the Historical Linguistics and Formal Semantics research group, as well as the members and guests of the group, in particular Omri Amiraz, Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal, Noa Bassel, Nora Boneh, and Shira Tal, for many hours of inspiring discussions.
Results from the regression analysis over the use of finish constructions in the corpus data.
| Dependent variable: Gerund_bin | |
|---|---|
| After | 1.170 (0.760) |
| Determinationindef | 0.003 (1.601) |
| Determinationnone | 3.001** (1.398) |
| Determinationposs | 2.798*** (0.999) |
| PMI_FinishObj | −0.290*** (0.103) |
| AfterTRUE:Determinationindef | 2.445 (3.239) |
| AfterTRUE:Determinationnone | −5.261*** (1.871) |
| AfterTRUE:Determinationposs | −4.538*** (1.334) |
| AfterTRUE:PMI_FinishObj | −0.134 (0.176) |
| Determinationindef:PMI_FinishObj | −0.123 (0.377) |
| Determinationnone:PMI_FinishObj | −0.583** (0.271) |
| Determinationposs:PMI_FinishObj | −0.867*** (0.241) |
| AfterTRUE:Determinationindef:PMI_FinishObj | −0.803 (0.809) |
| AfterTRUE:Determinationnone:PMI_FinishObj | 0.973*** (0.361) |
| AfterTRUE:Determinationposs:PMI_FinishObj | 0.957*** (0.310) |
| Constant | 0.990** (0.439) |
| Observations | 660 |
| Log Likelihood | −352.647 |
| Akaike inf. crit. | 739.293 |
| Bayesian inf. crit. | 815.661 |
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Note: *p < 0.1; **p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01.
Full results from the linear mixed-effects regression model predicting the reading times of the direct object in the reading-time experiment.
| Dependent variable: RT | |
|---|---|
| GerundInformativeGerund | 34.178** (15.871) |
| GerundUninformativeGerund | 32.941** (15.494) |
| SubordinationAwa | −2.573 (15.838) |
| Age | 28.350* (16.569) |
| Sexmale | −62.572 (40.205) |
| WordFreq | −15.799*** (4.714) |
| Trial | −45.004*** (4.431) |
| GerundInformativeGerund:SubordinationAwa | 1.896 (22.555) |
| GerundUninformativeGerund:SubordinationAwa | −12.735 (21.982) |
| Constant | 458.906*** (37.072) |
| Observations | 848 |
| Log likelihood | −5,336.686 |
| Akaike inf. crit. | 10,699.370 |
| Bayesian inf. crit. | 10,761.030 |
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Note: *p < 0.1; **p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Alternations emerge and disappear: the network of dispossession constructions in the history of English
- Switch-reference and its role in referential choice in Mbyá Guaraní narratives
- Investigating genre distinctions through discourse distance and discourse network
- Lexically specific accumulation in memory of word and segment speech rates
- Why don’t grammaticalization pathways always recur?
- On the benefits of structural equation modeling for corpus linguists
- Pre-emptive interaction in language change and ontogeny: the case of [there is no NP]
- Shell nouns as grammatical metaphor revealing disparate construals: Investigating the differences between British English and China English based on a comparable corpus
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Alternations emerge and disappear: the network of dispossession constructions in the history of English
- Switch-reference and its role in referential choice in Mbyá Guaraní narratives
- Investigating genre distinctions through discourse distance and discourse network
- Lexically specific accumulation in memory of word and segment speech rates
- Why don’t grammaticalization pathways always recur?
- On the benefits of structural equation modeling for corpus linguists
- Pre-emptive interaction in language change and ontogeny: the case of [there is no NP]
- Shell nouns as grammatical metaphor revealing disparate construals: Investigating the differences between British English and China English based on a comparable corpus
