The rise of the BE Ving progressive has been argued to reflect a broader shift in the typological profile of English from a bounded to an unbounded language, leading to changing preferences in aspectual construal and narrative organization. However, it remains unclear whether BE Ving directly replaced a dominant pattern of bounded event construal or superseded alternative strategies that were already available to express progressive(-like) meaning before. The idea of a typological shift suggests that many more strategies may have been involved. This article investigates diachronic change in the expression of progressive(-like) meaning. To this end, use is made of a historical parallel translation corpus consisting of eight successive English translations of Cervantes’ Don Quijote, giving insight into how the same meanings were expressed over time. The results suggest that the expression of progressive(-like) meaning in English went through a pragmatic stage, in which progressive meaning was mainly expressed through invited inference, followed by an experimentation stage, during which speakers of English resorted to a variety of lexical and (semi-)grammatical options to express these meanings semantically, and resulting in the current situation with the emergence of the grammaticalized marker BE Ving as an uncontested default coding option.

In Val Camonica, northern Italy, questions can be made with a ‘do’-support construction. Frequency of ‘do’-support use with activity and stative verbs is measured for various valley dialects through an elicitation experiment. This reveals how use varies from low-frequency, highly optional, and mostly restricted to activity verbs; to high-frequency and obligatory with almost all verbs. The pattern is interpreted as two ends of a grammaticalization chain, from a near lexical ‘do’-support verb to a bleached shell. Geographically, results demonstrate consistent generalization and grammaticalization of ‘do’-support along the valleys, the less grammaticalized, primitive form in the contact zones with other valley dialects, and the more advanced, grammaticalized form in the isolated locations. This is related to the connections between communities, social networks of the speakers, and their attitudes towards or against the ‘do’-support form. It shows how grammaticalization proceeds naturally in the absence of restraining forces.

Van der Auwera and Plungian’s map of possibility and necessity paths, the main topic of the workshop from which this special issue emerged, offers a rearrangement of Bybee et al.’s data on grammaticalization paths in the domain of modality along three dimensions: necessity vs. possibility, pre-modal vs. modal vs. post-modal, and participant-internal vs. participant-external. In this article, I will argue for a different interpretation of ‘post-modality’ and a different model for dealing with the data. With respect to the pre-modal/modal/post-modal distinction, I will point out that most of the ‘post-modal’ functions are in fact still modal. Furthermore, I will point out that the overall direction of change is not towards ‘non-modal’ but rather an increase in discourse orientation. At the late stages in the development of modal meaning, dubbed as ‘post-modal’ in van der Auwera and Plungian, it signifies a shift toward meanings and functions that contribute to the construction of discourse. Additionally, in various hierarchical models of grammar, modal expressions unidirectionally shift into higher positions that correspond to a higher degree of discourse orientation, thus providing independent confirmation for the model of change proposed here.

This article revisits the provenance of the preverbal imperfective aspect marker ka, which characterizes the French-lexicon creoles of the Lesser Antilles and French Guiana and sets them apart from those of Haiti, Louisiana, and the Indian Ocean, which instead employ reflexes of après ‘after’. The origin of ka is controversial and still not properly understood. We argue that earlier proposals have focused too narrowly on the syntactic properties of the alleged source constructions, while neglecting semantic and functional motivations. We show that the emergence of ka follows the well-attested Location Schema, i.e. the grammaticalization pathway from locative predication to progressive aspect, and identify the French locative construction n’(en) être qu’à X ‘to be only at X’ as the most plausible source. In addition to its semantic aptness, the perceptual salience of this construction made it an ideal candidate for grammaticalization in a creolizing context. We bolster our argumentation by means of typological data from creoles and non-creoles. By situating ka within this broader typological framework, the article not only solves a much-debated etymological puzzle, but also demonstrates that, although creoles innovate, the cognitive-semantic mechanisms shaping their grammars are essentially the same as those shaping ‘traditional’ languages.

This article examines how and why auxiliaries combine into complex verb constructions in Old West Germanic. It integrates findings from prior corpus studies on Old Dutch and Old English with original corpus research on Old Saxon, Old High German, and Early Middle High German up to 1150. The combined results indicate that all Old West Germanic varieties combine only two auxiliaries, with the finite auxiliary always being a modal. These finite modals could have scope over a wide range of potential auxiliaries, including passive, perfect, modal, aspectual, and causative auxiliaries, as well as perception verbs. The range of auxiliary combinations is shown to expand progressively over time and across regions. The article reveals that the combinatorial potential of auxiliaries relates to their degree of grammaticalization and the availability of a nonfinite verb form. This relationship is argued to be bidirectional: (a) the ongoing grammaticalization of auxiliaries creates and expands their combinatorial potential, while (b) the combination of auxiliaries into complex verb constructions in turn stimulates the emergence of auxiliaries as a category of their own. This implies that the combination of auxiliaries is not only a symptom of their grammaticalization but also a catalyst for further change.*

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.

This article investigates the distribution of the negative polarity item (NPI) syn leven (lit. ‘his life’) ‘ever’ between 1550 and 1800 in West Frisian using the Frisian Language Corpus. Phonological and syntactic evidence is presented in order to argue that the expression was borrowed from Dutch. An overview of the syntactic contexts in which it is found is presented, and these contexts are characteristic of those in which NPIs are found. The distribution of syn leven is shown to conform only partly to Haspelmath's (1997) theory of the semantic map. Furthermore, the extent to which the original expression syn leven was grammaticalized as an NPI is investigated. Its distribution is compared to that of the near synonyms and rival expressions ea and oait ‘ever’, which turn out to have a broader context of usage. It is argued that syn leven failed to become the unmarked way of expressing the semantic content ‘ever’ for syntactic, semantic, and sociolinguistic reasons.

We question the commonly accepted assumption that American Sign Language (ASL) has no overt copula. We present evidence that one of the functions of the sign Self in present-day ASL is as a copula. This sign evolved into its current function by way of a grammaticalization process called the ‘copula cycle’ (Katz 1996). The copula cycle consists of a deictic item transforming into a demonstrative pronoun and then into a copula by means of a series of syntactic reanalyses. We present corpus evidence from Old French Sign Language (LSF) in the 1850s, Old ASL in the 1910s, and present-day ASL dating to the 2000s and the late 2010s, and with these data analyze ASL examples of syntactic structures outlined by Li and Thompson (1977) that led to the increased use of Self as a copula. We also find that Self, which is not generally regarded as a pointing sign, follows the grammaticalization scheme for pointing signs outlined by Pfau and Steinbach (2006), indicating that the scheme may be used for signs that are derived from demonstratives. Ultimately, we conclude that ASL undergoes the same grammaticalization processes as spoken languages.

Grammaticalization research has led to important insights into the driving processes of innovation and propagation. Yet what has generally been lacking is a principled way of analyzing their interaction. Research into innovation focuses on the role of individual language users and tends to take a more qualitative approach, while propagation is typically studied in terms of the community grammar and tends to be more statistically driven. We propose an approach that bridges the two. Drawing on a much larger historical data set than is commonly done, our study shows how a highresolution analysis of semantic and morphosyntactic behavior can be married to statistics, resulting in a method that measures the degree of grammaticalization at the level of single attestations. We apply this method to the early grammaticalization of be going to INF, showing how a communal increase breaks down into different rates of change in the run-up to, the middle of, and right after conventionalization. Additionally, we trace lifespan change of individual authors longitudinally. While not robustly in evidence, there are hints of postadolescence reanalysis in the run-up generation, and of increased realization of innovative features in the middle generation.

The concept of ‘renewal’ is widely used in the literature on morphosyntactic change, but hardly ever theorized. Here we scrutinize the viability of this concept theoretically as well as empirically, revisiting in detail the most frequently cited case of renewal, namely the resemblance between the Latin and French synthetic futures. Phenomena accounted for in terms of renewal can also be accounted for in terms of grammaticalization theory. We argue that there is no need and no empirical support for renewal as its own type of change alongside grammaticalization. However, grammaticalization theory so far has neglected to properly account for influences of the existing system on ongoing grammaticalization processes. As an initial approximation of this vast field of study, we propose several domains where we believe that system influences on grammaticalization are operative. On the one hand, this involves making more precise the source determination hypothesis as developed in work by Joan Bybee and colleagues. On the other, it comprises interactions between constructions in paradigm formation.

Arabic has a construction that expresses a UNIVERSAL PERFECT interpretation. It is here argued that this construction, which is widespread across the different vernaculars, can be analyzed as a possessive perfect construction, a structure thought to be rather rare beyond Indo-European languages spoken in Europe. I further argue that the grammaticalization path differs from that of well-known possessive perfect structures across European languages. I hypothesize that the structure which paved the way for the grammaticalization of a universal perfect construction across Arabic was a possessive structure, originally headed by a preposition, which eventually developed into a transitive verbal predicate taking an interval-denoting object as its possessum, and which subsequently grammaticalized into a construction expressing the universal perfect.

This article argues for a new theory of the origin of WH-correlatives from indefinite uses of WH-words in paratactic or asyndetic conditionals. We show that this theory predicts a generalization that has so far gone unnoticed: WH-based correlatives always have a universal reading; they may also have a definite reading, which may be morphologically marked. This is in contrast to correlatives where the relativizer originates from a demonstrative element: these always have a definite reading and may also have a universal reading. We demonstrate the validity of this generalization on a data set containing thirty-eight correlative structures from thirty-two languages, that is, all of the correlative structures that are sufficiently well described in the literature.

This article argues that morpheme syncretism can arise as a result of structural and functional changes that display features of a grammaticalization process. Our claim is based on a case study analyzing the functional evolution of -jez, the third singular possessive agreement morpheme of Udmurt, which appears to function as a nominalizer, to mark contrast, to function as a kind of definite determiner, and to mark accusative case. We argue that these seemingly different roles are instantiations of three major functions: cross-referencing a possessor, encoding partitivity, and marking specific objects, which, in turn, represent subsequent stages of a grammaticalization path. Evidence for the hypothesized changes is provided by parallel developments in the sister languages, primarily Hungarian, the sister language with the longest-documented history.

The field of linguistic typology has made great strides in mapping the structures to be found across languages. We can now ask whether speakers of all languages distribute their ideas over such structures in the same ways. This question is explored here by examining complement constructions in three genealogically and areally unrelated languages. Each offers glimpses into some factors that shape grammar over time. Crosslinguistic differences in grammar arise from what speakers have chosen to say over millennia, but even languages spoken today can provide snapshots of moments in such processes, if we care to listen to their speakers.

This article addresses the German conjunction zumal ‘the more so as’ from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. On the basis of historical corpus data, I trace the uses and meaning development of the lexical item zumal, from a temporal adverb to a conjunction. I argue that it acquired its current syntactic and interpretive features from the final step in this development: the focus particle zumal adopted some syntactic features and meaning components from the subordinate causal conjunctions da and weil, with which it frequently cooccurred in the historical data. In the current language it is thus best analyzed as a subordinate causal conjunction with focus-marking properties, similar to the combination besonders weil ‘especially since’.

This article studies the relationship between prosody and desemanticization in grammaticalization processes by means of a well-described phenomenon, the grammaticalization of ‘type’ nouns (type, kind, sort) in present-day English. To this end, 1,155 tokens of the three nouns, retrieved from the ICE-GB corpus, were semantically classified and prosodically analyzed. Our main result is that different synchronically coexisting prosodic patterns correspond to different degrees of grammaticalization. This result provides evidence that desemanticization and erosion proceed hand in hand. Their parallel development is attributed to the demands of iconicity rather than to frequency effects.

In grammaticalization studies, reanalysis is understood as the assignment of new meaning to formally unchanged elements, supported by bridging contexts compatible with the old and the reanalyzed meaning. The source determination hypothesis (SDH) predicts that parallel grammaticalization trajectories occur crosslinguistically, as similar source meanings give rise to similar inferences. One such pattern is the development of recent past markers from FINISH constructions. While grammaticalization pathways are well-documented crosslinguistically, the SDH has never been tested experimentally. In this study, we examine whether modern English speakers are sensitive to inferences arising from a bridging context identified as relevant to the grammaticalization of Old Spanish FINISH into a recent past marker. In a temporal distance judgment task, we examined whether the bridging context identified for Old Spanish facilitates an inference of temporal immediacy in contemporary English, where the construction has not been grammaticalized. In line with the SDH, the bridging context enhanced an inference of immediacy in contemporary English (Exp. 1), with specific grammatical features of the source determining its strength (Exp. 2). These results not only demonstrate the viability of testing hypotheses about language change using experimental pragmatics but also call for empirically refining the concept of source determination.