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A Usage-Based Theory of Grammatical Status and Grammaticalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Kasper Boye  and
Peter Harder
Kasper Boye*
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
Peter Harder*
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
*
Boye, LANCHART University of Copenhagen Njalsgade 136 2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark, [kabo@hum.ku.dk]
Harder, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies University of Copenhagen Njalsgade 128 2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark, [harder@hum.ku.dk]
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Abstract

This article proposes a new way of understanding grammatical status and grammaticalization as distinctive types of linguistic phenomena. The approach is usage-based and links up structural and functional, as well as synchronic and diachronic, aspects of the issue. The proposal brings a range of previously disparate phenomena into a motivated relationship, while certain well-entrenched criteria (such as ‘closed paradigms‘) are shown to be incidental to grammatical status and grammaticalization. The central idea is that grammar is constituted by expressions that by linguistic convention are ancillary and as such discursively secondary in relation to other linguistic expressions, and that grammaticalization is the kind of change that gives rise to such expressions.

Keywords

grammatical vs. lexical statusgrammaticalizationancillarinessdiscourse prominencedependency

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 88 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 1 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 Linguistic Society of America

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