Meaning Change in Grammaticalization: An Enquiry into Semantic Reanalysis
Regine Eckardt
Abstract
This book investigates meaning change in grammaticalization in terms of truth conditional semantics and a well-explicated syntax-semantics interface. Following a survey of earlier theories of grammaticalization, particularly those that focus on the meaning side, four major case studies of meaning change in grammaticalization probe the hypothesis that this type of change is best viewed as a restructuring at the syntax-semantics interface. The case studies cover the emergence of going to future in English, the negation particles in French, the emergence of the scalar particle selbst (even) in Ge ... More
This book investigates meaning change in grammaticalization in terms of truth conditional semantics and a well-explicated syntax-semantics interface. Following a survey of earlier theories of grammaticalization, particularly those that focus on the meaning side, four major case studies of meaning change in grammaticalization probe the hypothesis that this type of change is best viewed as a restructuring at the syntax-semantics interface. The case studies cover the emergence of going to future in English, the negation particles in French, the emergence of the scalar particle selbst (even) in German as well as the quasi determiner lauter (many/only) in German. Each study starts with a presentation of data that illustrates the change in question, and lists open issues about these data that could not be answered (or even formulated) in earlier theoretical frameworks. A careful investigation of the neat interplay of syntax and semantics in the phase of change demonstrates that speakers ingenuously exploit the structures of language in order to adjust it to new needs, while at the same time keeping it a well-defined tool of communication.
Keywords:
truth conditional semantics,
reanalysis,
pragmatics,
negation,
focus,
determiner,
future tense,
syntax-semantics interface
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2006 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199262601 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2007 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199262601.001.0001 |
