A usage-based theory of grammatical status and grammaticalization

Kasper Boye & Peter Harder

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

150 Citations (Scopus)

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 hitherto 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
Original languageEnglish
JournalLanguage
Volume88
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)1-44
Number of pages43
ISSN1535-0665
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2012

Keywords

  • Faculty of Humanities
  • Grammaticalization
  • Grammatical status
  • User-based theory

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