THE GRAMMATICALIZATION OF ADVERBS

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• THE GRAMMATICALIZATION OF ADVERBS
• two case studies
• Muriel Norde

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OUTLINE

• Preliminaries
• the category of adverbs
• grammaticalization vs. lexicalization
• Case studies
• epistemic adverbs
• Dutch intensifying tig
• Theoretical discussion

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THE CATEGORY OF ADVERBS

• Open or closed class?
• Talmy 2000 only N, V and Adj form open classes
• Ramat Ricca 1998 range from relatively open
  (fortunately) to relatively closed class
  (monomorphemic advs such as now, just)
• Brinton Traugott 2005 no clear binary
  distinction between lexical / major / open
  classes on the one hand and grammatical / minor /
  closed classes on the other. Lexical and
  grammatical items form a continuum.

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GRAMMATICALIZATION

• Grammaticalization consists in the increase of
  the range of a morpheme advancing from a lexical
  to a grammatical or from a less grammatical to a
  more grammatical status. (Kurylowicz 1975 1965
  
• an evolution whereby linguistic units lose
  in semantic complexity, pragmatic significance,
  syntactic freedom, and phonetic substance
  (Heine Reh 1984)
• A grammaticalization is a diachronic change by
  which the parts of a constructional schema come
  to have stronger internal dependencies
  (Haspelmath 2004)
• taken litterally having become grammatical

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DEGRAMMATICALIZATION

• Based on the cline of grammaticality
• content item gt grammatical word gt clitic gt
  inflectional affix
• Single shift from right to left
• Constructional identity is preserved
• Main mechanisms involved
• reanalysis
• resemanticization
• decreased bondedness
• recategorialization
• phonetic strengthening

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LEXICALIZATION

• recruitment of linguistic material to enrich the
  lexicon (Hopper Traugott 1993)
• todays grammar may become tomorrows lexicon
  (Ramat 1992)
• Dependent on ones definition of lexicon
• Definition adopted here Brinton Traugott 2005
• the view that the lexicon does not exist
  solely of a list of discrete and fully fixed
  items but represents a continuum from more to
  less fixed, from more to less fully
  conventionalized, and from more to less
  productive items. the continuum models of the
  lexical / grammatical split and of the lexicon
  fit better with the historical facts of change,
  which is often (though not always) gradual in the
  sense that change occurs by very small steps.
• Contra GL conception of grammatical categories as
  discrete entities

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SUBTYPES OF LEXICALIZATION

• Function words
• Pros en cons
• Shaved her legs and then he was a she (L. Reed)
• Suffixes
• ologies (object of study, cf, sociology)
• isms (ideology, cf. communism)
• phrases
• forget-me-not
• has-been
• no-show
• acronyms
• smses
• nimby

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LEXICALIZATION vs GRAMMATICALIZATION

• Lehmann 2002 e.g. transition N gt P is first and
  foremost a case of lexicalization with subsequent
  grammaticalization
• Antilla 1989 grammaticalization involves
  lexicalization (e.g. by adding Ps to the
  lexicon)
• Sum lexicalization is concomitant with, but
  neither congruent with nor opposite to
  grammaticalization

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LEXICALIZATION vs DEGRAMMATICALIZATION

• Ramat 1992 lexicalization degrammaticalization
• What is meant is lexicalization of affixes (isms
  etc.)
• However this is just one type of lexicalization
• Sum lexicalization is concomitant, but not
  synonymous, with degrammaticalization

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CASE STUDY 1

• Epistemic adverbs
• deriving from may / can be / happen

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MAYBE IN SCANDINAVIAN

• Swedish kanske lt can happen
• Swedish måhända lt may happen
• Norwegian kanskje lt can happen
• Danish måske lt may happen

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MAYBE IN OTHER LANGUAGES

• English maybe
• Dutch misschien (lt may happen)
• French peut-être
• Russian možet (byt) lt may (be)
• Serbian Croatian možda lt may that
• Polish moze lt may
• Lithuanian gal(but) lt may (be)

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TYPICAL FEATURES OF SWEDISH KANSKE

• prosodically a compound, not a phrase
• However phrase-like properties
• may be followed by a subordinate clause
• Kanske att hon sover
• Maybe that she sleeps
• may violate Swedish V2-rule

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SWEDISH AS A V2 LANGUAGE
Vi äter alltid lunch kl. 12
We eat always lunch 12 oclock
Alltid äter vi lunch kl. 12
Always eat we lunch 12 oclock
Kl. 12 äter vi alltid lunch
12 oclock eat we always lunch
Lunch äter vi alltid kl. 12
Lunch eat we always 12 oclock
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WORD ORDER WITH KANSKE
Han har KANSKE inte ätit
He has maybe not eaten
KANSKE har han inte ätit
Maybe has he not eaten
KANSKE han inte har ätit
Maybe he not has eaten
Han KANSKE inte har ätit
He maybe not has eaten
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WHAT HAPPENED?

• Source MLG mach-schên may happen
• -gt loan word maxan (now obsolete)
• -gt loan translations kanske, måhända, kanhända

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KAN SKE AS A PHRASE

• thet kan wel skee at en liten hoop offuerwinner
  en storan
• It may well happen that a small lott conquers a
  large (lot)
• thz kunde honom ekke ske
• That could not happen to him

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SUMMARY CHANGES INVOLVED

• Phonetic reduction
• Semantic bleaching
• Univerbation
• Decategorialization
• Layering (phrase-like properties)
• Subjectification (from sentence subject to
  utterance subject)
• Tentative conclusion grammaticalization
• but Ramat 2001 lexicalization (MN
  lexicalization is not a competing term)

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CASE STUDY 2

• Dutch tig
• from suffix to numeral to intensifier

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ETYMOLOGY

• PGmc teXu- unit of 10
• gt Suffix tig (engl. -ty, germ. zig, fris.
  tich, sw. tio)
• gt Indefinite numeral tig keer umpteen times
• gt Intensifying adverb tig leuk very nice

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Change 1 TIG AS AN INDEFINITE NUMERAL

• Dutch
• Die kerel heeft al tig vriendinnen gehad
• Frisian
• Dy keardel hat al tich freondinnen hân
• German
• Der Kerl hat schon zig Freundinnen gehabt
• That guy has already had dozens of girlfriends
• meaning umpteen, dozens, zillion

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ORDINAL TIGSTE

• Dutch
• Je vraagt dat nu al voor de tigste keer!
• Frisian
• Do fregest da no al foar de tichste kear!
• German
• Du fragst das jetzt schon zum zigsten Mal!
• You are asking that for the zillionth time
  already!

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WHY DEGRAMMATICALIZATION?

• decreased bondedness ?
• bound gt free
• independent usage ik heb er wel tig Ive got
  dozens of them
• resemanticization ?
• -tig x10, only when combined with numeral stem
• tig indefinite, large quantity
• Subjectification ? (!!)
• recategorialization ?
• ordinal inflection tigste
• phonetic strengthening ? (Du/Fri)
• -tig t?x
• tig t?x (possibly spelling pronunciation)

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WHY NOT MERELY LEXICALIZATION?

• Lexicalization of numeral suffixes
• Engl. Girls in their teens aged 13-19
• It. Ha passato gli anta he is over forty
• lt quaranta, cinquanta
• Isms, teens hyperonyms
• all ideologies ending in ism
• all ages ending in teen
• Lexicalization one giant leap from affix to
  lexical element
• Tig does not mean any quantity between 20 and
  90
• Tig gradual change

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ALTERNATIVE ANALYSES

• Haspelmath 2004 back formation, -tig is part of
  compound
• ?twin- and der- are not independent morphemes
• Lehmann 2005 teguz unit of 10 gt numeral tig,
  leadning a hidden life in spoken language,
  non-demonstrability of non-existence
• ? Taboo word?
• ? No evidence at all, in spite of 1000 years of
  written sources??
• ?WNT 1960 no tig
• ?Grimm 1956 zig in jüngster Zeit (example from
  1935)

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Change 2 DUTCHTIG AS INTENSIFIER

• Het is nu al tig laat
• It is now already very late
• tig veel antwoorduh
• Very many answers
• Shoarma is toch tig lekkerder
• Shawarma is however much more tasty

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GERMAN ZIG AS INTENSIFIER

• Ich hab diesen Film schon zig oft gesehen
• I have seen this film very often already
• zig viel Geld
• a whole lot of money

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DEGREES
Class Grade Example
I absolute absolutely
II approximative almost
III extremely high extremely
IV high very
V moderate rather
VI minimal somewhat
VII quasinegative little
VIII negative not
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SUSPENSION TESTS
Class Example Can be suspended by Example
I Im absolutely sure - -
II I Im almost ready, if not completely ready
III Shes unbelievably rich - -
IV III Shes very rich, if not unbelievably rich
V IV or III She is rather happy, maybe even very happy / extremely happy
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RESULT OF SUSPENSION TEST

• ?Het is al tig laat, om niet te zeggen heel laat.
  (class V)
• It is already quite late, if not very late
• Het is al tig laat, om niet te zeggen ontzettend
  laat (class IV)
• It is already very late, if not awfully late
• Het is al tig laat (class III)
• It is already awfully late

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SOURCES OF INTENSIFIERS

• Heine / Kuteva 2002
• terrible and other qualitative adjectives
• terribly ugly / beautiful
• vreselijk lelijk / mooi
• furchtbar hässlich / schön
• terriblement laide / belle
• hemskt ful / vacker
• true
• very ugly / beautiful (lt Older French verray)
• richtig hässlich / schön

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MORE SOURCES

• Superlatives
• extremely
• extremely ugly / beautiful
• extreem lelijk / mooi
• ausserordentlich hässlich / schön
• madly
• madly in love
• waanzinnig verliefd
• vansinnigt förälskad
• Much (sometimes with comparatives only)
• much better (OE moche worthy)
• veel beter
• mycket bättre, mycket bra

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INTENSIFYINGTIG

• No cross-linguistic equivalents
• Not comparable to much
• much is used with mass nouns much work
• tig is used with count nouns tig mensen / tig
  werk

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WHAT HAPPENED?

• Bridging context (Heine 2002)
• Er zijn tig betere systemen te koop
• 1 There are dozens of better systems for sale
  (numeral)
• 2 There are much better systems for sale
  (adverb)

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WHY GRAMMATICALIZATION?

• Semantic bleaching ?
• meaning becomes more abstract, functions merely
  to intensify the meaning of the following
  adjective or adverb
• Decategorialization ?
• can no longer be inflected as an ordinal numeral
  (as could the indefinite numeral tig)
• Phonetic reduction - (no change)
• Less syntactic freedom ?
• can no longer be used independently
• Context expansion ? (from comparatives to simple
  Adjs)

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OTHERS ON DEGREE ADVERBS

• Klein 1998 only degree adverbs deriving from
  qualitative adjectives (terribly) are instances
  of gz, because they involve semantic bleaching
• She is terribly mean
• She is terribly beautiful (bleaching)
• Brinton Traugott 2005 all degree adverbs
  deriving from other adverbs are instances of gz

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IMPLICATIONS FOR UNIDIRECTIONALITY

• From suffix to indefinite numeral
  counterdirectional change
• Degrammaticalized elements can (re)grammaticalize
• Crucially however, they do not return to the old
  stage of affairs

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CONCLUDING REMARKS

• Lexicalization does not compete with either
  grammaticalization or degrammaticalization
• The present terminology cannot capture the
  changes involved in the rise of adverbs
• Crucially, the mechanisms which are assumed to be
  defining properties of grammaticalization need to
  be re-evaluated
• In particular, this is true for pragmatic
  inferencing, subjectification and scope changes
• Besides addressing clear-cut cases (the French
  inflectional future ??) attention ought to be
  paid to changes in the grey area

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THANK YOU

• This presentation will soon be downloadable from
• http//odur.let.rug.nl/norde/downloadables.htm