Gradualness and pace in grammaticalization: The case of adversative connectives

Anna Giacalone Ramat; Caterina Mauri

doi:10.1515/flin.2012.017

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Gradualness and pace in grammaticalization: The case of adversative connectives

Anna Giacalone Ramat and Caterina Mauri

Published/Copyright: October 31, 2012

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From the journal Folia Linguistica Volume 46 Issue 2

In this article we illustrate some cases of parallel diachronic changes in the domain of interclausal adversative connectives, in which Romance languages develop roughly the same function from the same Latin lexical source through similar paths, but at different time rates. This study supports the idea that regularities in semantic change can be effectively captured if a model in stages is adopted, which allows to observe micro-changes correlated to different types of context and to different frequencies of occurrence of the items at issue. In the cases under exam, French seems to follow a faster pace, being ahead of other Romance languages, and at the same time it shows a tendency toward innovation. In the search for explanations for the different behaviors of French, Italian and Spanish, we discuss some hypotheses, calling into question the role of external factors possibly involved in the development of adversative connectives.

Keywords:: adversative connectives; grammaticalization pace; external factors of language change

Published Online: 2012-10-31

Published in Print: 2012-10

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/flin.2012.017

Keywords for this article

adversative connectives; grammaticalization pace; external factors of language change