![Introduction
New reflections on the sources, outcomes, defining
features and motivations of grammaticalization
Tine Breban1, Jeroen Vanderbiesen2, Kristin Davidse1,
Lieselotte Brems1/3 Tanja Mortelmans2
1University of Leuven / 2University of Antwerp / 3Université de Liège
1. Preliminaries
It is unquestionable that the study of grammaticalization and related
processes
of change has had an enormous impact on the recent linguistic scene.
Grammaticalization research in the broad sense has created a meeting ground
for approaches as varied as typology, language acquisition, comparative and
diachronic study, synchronic language description, usage-based and corpus-
based description, and discourse approaches. In about a quarter of a century, it
has changed the general assumptions of language description, putting awareness
of change at the centre of interest, rather than reserving it to specialized historical
linguistics studies. Diachronically, it has broadened our ideas of sources for gram-
matical elements and the pathways involved in developing them. Importantly,
awareness of the ubiquity of grammaticalization processes has also woken us up
to the fact that, from a synchronic point of view, the grammatical resources of any
language are much more extensive than generally recognized in reference gram-
mars. For instance, as observed by Diewald (2010) for German, multiple processes
of
auxiliarization of periphrastic verbal expressions have extended the auxiliary
systems
exponentially, but “in mainstream descriptions of the tense and mood
systems… most authors
follow the tradition of integrating some periphrastic con-
structions while
excluding others without further mention, let alone convincing
arguments for the
chosen selection” (Diewald 2010:29). The importance of princi-
pled criteria for the
identification of grammaticalization paths and their outcomes
is also reflected in theory formation. Lehmann’s (1985) parameters and
Hopper’s
(1991) principles form the solid core of countless case studies, and
further the-
oretical reflections endeavour to grasp the essence and all the implications of
grammaticalization in volumes such as Heine, Claudi Hünnemeyer (1991), Trau-
gott Heine (1991), Hopper Traugott (2003 [1993]), Bybee,
Perkins Pagliuca](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-13-320.jpg)
![Introduction
2. Definitions of grammaticalization and lexicalization
In the last thirty years, a number of definitions of grammaticalization have been
given, which highlight different aspects of the process. Despite the refinements
and additions offered, many of them ultimately draw on the two seminal, but quite
distinct, definitions of Meillet and Kuryłowicz. For Meillet (1912) grammaticaliza-
tion involved “[l’]attribution du caractère grammatical à un mot jadis autonome”
(the attribution of grammatical character to a previously autonomous word).
Kuryłowicz (1965) proposed that “[g]rammaticalization consists in the increase of
the range of a morpheme advancing from a lexical to a grammatical or from less
grammatical to a more grammatical status […].”. Whereas Meillet opposes gram-
matical character to autonomy, Kuryłowicz contrasts lexical with grammatical sta-
tus. Up until this day, these two contrasts, appearing intuitively simple, seem to
have eluded clear definitions and continue to cloud our views on which processes
of change should be considered grammaticalization and which should not.
Thus, many scholars in grammaticalization studies have sought to distinguish
grammaticalization from lexicalization, the diachronic process giving rise to new
lexical items, e.g. Kuryłowicz (1965), Lehmann (1989), Moreno Cabrera (1998),
Wischer (2000, 2011), Brinton (2002), Lehmann (2002), Himmelmann (2004),
Trousdale (2008a), and the book-length study of Brinton Traugott (2005) (see
also Lightfoot 2011).
Himmelmann (2004) has observed that grammaticalization
and lexicalization can be defined either as distinct processes or in terms of their
outcomes, i.e. the creation of new grammatical versus lexical items. However, the
latter approach can only work if we have distinctive conceptions of grammar and
lexicon and this is not straightforward for several types of items. For instance,
are derivational morphemes such as the suffix -ment in French clairement, gram-
matical formatives even though they result in the creation of new lexical items
(Himmelmann 2004; Wischer 2011)? Should complex prepositions and conjunc-
tions such as instead of, and all the same, be classified as grammar because the
new words do not belong to the major categories verb, noun, adjective or are they
merely new lexicon or maybe both (see e.g. Ramat 1992:553–554; Schwenter
Traugott1995; Tabor Traugott 1998:244–253; Brinton 2002:69–70; Lehmann
2002:9–10; Traugott 2003a:636; Brinton Traugott 2005:64–65)?
Recently, Boye Harder (2009, 2012) have formulated a proposal to distinc-
tively define lexical from grammatical items, and by extension lexicalization from
grammaticalization, by correlating their different discourse status with distinct for-
mal behaviour. They propose to define grammar as “coded secondariness” (Boye
Harder 2009:33). The corresponding concepts used to identify lexical items
are those of ‘addressability’ and ‘primariness’. Boye Harder (2007) first applied
these notions to distinguish lexical and grammatical uses of complement-taking](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-15-320.jpg)
![ Tine Breban et al.
predicates such as I think. In their lexical use, they describe an instance of thinking,
e.g. Other days I think “It’s just not fair” (Vandelanotte 2009:296). In their gram-
maticalized use, they express evidential or modal qualifications of an assertion, e.g.
Commander Dalgliesh writes poetry, I think (Hopper Traugott 2003:208). Hopper
Traugott (2003:207–209) had treated the process of change leading from lexical
to grammatical uses as nucleus-margin reversal. According to Hopper Traugott
(2003:208), formal changes that may accompany this grammaticalization process
are: loss of complementizer that, less stress on the parenthetical than on the main
verb, and flexibility of placement of the parenthetical. These formal properties,
however, do not appear to systematically distinguish lexical from grammatical uses,
as, for instance, grammaticalized uses may still have complementizer that (Shank,
Plevoets Cuyckens forthc.). In proposing the
functional-formal notions of
addressability and coded secondariness, central concerns of Boye Harder (2007)
are to “maintain […] the role of structural […] subordination” (2007:569), while
developing linguistic tests that systematically pick up on the different discourse sta-
tus of the elements in question. Information given in discourse may be the primary
predication, i.e. the most important information of an utterance, or a secondary
predication, which serves only to
support the primary one. The criterion to distin-
guish between these two readings is ‘addressability’. If a clause with complement-
taking predicate is the primary point of the utterance, it will be ‘addressable’ by such
linguistic tests as a really-query (Do you really think…) and a tag or do-probe (Do
you?). If, by contrast, the clause with complement-
taking predicate has the gram-
matical value of qualifying the following clause, which forms the main assertion, it
is the latter which will allow really-queries, tags and do-probes. Qualifying I think
resists these tests because it is not addressable as the main point of the utterance.
It is, or has become, ‘secondary’ in the discourse in that it functions, as is typical of
grammatical elements, as an operator or modifier of the proposition.
Boye Harder (2012) extend non-addressability and coded secondariness to
all grammatical and grammaticalized elements. Elements with grammatical
status
are generally characterized by their ‘ancillary’ status vis-à-vis other linguistic
expressions and by secondary discursive status. Grammaticalization is the change
that gives rise to such expressions and is “functionally motivated by predomi-
nant use […] of elements in situations where they have such secondary status”
(Boye Harder 2009:32). Non-addressability and secondariness characterize a
grammatical element independently from process features such as entrenchment
and
provide a tool to assess the grammatical status of each individual use. At this
point, Boye Harder have applied their analysis only to the characterization of
grammaticalization. It will be interesting to see whether their proposals will allow
them to also offer a principled characterization of the process of lexicalization in
the future.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-16-320.jpg)
![Introduction
An example of what Himmelmann (2004) referred to as the process-approach
towards the definitions of lexicalization and grammaticalization is developed in
Brinton Traugott (2005). They point out that conceiving of grammaticalization
and lexicalization in terms of their outcomes leads to another complication, viz. the
status of degrammaticalization. As degrammaticalization involves the
development
from grammatical to lexical material, it should in an outcome-approach be
considered a subtype of lexicalization, see amongst others Kuryłowicz (1975
[1965]), Lehmann (1989), Ramat (1992, 2001), Hagège (1993), Giacalone Ramat
(1998), Moreno Cabrera (1998), Wischer (2000), Brinton (2002), Lehmann (2002),
Van der Auwera (2002), Himmelmann (2004), Norde (2009, 2011),
Brinton (this
volume). In their attempt to disentangle the three different processes, Brinton
Traugott (2005) argue that the basis for the conflicting analyses lies in the problem-
atic definition of lexicalization. They hold that the broad definition ‘adoption of an
item in the lexicon’ in fact encompasses grammaticalization, degrammaticalization
as well as lexicalization. Instead, they propose a new analysis in terms of shared and
distinguishing features: grammaticalization is, in contrast to lexicalization, con-
strained by a number of specific processes, such as decategorialization, bleaching,
subjectification, increased frequency and productivity, and typological generaliza-
tion (Brinton Traugott 2005:145). Norde (2009, this volume) proposes a similar
process-oriented definition of degrammaticalization.
These process-oriented definitions chime in with a conception of grammati-
calization as a composite process. As Diewald Smirnova (2010:98) put it, gram-
maticalization is epiphenomenal, in the sense that it is of a “composite nature”,
consisting of a variety of member processes. Moreover, as argued by several schol-
ars, these component processes are not unique to grammaticalization. Neither in
its working nor its motivations is grammaticalization a single process. Traugott
(1989) holds that grammaticalization is not distinct from other types of semantic
change, and results from a small number of broader tendencies that govern both
grammatical and lexical change. Bybee (2010:112) notes that as grammaticaliza-
tion is caused by “domain-general processes”, i.e. cognitive processes not restricted
to language, it is inherently epiphenomenal. In
accordance with these observa-
tions, Haspelmath (1999:1043) proffers that the view that
grammaticalization is
conceived of as “a distinct process,” “an encapsulated phenomenon, governed by its
own set of laws,” has been attributed wrongly to mainstream
grammaticalization
studies. Lehmann (2002 [1982]:vii) has always stressed that grammaticaliza-
tion involves a number of phonological, morphological,
syntactic, and semantic
processes. These may, but need not, constitute grammaticalization. According to
Traugott Heine (1991:9), reanalysis, analogy, metaphor and metonymy are all
“mechanisms that make change possible, but none are restricted to grammati-
calization”. Is Joseph (2001:22) right then in claiming that the development of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-17-320.jpg)
![ Tine Breban et al.
grammatical forms can be described without once making reference to ‘grammat-
icalization’, relying on well-
understood
concepts such as analogy or phonological
change? Diewald Smirnova (2010:98) reply to this often-raised question:
It is not enough to know the individual mechanisms, because none of them is
confined to grammaticalization. They can all be involved in other processes of
language change. Only in their interaction do they make up a gradual and directed
path that leads to the evolution of grammatical forms. […] Consequently, the
distinctive and unique feature of grammaticalization is generally seen in its
particular combination and serialization of several processes and stages, which –
among other things – are reflected in grammaticalization scales and paths and
complex scenarios of successive contexts and constructions.
Grammaticalization, then, is a generalization that overarches the convergence of
certain processes towards a common goal. It is the task of grammaticalization
research to identify the combinations of processes that make up cases of grammati-
calization as well as to identify its distinctive outcomes.
3. Recognition criteria of grammaticalization
From the early days of grammaticalization research on, scholars have tried to
define the component processes underlying grammaticalization, in order to
apply them as recognition criteria to actual case studies of language change. After
thirty years, Lehmann (2002 [1982]:vii) still stands as an authoritative, though
not unchallenged (see below), definition of the basic parameters of grammati-
calization. In his view, grammaticalization is a composite process in which an
unconstrained lexical expression changes into a grammatical formative subject to
the rules of grammar. Even though this definition is reminiscent of Kuryłowicz,
the parameters that Lehmann proposes characterize grammaticalization elabo-
rate Meillet’s idea of grammaticalization as loss of autonomy. Grammaticalization
affects the degree of freedom with which a linguistic sign can be used in terms
of three principal aspects: weight, cohesion, and variability (Lehmann 1985:3).
As all linguistic signs function on both a paradigmatic and a syntagmatic axis,
the three aspects do too. On the paradigmatic axis, weight encompasses the
integrity of a sign, i.e. its semantic, phonological and morphological size. On this
axis, cohesion stands for paradigmaticity, which is “the degree to which [a sign]
enters a paradigm, is integrated into it and dependent on it” (Lehmann 2002
[1982]:110). Paradigmatic variability, finally, captures the possibility of using one
sign in place of another. On the syntagmatic axis, weight is the structural scope
of a sign, “the structural size of the construction it helps to form […] (which, for](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-18-320.jpg)
![Introduction
many purposes, may be regarded as its constituent structure level)” (Lehmann
2002 [1982]:128). Syntagmatic cohesion is bondedness, the degree to which the
sign is connected to other signs in the same syntagm (which may vary from juxta-
position to cliticization and affixation). Finally, syntagmatic variability is the ease
with which a sign can take up different positions relative to other constituents
that it has a relation to. This yields six parameters which provide “operational
criteria for the establishment and justification of special grammaticalization
scales” (Lehmann 1985:4), given in Table 1.
Table 1. Lehmann’s parameters
Paradigmatic Syntagmatic
Weight Integrity Scope
Cohesion Paradigmaticity Bondedness
Variability Substitutability Positional flexibility
As these parameters are only properties of signs, they identify a ‘static’ degree
of grammaticalization. To capture the diachronic evolution of signs, the parameters
are dynamicized into processes (Lehmann 2002 [1982]:111) (see Table 2). A loss of
semantic and phonological integrity is called attrition – other terms are
bleaching
and erosion. An increase in paradigmaticity,
paradigmaticization, means that
grammatical formatives are integrated into increasingly small,
homogeneous para-
digms (Lehmann 1985:4).1 The process of obligatorification, a loss of paradigmatic
variability, is related to paradigmaticization in that it subjects the choice in the
paradigm to grammatical rules and makes a choice from the
paradigm increas-
ingly obligatory, which drastically expands the distribution of the grammatical-
ized forms in it. The shrinkage of scope is captured as condensation. An increase
in bondedness, coalescence, is primarily to be viewed as a structural phenomenon
which “leads from juxtaposition via cliticization, agglutination and fusion to sym-
bolic alternation” (Lehmann 1985:5). This may involve a transformation of syntac-
tic boundaries to morphological boundaries and may lead to the disappearance of
these boundaries, as in OHG dia wîla ‘in that time span’ MHG diweil ‘during’
NHG weil ‘during’. The initial phase of coalescence does not consist of a notice-
able change in the construction, but of alternative ways of seeing it, i.e. reanalysis
(Lehmann 2002:4), e.g. I am going to be married as either going/to be married or
1. Diewald Smirnova (2010:156–157) specify that if forms are integrated into an existing
paradigm the term“renovation”or“renewal”is used, but if a new paradigm of forms arises the
process is called “innovation”.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-19-320.jpg)
![Introduction
he will have to use one of two passive strategies in German, but the passive does
not have to occur obligatorily in a sentence.
Lehmann’s formalization of the parameters of grammaticalization can
also be linked to three general areas of debate in grammaticalization research.
Firstly, several linguists e.g. Sweetser (1990), Heine (1993), Heine, Claudi
Hünnemeyer (1991) and most prominently Traugott (1989, 2003b, 2010),
Traugott König (1991), Hopper Traugott (1993 [2003]), Traugott Dasher
(2002), have
criticized the minor role assigned to semantic change in Lehmann’s
parameters. They argue that semantic change in grammaticalization cannot be
conceived as mere loss of semantic content. Rather, loss of descriptive content
is counterbalanced by a gain in pragmatic and procedural functionality that the
item did not have before.
Traugott König (1991:190–191) pointed out that it
was precisely because grammaticalization was prototypically seen as a loss that
it took some time for the relevance of pragmatics to be recognized, also in the
motivations for the process (see below). Grammaticalization begins when the
original coded meaning is enriched with pragmatic values, the stage Traugott
(1989) refers to as ‘pragmatic strengthening’. For instance, in specific contexts a
bit, which literally meant ‘a bite’, came to be associated with the invited pragmatic
inference of ‘small quantity’. In a following stage, the purely scalar quantitative
meaning of ‘little’ came to be conventionally coded by the form a bit of. It is with
the establishment of this new form-
meaning pair that we can speak of gram-
maticalization (Traugott 2010).3 In this model grammaticalization thus starts off
with context-induced semantic change. The general applicability of this model
has been questioned by other authors. Even though
formal change characteris-
tically lags behind function change, function change may also be a reaction to
structural change (Newmeyer 1998:248–251) or a result of form-based analogy
(Heath 1998; Fischer 2007:123–124).
The mechanisms of context-induced semantic change were further developed
by, amongst others, Heine (1992, 2002) and Diewald (2002, 2006, 2008; Diewald
Ferraresi 2008). Heine (1992, 1993) proposed that change in grammaticaliza-
tion proceeds along three stages in an ‘overlap’ model. A first stage in which the
grammaticalizing item has its original meaning (A), a second stage in which it
has both its original meaning (A) and a new grammaticalized meaning (B), and
3. The focus on the semantics of grammaticalization has givenrise to a fruitful paradigm
in grammaticalization studies focusing on more specific types of semantic change including
most prominently subjectification and intersubjectification (e.g. Traugott 1989, 2003b, 2010;
Stein Wright 1995; Traugott Dasher 2002; Athanasiadou, Costas Cornillie 2006;
Davidse,Vandelanotte Cuyckens 2010).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-21-320.jpg)
![ Tine Breban et al.
finally a stage in which the grammaticalized meaning (B) is the only interpre-
tation
possible. This results in a chain-like structure: A A/B B.4 As set out
by Heine, the stages can be used as analytic tools for the detection of (different
stages) of grammaticalization in the synchronic form of the language. Later, this
model was further developed by Heine (2002) and by Diewald (2002, 2006, 2008;
Diewald Ferraresi 2008) into two similar but not wholly equivalent models, in
which the stages are defined as types of ‘context’, allowing the analyst to detect
ongoing processes of grammaticalization and to establish the degree to which the
processes have advanced at a particular time in a language. Diewald Smirnova
(this
volume) argue that the stages of grammaticalization they proposed earlier
have to be completed by a fourth, new, stage, viz. paradigmatic integration.
Secondly,Lehmannconceptualizedgrammaticalizationasaprocesswithbotha
synchronicanddiachronicside.Fromadiachronicperspective,grammaticalization
is a process of change turning “lexemes into grammatical formatives and mak[ing]
grammatical formatives still more grammatical”, whereas on the synchronic side it
is a “principle according to which s
ubcategories of a given grammatical category
may be ordered” (Lehmann 1985:7). His parameters are devised to reflect this dual
perspective: on the one hand there are parameters that serve to describe a more or
less ‘stative’ synchronic distribution of forms, on the other hand these parameters
are dynamicized into
processes that chart the historical evolution of the forms. In
this view, the synchronic and the diachronic perspectives are not mutually exclu-
sive, but complementary. Grammaticalization can be studied both diachronic-
ally, by comparison of data from different language stages, and synchronically, by
investigation of the current functional variation. Other studies, e.g. Traugott
Heine (1991), Hopper Traugott (1993 [2003]), have emphasized the interplay
between the diachronic and synchronic sides of grammaticalization, and have con-
nected ongoing change with synchronic variation. The core of this idea was first
formulated by
Hopper (1991). Hopper argued that the parameters proposed by
Lehmann (1982, 1985) could only detect grammaticalization in an advanced stage.
In order to remedy this, he put
forward five complementary principles indica-
tive of early-stage grammaticalization (but not exclusive to grammaticalization):
layering, divergence,
specialization,
persistence and
decategorialization. The first
two principles introduce the idea that diachronic change can lead to synchronic
variation. The first principle, layering, invokes the notion of a synchronic domain
4. It has been clarified by Heine and many others, e.g. Hopper Traugott (2003:121–122)
that a development does not have to proceed unto the last stage (B only), but that a language
can maintain stage A/B or even loose the B meaning, de facto resulting in a stage with only
A again.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-22-320.jpg)
![Introduction
within which “the older
layers […] may remain to coexist with and
interact with
the newer layers”
(Hopper 1991:23), thus
“crowding the field” (Hopper 1996:230)
with different forms whose meaning, style or social status subtly differ. The second
principle, divergence (called ‘split’ by Heine Reh 1984:57–59), captures the obser-
vation that, when a form grammaticalizes, its lexical use may continue to exist and
undergo further change like any other lexeme, resulting in
functionally
different
but etymologically related forms. Hopper (1991:24) noted that
divergence can be
seen as a special case of layering, the latter involving
different degrees of gram-
maticalization of forms in the same functional domain and the former of one form
in various contexts.5
With the arrival of large digitalized historical corpora in the 1990s,
descriptive studies of grammaticalization showed that synchronic
variation
as a result of grammaticalization was not just restricted to one form with
multiple meanings or one meaning with multiple codings. In addition,
variation was shown to apply to examples on a one-by-one basis. That is, gram-
maticalization processes spread gradually through individual speakers in the
language community and, even more significantly, they spread gradually
through individual speaker’s grammars, who may use the grammaticalized and
the original use alongside each other in different contexts (Andersen 2001).
Grammaticalization was revealed to be to a large extent a matter of frequency,
and to be subject to usage phenomena such as
frequency‑driven
entrenchment
and
routinization (amongst others Haimann 1994; Bybee Hopper 2001;
Bybee 2003, 2007, 2010, 2011; see Mair 2011 for further discussion of the con-
tributions of corpus linguistics to grammaticalization).
Synchronic study of grammaticalization processes brought yet another aspect
to the fore. Synchronic variation in grammaticalization can also involve category
indeterminacy or mixed category membership, that is, in mid-grammaticalization
the grammaticalizing item can display seemingly irreconcilable characteristics
associated with both its original and its new, grammatical uses. This phenomenon
has been referred to as synchronic gradience (Denison 2001, 2006, 2010; Aarts
2007; Traugott Trousdale 2010). It had been acknowledged for some time that
form and meaning develop independently in grammaticalization (see Section 3
on discussion whether semantic or formal change drives grammaticalization) and
that, synchronically viewed, an item can have a new meaning, yet retain the formal
features of its older use. However, in the new millennium the mismatch was
shown to be more subtle as items were argued to be subject to step‑wise de‑and
5. Hopper Traugott (1993 [2003]) in fact use the term “layering” to refer to Hopper’s
(1991) earlier ‘divergence’.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-23-320.jpg)
![Introduction
[Grammaticalization] is more properly conceived as the change whereby lexical
material in highly constrained pragmatic and morphosyntactic contexts is
assigned functional category status, and where the lexical meaning of an item is
assigned constructional meaning.
As observed by Hopper (1996:232), “it may be said that they complement each
other in that the first [structural approach] explains what is grammaticalized and
the second [pragmatic approach] how this occurs”. In the first decade of the twen-
tieth century, the idea that elements grammaticalize in context became the central
tenet of several articles such as Himmelmann (2004), Traugott (2003a) and was
generally acknowledged and incorporated into existing definitions of grammati-
calization.6 The role of the context in triggering and furthering grammaticaliza-
tion was spelt out in the models of change proposed by Heine (2002) and Diewald
(2002, 2006, 2008) (see above).
4. Outcomes and sources of grammaticalization
So far, this introduction has focused on definitions and recognition criteria of
grammaticalization versus other processes of change. These elements have also
been the main focal points in grammaticalization studies in the past thirty years.
The sources of grammaticalization processes, by contrast, have been studied in a
less systematic way. In the early days of grammaticalization studies considerable
attention went to the fact that certain grammatical meanings cross-linguistically
develop out of lexical items within the same restricted range of meanings. Hence,
paths of grammaticalization can be defined in terms of their semantic sources and
outcomes (Heine 1992). For example, Heine, Claudi Hünnemeyer (1991) studied
paths of change which build on metaphors, i.e. the representation of a “target
domain” by means of a “source domain”, based on some perceived or functional
similarity between them (Heine, Claudi Hünnemeyer 1991:29). For instance,
space is used to code time (and time in turn to code cause) and physical objects
are used to represent abstract ones. This observation leads to a metaphorical scale
of increasing abstractness, which entails that in grammaticalization the notions
to the left of the arrow will be used to code those on the right (Heine, Claudi
Hünnemeyer 1991:48):
person object activity space time quality
6. Lehmann (2002:7) recognized the importance of context when he reformulated his
parameters as affecting the “autonomy of a linguistic sign in a certain construction”.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-25-320.jpg)
![ Tine Breban et al.
formatives? In asking this question, it is recognized that grammaticalization itself
is not an explanatory mechanism, but has itself to be explained. In the course of
time, several explanations have been proposed.
Older research tended to adopt a causal explanation of grammaticalization,
typically using the imagery of so-called ‘push’ and ‘pull chains’. A construction
B was said to grammaticalize either to fill a gap left by the grammaticalization
of a construction A or its grammaticalization was said to be the reason for the
loss of A. According to Lehmann (1985:9), these explanations miss the mark,
because they do not explain why a system that functions today could not func-
tion in the same way tomorrow; in other words, they fail to explain why change
occurs. A more tenable position, he proposes, is to see constructions A and B as
being in mutual harmony. Diewald (1997:109–110) observes that many languages
have synchronically competing strategies for instance for the expression of the
future tense. Given a causal explanation one would expect the older construction
to
vanish, so that it could be replaced, yet this is not always the case. A similar
non-causal interpretation of chains or cycles of grammaticalization from a formal-
ist perspective is proposed in the works by van Gelderen (especially van Gelderen
2011) and Abraham (2010).
Another approach explains grammaticalization by means of typological
universals such as Economy and Clarity. Most famous are the
Bequemlichkeitstrieb
‘urge towards ease’ and the Deutlichkeitstrieb ‘urge towards clarity’ of von der
Gabelentz (1901 [1891]:256). People’s desire towards ease of communication leads
to attrition and erosion of forms, but the fact that the meaning of these forms must
still be expressed leads to the formation of new communicative strategies. In a
comparable vein, Langacker (1977:105), speaks of ‘signal simplicity’ and ‘percep-
tual optimality’. Within the generative tradition that locates languages change in
language acquisition, Roberts Roussou (2003) and van Gelderen (2004, 2011)
propose that change is not merely the result of transmission errors, but instead is
driven by a design preference for structure simplification. According to Roberts
Roussou (2003), upward reanalysis, i.e. realization in a higher position in struc-
ture, can trigger grammaticalization. Focusing on lexical rather than derivational
characteristics, van Gelderen (2008, 2011) proposes that reanalyses that can be
responsible for certain grammaticalizations are motivated by Feature Economy.
Lehmann (1985) argues that in order to explain grammaticalization, we must
see the language system not as given, but as created by language activity. Language
activity is an unrestricted creation of interpersonally available meanings or signs,
but it occurs to solve a set of ever-recurring problems, and is therefore systematic. As
language activity is interpersonal and speakers are born into a certain tradition, this
system will be largely similar, but not necessarily identical, across speakers. On the
one hand speakers have the freedom to be creative, on the other they are restricted
by rules and traditions. Within this rule-governed creativity, “[e]very speaker wants](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-28-320.jpg)
![Introduction
to give the fullest possible expression to what he means” (Lehmann 1985:10). Gram-
maticalization is ultimately driven by the speakers’ wish for more expressivity.
The notion of expressivity as motivation of grammaticalization in the con-
text of a language community has been further elaborated by Haspelmath (1999).
Building on Keller (1990 [1994]), he proposes to view grammaticalization (and
language change in general) as an invisible-hand process, which results from
the individual actions of speakers realizing similar intentions. He amongst other
things identifies as set of Maxims that guide language change. The final and most
important maxim is Extravagance (Haspelmath’s term for expressivity), which
states that you should talk in such a way that you are noticed. However, as pointed
out by amongst others Waltereit (this volume), the need for expressivity is less
easily conceived for grammatical items than for lexical ones.
Another recent proposal which places the origin of grammaticalization in lan-
guage use is Croft (2010). Croft suggests that morphosyntactic change, including
grammaticalization, is triggered by natural variation of verbalization in discourse.
Morphosyntactic change, including grammaticalization, is the distillization of
essentially arbitrary speaker choice when it comes to verbalizing the same piece
of experience. Grammaticalization is hence the result of the inherent variabil-
ity of speech, rather than of singular events of innovative language use. Croft’s
proposal captures the fact that grammaticalization is a ubiquitous and
frequent
phenomenon – it happens all the time in ordinary speech, rather than being
rare, as the expressivity – and rhetoric-based accounts of grammaticalization
would lead one to believe. This proposal chimes in with many of the usage-based
accounts that have emphasized the determining role of frequency and routiniza-
tion for grammaticalization.
Finally, a recent set of papers (including Traugott 2008c; Waltereit
Detges
2008; Schwenter Waltereit 2010; Couper-Kuhlen 2011; Waltereit 2011, this
volume) explore the idea that grammaticalization can be motivated by another
aspect of language use, i.e.
language as interaction. They propose that several types
of grammatical items, such as discourse markers, develop out of discursive inter-
action strategies. Again these studies emphasize the role of routinization and the
procedural character of the ensuing constructions.
6. Contributions to this volume
With this review of the tradition within which this volume is situated, we have
set the scene for a discussion of the contributions it makes. The volume is divided
into two parts, a more theoretical and a more descriptive one. The first, theoretical,
part deals with “New theoretical perspectives on grammaticalization and other
processes of change: sources and motivations, recognition criteria and outcomes”.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-29-320.jpg)
![Introduction
markers derive exclusively from either symbols, e.g. adpositions, or deictics, e.g.
definite article and third person pronoun singular.
In the next contribution Richard Waltereit considers the basic question why
grammaticalization and language change more generally occur in the first place,
when there is no apparent need for it, since any language, including its gram-
mar, is perfectly serviceable at any given time. This ‘paradox of language change’
(Roberts Roussou 2003) has been tackled in both formal and functional
approaches. In generative grammar, change has tended to be located in first
language acquisition, which according to van Gelderen (2004) is driven by a
design preference for structural simplification. In the functional-cognitive camp,
Croft (2010) has recently challenged the idea of deliberate departure from lin-
guistic conventions. Instead, he sees diachronic change as driven by synchronic
morphosyntactic variability. Against this, Waltereit holds on to the idea of change
as non-abidance, or ‘tweaking’ (Keller 1994 [1990]), of the current conventions
of language, i.e. the use of forms not for their actual meaning but for perceived
advantages in communication. Waltereit’s basic claim is that grammaticalization,
and related types of change, arise as a side-effect of strategic, rhetorical language
use by speakers. The outcome of these processes is determined by the strategy for
which the underlying lexical items are used, rather than by the lexical content
of these items or by pre-set characteristics of types of change. He illustrates this
with the three grammatical uses that derived from lexical bien in French: modal
particle, concessive conjunction and discourse particle. In each case, he argues, the
scope of the grammaticalized use can be related to specific strategic uses that were
still ideational but in which bien had the tweaked communicative function and
scope that led to the grammatical uses.
Waltereit argues that this approach to grammaticalization and other
changes sheds new light on persistence, subjectification and
pragmaticalization.
Lexical-semantic persistence links grammaticalized meanings to the lexical source
from which they developed. Looked at pragmatically, lexical source
meanings
have a degree of suitability to be used for particular strategies, but there is
nothing
‘hard-wired’ to change in the lexical meanings as such – given suitable
circumstances, meanings may be pragmatically linked in a way that would seem
unlikely in the abstract. Subjectification, or the shift from ideational to speaker-
centred, interactional meaning, is a by-product of metonymic meaning change
motivated by argumentation. The relation between the source and the outcome
is
characterized by pragmatic affinities such as similarities between the ideational
effect of the underlying lexical meaning and its interactional purpose in the case
of subjectification. Waltereit also notes that while metonymy-based primary
grammaticalization incorporates subjectification as an integral part, this is less
so with secondary grammaticalization, the ‘un-marking’ of marked
subjective](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-31-320.jpg)
![ Tine Breban et al.
uses, which tends to involve loss of subjectivity. As to the controversial
distinction
between grammaticalization and pragmaticalization, Waltereit proposes that,
rather than being distinct historical trajectories ‘out there’, they reflect the widely
different diachronic trajectories source items may follow, motivated by similari-
ties between bridging contexts and target uses at different levels of abstraction.
Waltereit concludes that high-level generalizations such as subjectification, prag-
maticalization and persistence do not become obsolete under his approach but
they need to be complemented with lower-level generalizations about the rhetori-
cal strategies that are driving them.
The next two contributions of Part 1 focus on the recognition criteria of
grammaticalization and related changes. Muriel Norde’s contribution focuses
on the recognition criteria of the hitherto neglected phenomenon of degram-
maticalization. She sets out to develop, for all Lehmann’s (1995 [1982]) param-
eters of grammaticality and grammaticalization, the counterparts of decreasing
grammaticality and degrammaticalization. In the process, she also elucidates
Lehmanns’s parameters, for, as she points out, they have been widely used in
à la carte fashion as criteria of grammaticalization, but have been the subject
of remarkably little scrutiny and reflection in their own right. She first sur-
veys Lehmann’s parameters in relation to primary grammaticalization (from
lexical to grammatical) and secondary grammaticalization (from grammatical
to more grammatical). She concludes that the parameters identify primitive
changes whose diagnostic potential may vary in relation to primary and sec-
ondary grammaticalization and the earlier and later stages of these processes.
She then goes on to define the inverse parameters of degrammaticalization
and its primitive changes. On the paradigmatic axis, these are: resemanticiza-
tion, phonological strengthening and recategorialization of the linguistic sign,
deparadigmaticization, and deobligatorification and increasing paradigmatic
variability. On the syntagmatic axis, they are scope expansion;
severance, dein-
flectionalization or debonding, and syntagmatic flexibilization. She explores
these criteria systematically for instances advanced in the literature of primary
and secondary degrammaticalization. Again, not all parameters need apply
to establish these processes, and the strength as recognition criteria of the
other parameters depends on the type of degrammaticalization. Phonological
strengthening and scope-related criteria do not prove very useful. For degram-
mation, she finds resemanticization and recategorialization to be crucial. Dein-
flectionalization is characterized primarily by inflectional affixes ceasing to
form part of inflectional paradigms, i.e. deparadigmaticization, and is further
accompanied by a degree of severance and resemanticization. For debonding,
severance is the crucial
parameter. She concludes that Lehmann’s taxonomy,
albeit not perfect, provides a very useful set of criteria to distinguish (sub)types](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-32-320.jpg)
![Introduction
of (de)-
grammaticalization, because the parameters correlate with primitive
changes related to the inherent properties of (de)-grammaticalization.
Gabriele Diewald Elena Smirnova approach grammaticalization from a
construction grammar perspective. They propose a constructionist scenario of
grammaticalization, spelling out the four diachronic stages constitutive of the
grammaticalization process. They argue that this model is sufficiently general
to capture all types of grammaticalization, but also allows one to distinguish
grammaticalization from other types of change by the fourth, newly proposed,
stage of paradigmatic integration. This new model builds on and expands their
previous work on the three successive stages of untypical, critical and isolating
contexts (Diewald 2002, see above). In unatypical contexts the lexical source unit
shows via conversational implicature (cf. Traugott Dasher 2002) an unspe-
cific expansion of its distribution. In this first stage, which still involves compo-
sitional processing of the construction, the preconditions of grammaticalization
are created.
Critical contexts are characterized by multiple structural and seman-
tic ambiguities. They can be related to Fillmore, Kay O’Connor’s (1988:505)
notion of extragrammatical idioms, expressions whose “structures... are not made
intelligible by knowledge of the familiar rules of the grammar”. Critical contexts
invite several alternative interpretations, including the new grammatical mean-
ing. It is thus in this second stage that the grammaticalization process is actually
triggered. Isolating contexts, in which the new grammatical meaning is consoli-
dated as a separate meaning, can be equated with Fillmore, Kay O’Connor’s
(1988:505) formal and lexically open idioms, whose “syntactic patterns [are] dedi-
cated to semantic and pragmatic purposes not knowable from their form alone”.
Isolating contexts are often in complementary distribution with contexts featur-
ing the older more lexical meanings.
This three-step model, Diewald Smirnova argue, can be applied to all types
of grammaticalization, but also to other processes of change such as lexicaliza-
tion and the development of polysemy. They therefore introduce paradigmati-
cization, or paradigmatic (re)integration, as the fourth criterial stage, which
distinguishes grammaticalization from other diachronic processes. In the stage
of paradigmatic integration, the new grammatical sign is gradually more tightly
integrated into its new grammatical paradigm (cf. Lehmann 2002). Its semantic
contrasts with other members of the paradigm are sharpened and it becomes
increasingly associated with the more abstract grammatical meaning serving as
common denominator for the whole paradigm. These paradigmatic oppositions
and general features integrate the constructions involved into a closely interre-
lated network of constructions. Paradigmaticization thus conceived, it is argued,
is unique to grammaticalization and allows to distinguish it from lexicalization
and semantic change.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-33-320.jpg)
![ Tine Breban et al.
The last two contributions of the theoretical part deal specifically with
the
distinction between grammaticalization and lexicalization. Laurel Brinton
confronts this issue for ‘ghost morphology’. She first makes the point that, even
though inflections figure at the end of the typical grammaticalization clines
such as posited in Hopper Traugott (2003 [1993]), they have not received
conclusive treatment in grammaticalization studies so far. Ghost morphology is
inflectional material that has lost its grammatical function, but which is neither
refunctionalized (‘exaptated’) nor shed. Examples of such morphological resi-
due are adverbial genitives such as once, nowadays, erstwhile comparatives, e.g.
near, rather, and superlatives, e.g. next, erstwhile. In the literature, these cases
have been variously treated as (the final stage of) grammaticalization, degram-
maticalization, lexicalization, and trans- or recategorization. Brinton reviews
these various proposals and observes that they focus on different aspects of the
formation of ghost morphology. How this process of change is classified also
depends on the definitions given of grammaticalization and lexicalization. Both
processes are generally viewed as affecting constructions, not individual items,
and as involving fusion and loss of compositionality. Grammaticalization theo-
rists are agreed that lexicalization leads to a new linguistic sign with specific
referential meaning entering the lexical inventory, without any systemic effect
on the grammar. Grammaticalization, by contrast, yields a unit with schematic
meaning. Some theorists stress that it becomes part of a (new) grammatical
paradigm, after having undergone decategorialization as a crucial element of
grammaticalization. Others focus more on the ‘expansion’ of the pattern – its
productive, instance-sanctioning effect. According to Lehmann (2002), lexical-
ization involves holistic access to a unit because the internal relations of the
source construction are lost. By contrast, grammaticalization involves analytic
access to a unit, with the internal relations becoming increasingly regulated by
the constraints of the grammar.
Brinton argues that the cases of ghost morphology cannot plausibly be
construed as either grammaticalization, degrammaticalization or lexicalization.
Arguments against, for instance, the adverbial genitives and erstwhile compara-
tives and superlatives resulting from grammaticalization are: they are not produc-
tive patterns, they are not analytically accessed and are not subject to constraints
of grammar, and there is no increased schematicization. They cannot be viewed
either as instances of degrammaticalization according to its most thorough dis-
cussion to date by Norde (2009, this volume), as they fail to show most of its
parameters such as resemanticization, phonological strengthening, recategorial-
ization, severance, etc. Nor are they likely exemplars of lexicalization in that the
affixes themselves do not become more contentful, but are simply emptied of any
content and frozen onto forms that are already themselves lexical or grammatical](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-34-320.jpg)
![Introduction
The Topic-Shift theory has been used to account for the origin and extent of
object agreement in several languages, including Spanish clitic doubling (Silva-
Corvalán 1984). Vázquez Rozas García Salido point out a number of problems
with this hypothesis: amongst others, the
Topic-Shift construction was and is
too infrequent in Spanish to be the source of object agreement, and it cannot
account for the unequal spread of clitic doubling, which is found with the major-
ity of IOs, but only with preverbal DOs. They also argue that a fundamental
shortcoming of descriptions so far is that they have paid little attention to con-
structions which have only a clitic. They then offer a diachronic usage-based
study of IO and DO constructions with clitic doubling, systematically compar-
ing them with constructions containing only clitics and constructions contain-
ing only non-clitics. (The term “clitic” is used as a cover term for clitic pronouns
and the affixes they developed from.) They advocate an alternative explanation
to Givón’s Topic-Shift account, viz. an approach in terms of the accessibility of
discourse referents (Ariel 1990). Their data study reveals that clitic doubling and
encoding by clitics alone have come to be preferred by IOs, while coding by NPs
or more complex constituents is favoured by DOs. They conclude that the differ-
ence in accessibility of the discourse referents is the main factor determining the
grammatical forms of IOs and DOs in Spanish.
Eckardt’s study of negative polarity items (NPIs) can be related to
Waltereit’s
(this volume) reflections about the role played in language change by rhetori-
cal strategies and such pragmatic processes as presuppositions, implications and
entailments. Like Waltereit, she draws attention to the persistence of pragmatic
ingredients of old uses in new uses. She focuses on “[t]he many careers of nega-
tive polarity items”, taking a diachronic perspective on NPIs in general and on
scalar NPIs in particular. Her main thesis is that scalar NPIs are prototypical NPIs.
The downward entailing contexts of NPIs can be explained and made cognitively
accessible by the pragmatic mechanisms associated with scalar NPIs, viz. the
capacity to evoke alternatives (ALT) and the scalar interpretation of these alter-
natives (SCALE). Moreover, NPIs with standard contexts of distribution are, or
are
otherwise tied to, scalar expressions, while NPIs with an idiosyncratic range
of
contexts are not. Finally, the diachronic development of core NPIs crucially
involves the loss, change or replacement of ALT and/or SCALE. ALT and SCALE
are, for instance, present in emphatic negation, found in expressions such as not
sleep a wink. In their original uses, they evoke alternatives, which are discharged
according to a scale. For instance, not sleep a wink discharges alternatives such as
sleep (even) a minute/five minutes/a quarter of an hour/etc. thus conveying ‘not
sleep at all’. As illustrated by the well-known example of Old French ne pas/point/
mie/rien/etc. such pragmatically licensed emphatic scalar NPIs may eventually
develop into non-pragmatic, structurally licensed elements such as
Present-day](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-39-320.jpg)
![ Tine Breban et al.
French (ne) pas (Hopper 1991). Eckardt views this as the “traditional” career
of “well-behaved” NPIs. English any is another example, with regard to which
Eckardt shows how the pragmatic ingredients of ALT and SCALE persist in the
newer ‘indiscriminative’ and ‘universal quantifier’ uses, which developed from its
original existential (‘some’) sense. Indiscriminative any, illustrated by We need a
doctor – any doctor, is currently being investigated as an epistemic indefinite. All
analyses agree that epistemic indefinites refer to different possible extensions of
the head noun, which can be viewed as a further development of the earlier ALT
alternatives, accessed as denotations of alternative nouns. The universal quanti-
fier reading of any, e.g. Sue can solve any problem, also involves a – changed –
ALT ingredient: it refers to alternative dimensions of quantification, allowing for
variation over possible worlds.
Eckardt recognizes that non-scalar elements can also become NPIs. She
distinguishes three cases:
1. escort particles, which accompany scale-licensed material and therefore occur
in downward entailing contexts;
2. analogy NPIs, viz. nonce words which adopt the meaning and restrictions of
scalar NPIs;
3. mimicry NPIs, with no ties at all to scalar elements, which occur in standard
NPI contexts, which cannot be captured by any known logical or pragmatic
mechanism.
These three types are non-prototypical NPIs with non-standard careers and
marked properties in comparison with the prototypical scalar NPIs.
All the studies in this volume contribute, in their own right and in dialogue
with each other, to a more precise identification of sources, paths and outcomes
of grammaticalization. Diessel’s article, for instance, points out the unique sta-
tus of demonstratives as source of a rich and distinctive cluster of grammati-
calization paths. They also deepen our understanding of recognition criteria
of grammaticalization and related processes, mainly lexicalization. The robust
parameters of Lehmann (1985 [1982]) and Hopper (1991) are reflected on and,
in a number of cases, proposed to be complemented by additional recognition
criteria in the contributions by Brinton, Diewald Smirnova, Norde, Trousdale,
De Mulder Lamiroy, Melis Flores and Ronan. If we situate the work in
this volume in the history of grammaticalization studies, it is characterized
by increasing integration of the structural-semantic and discourse-
pragmatic
perspectives. This is perfectly evident in the contributions by Waltereit, Eckardt
and Vázquez Rozas García Salido. In all these ways, this volume reflects the
current state of the field but also points ahead at the directions it is heading to
in the future.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-40-320.jpg)
![Introduction
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![Bühler’s two-field theory of pointing and naming and the deictic origins
provide a common historical source for many grammatical markers, includ-
ing (personal) pronouns, (definite) articles, and various types of sentence con-
nectives (e.g. relative pronouns, complementizers, subordinate conjunctions,
conjunctive adverbs, correlatives), which Brugmann attributed to the particular
communicative function of spatial deictics. Specifically, he argued that demon-
stratives are ‘acoustic pointers’ (“lautliche Fingerzeige”, 5) that speakers use to draw
the addressee’s attention to concrete objects and locations in the surrounding
situation, but which can also be utilized for language internal functions, provid-
ing the basis for their development into pronouns, articles, and conjunctions (cf.
Brugmann 1904: 5, 13–21; see also Brugmann Delbrück 1911: 307ff).
Building on this work, Bühler (1934) developed a psychological theory of deixis
and anaphora that is grounded in his organon model of communication. In this
model, language is seen as an instrument that speakers use to perform ‘speech acts’
(“Sprechhandlungen”, 53), i.e. verbal actions that are produced with the intention to
accomplish particular goals in the communicative interaction with the addressee.
In accordance with this interactive view of language, Bühler characterized the use
of deictic expressions as ‘a complex human act’ (“eine komplexe menschliche Han-
dlung”, 79) in which the speaker does not simply indicate the location of an object,
but also plays a ‘role’, i.e. the role of the sender as distinct from that of the addressee
(“er [der Sprecher] spielt auch eine Rolle, die Rolle des Senders abgehoben von der
Rolle des Empfängers”, 79). Specifically, deictic expressions are used by the speaker
to ‘guide’ (“steuern”) the addressee’s search for a particular referent in perception:
Kurz gesagt: die geformten Zeigwörter, phonologisch verschieden voneinander
wie andere Wörter, steuern den Partner in zweckmäßiger Weise. Der Partner
wird angerufen durch sie, und sein suchender Blick, allgemeiner seine suchende
Wahrnehmungstätigkeit, seine sinnliche Rezeptionsbereitschaft wird durch die
Zeigwörter auf Hilfen verwiesen und deren Äquivalente, die seine Orientierung im
Bereich der Situationsumstände verbessern, ergänzen. (Bühler 1934: 105–6)
To put it briefly: the formed deictic words, phonologically distinct from each other
just as other words are, are expedient ways to guide the partners. The partner is
called by them, and his gaze, more generally, his searching perceptual activity, his
readiness for sensory reception is referred by the deictic words to clues, gesture-
like clues and their equivalents, which improve and supplement his orientation
among the details of the situation. (English translation from Goodwin 1990: 121)
Like Brugmann, Bühler emphasized that demonstratives are frequently accompa-
nied by a deictic pointing gesture and other nonverbal means of communication.
Brugmann (1904: 7–8) speculated that demonstratives may have emerged in the
context of concrete gestures, and other scholars of that time hypothesized that
verbal language may have evolved from gestural communication, notably from
deictic pointing. Bühler does not go so far, calling it ‘the myth of the deictic origin](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28503614-250513035714-20591ba4/85/Grammaticalization-And-Language-Change-New-Reflections-Kristin-Davidse-53-320.jpg)
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- 6. Volume 130 Grammaticalization and Language Change. New reflections Edited by Kristin Davidse, Tine Breban, Lieselotte Brems and Tanja Mortelmans Editors Werner Abraham University of Vienna / University of Munich Elly van Gelderen Arizona State University Editorial Board Bernard Comrie Max Planck Institute, Leipzig and University of California, Santa Barbara William Croft University of New Mexico Östen Dahl University of Stockholm Gerrit J. Dimmendaal University of Cologne Ekkehard König Free University of Berlin Christian Lehmann University of Erfurt Marianne Mithun University of California, Santa Barbara Heiko Narrog Tohuku University Johanna L.Wood University of Aarhus Debra Ziegeler University of Paris III Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS) This series has been established as a companion series to the periodical Studies in Language. For an overview of all books published in this series, please see http://benjamins.com/catalog/slcs
- 7. Grammaticalization and Language Change New reflections Edited by Kristin Davidse Tine Breban University of Leuven Lieselotte Brems University of Leuven / Université de Liège Tanja Mortelmans University of Antwerp In collaboration with Bert Cornillie, Hubert Cuyckens and Torsten Leuschner John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia
- 8. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grammaticalization and language change : new reflections / edited by Kristin Davidse, Tine Breban, Lieselotte Brems and Tanja Mortelmans ; in collaboration with Bert Cornillie, Hubert Cuyckens, and Torsten Leuschner. p. cm. (Studies in Language Companion Series, issn 0165-7763 ; v. 130) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Grammar, Comparative and general--Grammaticalization. 2. Linguistic change. I. Davidse, Kristin. II. Breban, Tine III. Brems, Lieselotte IV. Mortelmans, Tanja P299.G73G7227 2012 415--dc23 2012027512 isbn 978 90 272 0597 1 (Hb ; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 7323 9 (Eb) © 2012 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa 8 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
- 9. Table of contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction: New reflections on the sources, outcomes, defining features and motivations of grammaticalization 1 Tine Breban, Jeroen Vanderbiesen, Kristin Davidse, Lieselotte Brems Tanja Mortelmans Bühler’s two-field theory of pointing and naming and the deictic origins of grammatical morphemes 37 Holger Diessel On the origins of grammaticalization and other types of language change in discourse strategies 51 Richard Waltereit Lehmann’s parameters revisited 73 Muriel Norde “Paradigmatic integration”: The fourth stage in an expanded grammaticalization scenario 111 Gabriele Diewald Elena Smirnova “The ghosts of old morphology”: Lexicalization or (de)grammaticalization? 135 Laurel J. Brinton Grammaticalization, constructions and the grammaticalization of constructions 167 Graeme Trousdale Gradualness of grammaticalization in Romance. The position of French, Spanish and Italian 199 Walter De Mulder Béatrice Lamiroy Development of periphrastic tense and aspect constructions in Irish and Welsh 227 Patricia Ronan Emergence and grammaticalization of constructions within the se me network of Spanish 249 Chantal Melis Marcela Flores
- 10. Grammaticalization and Language Change New Reflections A discourse-based analysis of object clitic doubling in Spanish 271 Victoria Vázquez Rozas Marcos García Salido The many careers of negative polarity items 299 Regine Eckardt Author Index 327 Subject Index 331
- 11. Acknowledgements The present volume finds its origin in the conference “New Reflections on Grammaticalization 4” (NRG 4), which was held at the University of Leuven from 16 to 19 July 2008. This was the fourth in the series of New Reflections on Grammaticalization conferences, following in the wake of Potsdam (1999), Amsterdam (2002) and Santiago de Compostela (2005). The conference was convened by Bert Cornillie, Hubert Cuyckens, Kristin Davidse (University of Leuven), Torsten Leuschner (University of Ghent) and Tanja Mortelmans ( University of Antwerp). The organizational efforts of Bert Cornillie, Hubert Cuyckens and Torsten Leuschner were crucial to the success of NRG 4. We thank them for their general collaboration in the project. When, for various reasons, they decided not to par- ticipate in the editing of this volume, Kristin and Tanja were very pleased that Tine Breban and Lieselotte Brems joined the editorial team. Contacts with referees and authors, and formatting and copy-editing of the selected articles were shared out over the four members of the editorial team. Kristin took on the coordination, which involved things such as making the Index, homogenizing the manuscript and summarizing the articles in the Introduction. The state of the art in the Intro- duction is the work of Tine and Jeroen Vanderbiesen, for whose special contribu- tion we say thanks. Without the care and work of all, neither the conference nor this volume would have been possible. While naturally we accept the final responsibility for the choices made, we were very lucky in being guided by the conscientious advice of the follow- ing external referees: Sylvia Adamson, Karin Aijmer, Mengistu Amberber, Felix Ameka, Gregory Anderson, Tina Bennet-Kastor, Alexander Bergs, Walter Bisang, Laurel Brinton, Vit Bubenik, Anne Carlier, Winand Callewaert, Lien Chinfa, Claudia Claridge, Ulrike Claudi, Walter De Mulder, Holger Diessel, Benjamin Fagard, Zygmunt Frajzyngier, Mirjam Fried, Victor Friedman, Björn Hansen, Dag Haug, Claudio Iacobini, Anna Giacalone Ramat, Patrick Goethals, Michèle Goyens, Céline Guillot, Michael Israël, Geoffrey Kahn, Kristin Killie, Ekkehard König, Silvia Kouwenberg, Tania Kuteva, Karen Lahousse, Béatrice Lamiroy, Ronald Langacker, Peter Lauwers, Christian Lehmann, Meichun Liu, Lach- lan Mackenzie, Ricardo Maldonado, Ignazio Mirto, Jacques Moeschler, Maj- Britt Mosegaard Hansen, Dirk Noël, Muriel Norde, Carita Paradis, Bert Peeters, Ellavina Perkins, Vladimir Plungian, José Pinto de Lima, Regina Pustet, Joel Rini,
- 12. Grammaticalization and Language Change New Reflections Domenica Romagno, Carl Rubino, Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza, Reijirou Shibasaki, Rumiko Shinzato, Elena Smirnova, Soteria Svorou, Graeme Trousdale, Roel Vismans, Björn Wiemer, David Willis, Ilse Wischer, Sunniva Whittaker. We are very grateful for their careful comments and suggestions for revision, which benefited both the papers selected for this volume and those eventually recommended to other publications outlets. Without the contributors, there obviously would not have been a volume. We thank them for developing the studies they presented at NRG 4 with an eye to the general coherence of this volume and for the good spirit in which the whole enterprise was conducted. John Benjamins helped along the project with their usual friendly efficiency. Kees Vaes was always ready to offer help and useful advice. We are very grateful to series editors Werner Abraham and Elly van Gelderen for their careful screening of the manuscript and their helpful content-oriented feedback. We thank them for having accepted the volume for publication in the Studies in Language Companion Series. For financial support of the organization of the conference, thanks are due for generous subsidies to the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders (FWO) and the Faculties of Arts of the University of Leuven and the University of Antwerp. We would also like to acknowledge the generous support of the GOA-project 12/007, The multiple functional load of grammatical signs, awarded by the Leu- ven Research Council and coordinated by Kristin Davidse, the Interuniversity Attraction Pole (IAP) – Phase VI, project P6/44 of the Belgian Science Policy Office, Grammaticalization and (Inter-)Subjectification (GRAMiS), coordinated by Johan van der Auwera, and the CONSOLIDER project of the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation and the European Regional Development Fund (grant HUM2007-60706/FILO), coordinated by Teresa Fanego. Kristin Davidse, Tine Breban, Lieselotte Brems, Tanja Mortelmans
- 13. Introduction New reflections on the sources, outcomes, defining features and motivations of grammaticalization Tine Breban1, Jeroen Vanderbiesen2, Kristin Davidse1, Lieselotte Brems1/3 Tanja Mortelmans2 1University of Leuven / 2University of Antwerp / 3Université de Liège 1. Preliminaries It is unquestionable that the study of grammaticalization and related processes of change has had an enormous impact on the recent linguistic scene. Grammaticalization research in the broad sense has created a meeting ground for approaches as varied as typology, language acquisition, comparative and diachronic study, synchronic language description, usage-based and corpus- based description, and discourse approaches. In about a quarter of a century, it has changed the general assumptions of language description, putting awareness of change at the centre of interest, rather than reserving it to specialized historical linguistics studies. Diachronically, it has broadened our ideas of sources for gram- matical elements and the pathways involved in developing them. Importantly, awareness of the ubiquity of grammaticalization processes has also woken us up to the fact that, from a synchronic point of view, the grammatical resources of any language are much more extensive than generally recognized in reference gram- mars. For instance, as observed by Diewald (2010) for German, multiple processes of auxiliarization of periphrastic verbal expressions have extended the auxiliary systems exponentially, but “in mainstream descriptions of the tense and mood systems… most authors follow the tradition of integrating some periphrastic con- structions while excluding others without further mention, let alone convincing arguments for the chosen selection” (Diewald 2010:29). The importance of princi- pled criteria for the identification of grammaticalization paths and their outcomes is also reflected in theory formation. Lehmann’s (1985) parameters and Hopper’s (1991) principles form the solid core of countless case studies, and further the- oretical reflections endeavour to grasp the essence and all the implications of grammaticalization in volumes such as Heine, Claudi Hünnemeyer (1991), Trau- gott Heine (1991), Hopper Traugott (2003 [1993]), Bybee, Perkins Pagliuca
- 14. Tine Breban et al. (1994), Giacolone Ramat Hopper (1998), Fischer, Rosenbach Stein (2000), Traugott Dasher (2002), Wischer Diewald (2002), Roberts Roussou (2003), Bisang, Himmelmann Wiemer (2004), Fischer, Norde Peridon (2004), van Gelderen (2004, 2011), Brinton Traugott (2005), Fischer (2007), López-Couso Seoane (2008), Seoane López-Couso (2008), Davidse, Vandelanotte Cuyckens (2010), Stathi, Gehweiler König (2010), Van linden, Verstraete Davidse (2010), Traugott Trousdale (2010), Narrog Heine (2011). However, as is the case with many fashionable topics, grammaticalization research risks to become the victim of its own success. In empirical studies, grammaticalization, and related processes such as subjectification, are sometimes posited without systematic application of recognition criteria (see Norde this volume). If attention is restricted to pragmatic and semantic aspects, without sound formal evidence, there is a danger of vacuity, as cautioned by van Gelderen (2004) and Fischer (2007), amongst others. Another potential weakness is the blanket characterization of complex and composite changes as cases of grammaticalization, without eye for the smaller processes and mechanisms of change of which they consist (Roberts Roussou 2003, van Gelderen 2011). In this context, the ongoing debate about the role of reanalysis and analogy (e.g. Fischer 2007, 2011; Traugott Trousdale 2010, Traugott 2011) is a healthy sign of critical sense. So is the increased interest in lexicalization, which shares many features with grammaticalization and is often entwined with it in actual changes (e.g. Wischer 2000; Brinton 2002; Lehmann 2002; Himmelmann 2004; Brinton Traugott 2005). This necessitates a clearer delineation of the essence of both grammaticalization and lexicalization. At the same time, researchers are forced to question their views on the distinction between grammatical and lexical elements. Finally, researchers should beware of invoking grammaticalization and other general processes of change too readily as ultimate explanatory principles. Instead, they should reflect on what these processes can and cannot explain (Campbell 2001; Abraham 2005, 2010) and meet the chal- lenge of explaining grammaticalization itself. This volume is a collection of contributions by authors from the gram- maticalization research tradition, who are aware of the challenges just outlined that are upon them. In confronting these challenges, they go back to basics, to a deepened understanding of the defining features (e.g. Brinton, De Mulder Lamiroy, Diewald Smirnova, Norde, Ronan, Waltereit). They investigate sources and paths of change that have been largely overlooked so far and also focus strongly on the target areas, or outcomes, of these paths (e.g. Brinton, Diessel, Eckardt, Melis Flores, Trousdale, Vázquez Rozas García Salido). Before turn- ing to their main theoretical and descriptive contributions in this volume, we will sketch the general thinking, as well as the different approaches, within the tradi- tion they are situated in.
- 15. Introduction 2. Definitions of grammaticalization and lexicalization In the last thirty years, a number of definitions of grammaticalization have been given, which highlight different aspects of the process. Despite the refinements and additions offered, many of them ultimately draw on the two seminal, but quite distinct, definitions of Meillet and Kuryłowicz. For Meillet (1912) grammaticaliza- tion involved “[l’]attribution du caractère grammatical à un mot jadis autonome” (the attribution of grammatical character to a previously autonomous word). Kuryłowicz (1965) proposed that “[g]rammaticalization consists in the increase of the range of a morpheme advancing from a lexical to a grammatical or from less grammatical to a more grammatical status […].”. Whereas Meillet opposes gram- matical character to autonomy, Kuryłowicz contrasts lexical with grammatical sta- tus. Up until this day, these two contrasts, appearing intuitively simple, seem to have eluded clear definitions and continue to cloud our views on which processes of change should be considered grammaticalization and which should not. Thus, many scholars in grammaticalization studies have sought to distinguish grammaticalization from lexicalization, the diachronic process giving rise to new lexical items, e.g. Kuryłowicz (1965), Lehmann (1989), Moreno Cabrera (1998), Wischer (2000, 2011), Brinton (2002), Lehmann (2002), Himmelmann (2004), Trousdale (2008a), and the book-length study of Brinton Traugott (2005) (see also Lightfoot 2011). Himmelmann (2004) has observed that grammaticalization and lexicalization can be defined either as distinct processes or in terms of their outcomes, i.e. the creation of new grammatical versus lexical items. However, the latter approach can only work if we have distinctive conceptions of grammar and lexicon and this is not straightforward for several types of items. For instance, are derivational morphemes such as the suffix -ment in French clairement, gram- matical formatives even though they result in the creation of new lexical items (Himmelmann 2004; Wischer 2011)? Should complex prepositions and conjunc- tions such as instead of, and all the same, be classified as grammar because the new words do not belong to the major categories verb, noun, adjective or are they merely new lexicon or maybe both (see e.g. Ramat 1992:553–554; Schwenter Traugott1995; Tabor Traugott 1998:244–253; Brinton 2002:69–70; Lehmann 2002:9–10; Traugott 2003a:636; Brinton Traugott 2005:64–65)? Recently, Boye Harder (2009, 2012) have formulated a proposal to distinc- tively define lexical from grammatical items, and by extension lexicalization from grammaticalization, by correlating their different discourse status with distinct for- mal behaviour. They propose to define grammar as “coded secondariness” (Boye Harder 2009:33). The corresponding concepts used to identify lexical items are those of ‘addressability’ and ‘primariness’. Boye Harder (2007) first applied these notions to distinguish lexical and grammatical uses of complement-taking
- 16. Tine Breban et al. predicates such as I think. In their lexical use, they describe an instance of thinking, e.g. Other days I think “It’s just not fair” (Vandelanotte 2009:296). In their gram- maticalized use, they express evidential or modal qualifications of an assertion, e.g. Commander Dalgliesh writes poetry, I think (Hopper Traugott 2003:208). Hopper Traugott (2003:207–209) had treated the process of change leading from lexical to grammatical uses as nucleus-margin reversal. According to Hopper Traugott (2003:208), formal changes that may accompany this grammaticalization process are: loss of complementizer that, less stress on the parenthetical than on the main verb, and flexibility of placement of the parenthetical. These formal properties, however, do not appear to systematically distinguish lexical from grammatical uses, as, for instance, grammaticalized uses may still have complementizer that (Shank, Plevoets Cuyckens forthc.). In proposing the functional-formal notions of addressability and coded secondariness, central concerns of Boye Harder (2007) are to “maintain […] the role of structural […] subordination” (2007:569), while developing linguistic tests that systematically pick up on the different discourse sta- tus of the elements in question. Information given in discourse may be the primary predication, i.e. the most important information of an utterance, or a secondary predication, which serves only to support the primary one. The criterion to distin- guish between these two readings is ‘addressability’. If a clause with complement- taking predicate is the primary point of the utterance, it will be ‘addressable’ by such linguistic tests as a really-query (Do you really think…) and a tag or do-probe (Do you?). If, by contrast, the clause with complement- taking predicate has the gram- matical value of qualifying the following clause, which forms the main assertion, it is the latter which will allow really-queries, tags and do-probes. Qualifying I think resists these tests because it is not addressable as the main point of the utterance. It is, or has become, ‘secondary’ in the discourse in that it functions, as is typical of grammatical elements, as an operator or modifier of the proposition. Boye Harder (2012) extend non-addressability and coded secondariness to all grammatical and grammaticalized elements. Elements with grammatical status are generally characterized by their ‘ancillary’ status vis-à-vis other linguistic expressions and by secondary discursive status. Grammaticalization is the change that gives rise to such expressions and is “functionally motivated by predomi- nant use […] of elements in situations where they have such secondary status” (Boye Harder 2009:32). Non-addressability and secondariness characterize a grammatical element independently from process features such as entrenchment and provide a tool to assess the grammatical status of each individual use. At this point, Boye Harder have applied their analysis only to the characterization of grammaticalization. It will be interesting to see whether their proposals will allow them to also offer a principled characterization of the process of lexicalization in the future.
- 17. Introduction An example of what Himmelmann (2004) referred to as the process-approach towards the definitions of lexicalization and grammaticalization is developed in Brinton Traugott (2005). They point out that conceiving of grammaticalization and lexicalization in terms of their outcomes leads to another complication, viz. the status of degrammaticalization. As degrammaticalization involves the development from grammatical to lexical material, it should in an outcome-approach be considered a subtype of lexicalization, see amongst others Kuryłowicz (1975 [1965]), Lehmann (1989), Ramat (1992, 2001), Hagège (1993), Giacalone Ramat (1998), Moreno Cabrera (1998), Wischer (2000), Brinton (2002), Lehmann (2002), Van der Auwera (2002), Himmelmann (2004), Norde (2009, 2011), Brinton (this volume). In their attempt to disentangle the three different processes, Brinton Traugott (2005) argue that the basis for the conflicting analyses lies in the problem- atic definition of lexicalization. They hold that the broad definition ‘adoption of an item in the lexicon’ in fact encompasses grammaticalization, degrammaticalization as well as lexicalization. Instead, they propose a new analysis in terms of shared and distinguishing features: grammaticalization is, in contrast to lexicalization, con- strained by a number of specific processes, such as decategorialization, bleaching, subjectification, increased frequency and productivity, and typological generaliza- tion (Brinton Traugott 2005:145). Norde (2009, this volume) proposes a similar process-oriented definition of degrammaticalization. These process-oriented definitions chime in with a conception of grammati- calization as a composite process. As Diewald Smirnova (2010:98) put it, gram- maticalization is epiphenomenal, in the sense that it is of a “composite nature”, consisting of a variety of member processes. Moreover, as argued by several schol- ars, these component processes are not unique to grammaticalization. Neither in its working nor its motivations is grammaticalization a single process. Traugott (1989) holds that grammaticalization is not distinct from other types of semantic change, and results from a small number of broader tendencies that govern both grammatical and lexical change. Bybee (2010:112) notes that as grammaticaliza- tion is caused by “domain-general processes”, i.e. cognitive processes not restricted to language, it is inherently epiphenomenal. In accordance with these observa- tions, Haspelmath (1999:1043) proffers that the view that grammaticalization is conceived of as “a distinct process,” “an encapsulated phenomenon, governed by its own set of laws,” has been attributed wrongly to mainstream grammaticalization studies. Lehmann (2002 [1982]:vii) has always stressed that grammaticaliza- tion involves a number of phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic processes. These may, but need not, constitute grammaticalization. According to Traugott Heine (1991:9), reanalysis, analogy, metaphor and metonymy are all “mechanisms that make change possible, but none are restricted to grammati- calization”. Is Joseph (2001:22) right then in claiming that the development of
- 18. Tine Breban et al. grammatical forms can be described without once making reference to ‘grammat- icalization’, relying on well- understood concepts such as analogy or phonological change? Diewald Smirnova (2010:98) reply to this often-raised question: It is not enough to know the individual mechanisms, because none of them is confined to grammaticalization. They can all be involved in other processes of language change. Only in their interaction do they make up a gradual and directed path that leads to the evolution of grammatical forms. […] Consequently, the distinctive and unique feature of grammaticalization is generally seen in its particular combination and serialization of several processes and stages, which – among other things – are reflected in grammaticalization scales and paths and complex scenarios of successive contexts and constructions. Grammaticalization, then, is a generalization that overarches the convergence of certain processes towards a common goal. It is the task of grammaticalization research to identify the combinations of processes that make up cases of grammati- calization as well as to identify its distinctive outcomes. 3. Recognition criteria of grammaticalization From the early days of grammaticalization research on, scholars have tried to define the component processes underlying grammaticalization, in order to apply them as recognition criteria to actual case studies of language change. After thirty years, Lehmann (2002 [1982]:vii) still stands as an authoritative, though not unchallenged (see below), definition of the basic parameters of grammati- calization. In his view, grammaticalization is a composite process in which an unconstrained lexical expression changes into a grammatical formative subject to the rules of grammar. Even though this definition is reminiscent of Kuryłowicz, the parameters that Lehmann proposes characterize grammaticalization elabo- rate Meillet’s idea of grammaticalization as loss of autonomy. Grammaticalization affects the degree of freedom with which a linguistic sign can be used in terms of three principal aspects: weight, cohesion, and variability (Lehmann 1985:3). As all linguistic signs function on both a paradigmatic and a syntagmatic axis, the three aspects do too. On the paradigmatic axis, weight encompasses the integrity of a sign, i.e. its semantic, phonological and morphological size. On this axis, cohesion stands for paradigmaticity, which is “the degree to which [a sign] enters a paradigm, is integrated into it and dependent on it” (Lehmann 2002 [1982]:110). Paradigmatic variability, finally, captures the possibility of using one sign in place of another. On the syntagmatic axis, weight is the structural scope of a sign, “the structural size of the construction it helps to form […] (which, for
- 19. Introduction many purposes, may be regarded as its constituent structure level)” (Lehmann 2002 [1982]:128). Syntagmatic cohesion is bondedness, the degree to which the sign is connected to other signs in the same syntagm (which may vary from juxta- position to cliticization and affixation). Finally, syntagmatic variability is the ease with which a sign can take up different positions relative to other constituents that it has a relation to. This yields six parameters which provide “operational criteria for the establishment and justification of special grammaticalization scales” (Lehmann 1985:4), given in Table 1. Table 1. Lehmann’s parameters Paradigmatic Syntagmatic Weight Integrity Scope Cohesion Paradigmaticity Bondedness Variability Substitutability Positional flexibility As these parameters are only properties of signs, they identify a ‘static’ degree of grammaticalization. To capture the diachronic evolution of signs, the parameters are dynamicized into processes (Lehmann 2002 [1982]:111) (see Table 2). A loss of semantic and phonological integrity is called attrition – other terms are bleaching and erosion. An increase in paradigmaticity, paradigmaticization, means that grammatical formatives are integrated into increasingly small, homogeneous para- digms (Lehmann 1985:4).1 The process of obligatorification, a loss of paradigmatic variability, is related to paradigmaticization in that it subjects the choice in the paradigm to grammatical rules and makes a choice from the paradigm increas- ingly obligatory, which drastically expands the distribution of the grammatical- ized forms in it. The shrinkage of scope is captured as condensation. An increase in bondedness, coalescence, is primarily to be viewed as a structural phenomenon which “leads from juxtaposition via cliticization, agglutination and fusion to sym- bolic alternation” (Lehmann 1985:5). This may involve a transformation of syntac- tic boundaries to morphological boundaries and may lead to the disappearance of these boundaries, as in OHG dia wîla ‘in that time span’ MHG diweil ‘during’ NHG weil ‘during’. The initial phase of coalescence does not consist of a notice- able change in the construction, but of alternative ways of seeing it, i.e. reanalysis (Lehmann 2002:4), e.g. I am going to be married as either going/to be married or 1. Diewald Smirnova (2010:156–157) specify that if forms are integrated into an existing paradigm the term“renovation”or“renewal”is used, but if a new paradigm of forms arises the process is called “innovation”.
- 20. Tine Breban et al. going to/be married. Finally, a loss of syntagmatic variability or mobility is called fixation. Table 2. Lehmann’s dynamicized parameters Paradigmatic Syntagmatic Weight Attrition Condensation Cohesion Paradigmaticization Fusion Variability Obligatorification Fixation Although their wide application testifies to the merit of Lehmann’s parame- ters as recognition criteria for grammaticalization, several aspects of Lehmann’s analysis have given rise to critical reflections and refinements. Firstly, some of the individual parameters have come under discussion. Most famously, the idea of scope reduction has been challenged on the basis of a wide range of descrip- tive studies, including studies of modals, discourse markers, etc. Authors such as Diewald (1997: 23, 1999: 21), Nordlinger Traugott (1997), Tabor Traugott (1998) and Roberts Roussou (2003), have argued that grammatical- ization typically goes together with scope2 expansion, as witnessed for example in the development from deontic to epistemic modals: the former have only the predicate in their scope, but the latter the whole utterance. Another parameter that has been subject to debate is obligatorification. Diewald (1997) has pointed out that there are cases where the grammaticalizing form does not become obligatory. For instance, modal verbs do not have to be expressed in every utterance, whereas mood does. Therefore, Diewald Smirnova (2010: 99–100) make a distinction between ‘language internal obligatoriness’ and ‘communica- tive obligatoriness’. The first kind holds when a form is 100% obligatory and its placement is governed by grammatical rules – this is the kind captured in Lehmann’s parameter. The second kind does not mean that a form is required by the grammar, but that it is required by the speaker’s communicative intentions. If, for example, a speaker wants to put the focus on the patient or beneficiary, 2. It can be noted that this notion of scope situates itself more at the discourse level, whereas Lehmann’s pertains to constituent structure. Looking strictly at constituent structure, Fischer (2010:24–30) has argued that the shift from deontic to epistemic modality in English did not at first involve scope expansion. Epistemic readings appeared in impersonal clauses such as mæg gewurðan þæt + proposition (‘it may happen that’),in which the modal’s immediate scope was over an infinitive, just as in the deontic constructions. The proposition being - indirectly - modified occurs at a lower structural level, viz. as a complement of the copular verb.
- 21. Introduction he will have to use one of two passive strategies in German, but the passive does not have to occur obligatorily in a sentence. Lehmann’s formalization of the parameters of grammaticalization can also be linked to three general areas of debate in grammaticalization research. Firstly, several linguists e.g. Sweetser (1990), Heine (1993), Heine, Claudi Hünnemeyer (1991) and most prominently Traugott (1989, 2003b, 2010), Traugott König (1991), Hopper Traugott (1993 [2003]), Traugott Dasher (2002), have criticized the minor role assigned to semantic change in Lehmann’s parameters. They argue that semantic change in grammaticalization cannot be conceived as mere loss of semantic content. Rather, loss of descriptive content is counterbalanced by a gain in pragmatic and procedural functionality that the item did not have before. Traugott König (1991:190–191) pointed out that it was precisely because grammaticalization was prototypically seen as a loss that it took some time for the relevance of pragmatics to be recognized, also in the motivations for the process (see below). Grammaticalization begins when the original coded meaning is enriched with pragmatic values, the stage Traugott (1989) refers to as ‘pragmatic strengthening’. For instance, in specific contexts a bit, which literally meant ‘a bite’, came to be associated with the invited pragmatic inference of ‘small quantity’. In a following stage, the purely scalar quantitative meaning of ‘little’ came to be conventionally coded by the form a bit of. It is with the establishment of this new form- meaning pair that we can speak of gram- maticalization (Traugott 2010).3 In this model grammaticalization thus starts off with context-induced semantic change. The general applicability of this model has been questioned by other authors. Even though formal change characteris- tically lags behind function change, function change may also be a reaction to structural change (Newmeyer 1998:248–251) or a result of form-based analogy (Heath 1998; Fischer 2007:123–124). The mechanisms of context-induced semantic change were further developed by, amongst others, Heine (1992, 2002) and Diewald (2002, 2006, 2008; Diewald Ferraresi 2008). Heine (1992, 1993) proposed that change in grammaticaliza- tion proceeds along three stages in an ‘overlap’ model. A first stage in which the grammaticalizing item has its original meaning (A), a second stage in which it has both its original meaning (A) and a new grammaticalized meaning (B), and 3. The focus on the semantics of grammaticalization has givenrise to a fruitful paradigm in grammaticalization studies focusing on more specific types of semantic change including most prominently subjectification and intersubjectification (e.g. Traugott 1989, 2003b, 2010; Stein Wright 1995; Traugott Dasher 2002; Athanasiadou, Costas Cornillie 2006; Davidse,Vandelanotte Cuyckens 2010).
- 22. Tine Breban et al. finally a stage in which the grammaticalized meaning (B) is the only interpre- tation possible. This results in a chain-like structure: A A/B B.4 As set out by Heine, the stages can be used as analytic tools for the detection of (different stages) of grammaticalization in the synchronic form of the language. Later, this model was further developed by Heine (2002) and by Diewald (2002, 2006, 2008; Diewald Ferraresi 2008) into two similar but not wholly equivalent models, in which the stages are defined as types of ‘context’, allowing the analyst to detect ongoing processes of grammaticalization and to establish the degree to which the processes have advanced at a particular time in a language. Diewald Smirnova (this volume) argue that the stages of grammaticalization they proposed earlier have to be completed by a fourth, new, stage, viz. paradigmatic integration. Secondly,Lehmannconceptualizedgrammaticalizationasaprocesswithbotha synchronicanddiachronicside.Fromadiachronicperspective,grammaticalization is a process of change turning “lexemes into grammatical formatives and mak[ing] grammatical formatives still more grammatical”, whereas on the synchronic side it is a “principle according to which s ubcategories of a given grammatical category may be ordered” (Lehmann 1985:7). His parameters are devised to reflect this dual perspective: on the one hand there are parameters that serve to describe a more or less ‘stative’ synchronic distribution of forms, on the other hand these parameters are dynamicized into processes that chart the historical evolution of the forms. In this view, the synchronic and the diachronic perspectives are not mutually exclu- sive, but complementary. Grammaticalization can be studied both diachronic- ally, by comparison of data from different language stages, and synchronically, by investigation of the current functional variation. Other studies, e.g. Traugott Heine (1991), Hopper Traugott (1993 [2003]), have emphasized the interplay between the diachronic and synchronic sides of grammaticalization, and have con- nected ongoing change with synchronic variation. The core of this idea was first formulated by Hopper (1991). Hopper argued that the parameters proposed by Lehmann (1982, 1985) could only detect grammaticalization in an advanced stage. In order to remedy this, he put forward five complementary principles indica- tive of early-stage grammaticalization (but not exclusive to grammaticalization): layering, divergence, specialization, persistence and decategorialization. The first two principles introduce the idea that diachronic change can lead to synchronic variation. The first principle, layering, invokes the notion of a synchronic domain 4. It has been clarified by Heine and many others, e.g. Hopper Traugott (2003:121–122) that a development does not have to proceed unto the last stage (B only), but that a language can maintain stage A/B or even loose the B meaning, de facto resulting in a stage with only A again.
- 23. Introduction within which “the older layers […] may remain to coexist with and interact with the newer layers” (Hopper 1991:23), thus “crowding the field” (Hopper 1996:230) with different forms whose meaning, style or social status subtly differ. The second principle, divergence (called ‘split’ by Heine Reh 1984:57–59), captures the obser- vation that, when a form grammaticalizes, its lexical use may continue to exist and undergo further change like any other lexeme, resulting in functionally different but etymologically related forms. Hopper (1991:24) noted that divergence can be seen as a special case of layering, the latter involving different degrees of gram- maticalization of forms in the same functional domain and the former of one form in various contexts.5 With the arrival of large digitalized historical corpora in the 1990s, descriptive studies of grammaticalization showed that synchronic variation as a result of grammaticalization was not just restricted to one form with multiple meanings or one meaning with multiple codings. In addition, variation was shown to apply to examples on a one-by-one basis. That is, gram- maticalization processes spread gradually through individual speakers in the language community and, even more significantly, they spread gradually through individual speaker’s grammars, who may use the grammaticalized and the original use alongside each other in different contexts (Andersen 2001). Grammaticalization was revealed to be to a large extent a matter of frequency, and to be subject to usage phenomena such as frequency‑driven entrenchment and routinization (amongst others Haimann 1994; Bybee Hopper 2001; Bybee 2003, 2007, 2010, 2011; see Mair 2011 for further discussion of the con- tributions of corpus linguistics to grammaticalization). Synchronic study of grammaticalization processes brought yet another aspect to the fore. Synchronic variation in grammaticalization can also involve category indeterminacy or mixed category membership, that is, in mid-grammaticalization the grammaticalizing item can display seemingly irreconcilable characteristics associated with both its original and its new, grammatical uses. This phenomenon has been referred to as synchronic gradience (Denison 2001, 2006, 2010; Aarts 2007; Traugott Trousdale 2010). It had been acknowledged for some time that form and meaning develop independently in grammaticalization (see Section 3 on discussion whether semantic or formal change drives grammaticalization) and that, synchronically viewed, an item can have a new meaning, yet retain the formal features of its older use. However, in the new millennium the mismatch was shown to be more subtle as items were argued to be subject to step‑wise de‑and 5. Hopper Traugott (1993 [2003]) in fact use the term “layering” to refer to Hopper’s (1991) earlier ‘divergence’.
- 24. Tine Breban et al. recategorialization affecting individual features (e.g. Traugott 2008a, 2008b; Fried 2008; van Gelderen 2008, 2011; Roberts 2010). Grammaticalization is hence a gradual process, not only in terms of its spread, but also in its impact on the gram- maticalizing item. Synchronic gradience can be the result of diachronic gradual- ness (Traugott Trousdale 2010). This type of gradualness challenges the divide between language system and language use in that the ‘relative indeterminacy’ of the system is taken to be caused by gradual changes in use, and use in general is taken to structure the system, not vice versa. The analysis of synchronic gradience and diachronic gradualness is closely connected to another recent tendency in grammaticalization studies, i.e. the appli- cation of Construction Grammar models to language change and grammaticaliza- tion (see e.g. Noël 2007; Traugott 2008a, 2008b; Trousdale 2008a, 2008b, 2010; Fried 2009, 2010; Gisborne Patten 2011; Traugott Trousdale in preparation). One of the central tenets of Construction Grammar is that the primary units of grammar are grammatical constructions combining a form and a meaning compo- nent, which are symbolically linked. Within each component, more fine-grained distinctions are made between e.g. syntactic, morphological and phonological features of the item (form) and semantic, pragmatic and discourse-functional properties (meaning). As shown by Traugott (2008a) and Fried (2009, 2010), this detailed representation of different aspects of the linguistic item is particularly suited to model the incremental promotion and demotion of features in the grad- ual grammaticalization process. The third important point of discussion concerns the contrast that has been pointed out by Traugott Heine (1991:1) and Hopper (1996:217) between a more narrow, structural-semantic, view of grammaticalization, and a broader, discourse-pragmatic, view: The first involves etymology and the taxonomy of possible changes in language, in which semantic and cognitive accounts of words and categories of words are considered to explain the changes. The second involves the discourse contexts within which grammaticalization occurs. (Hopper 1996:217) In the Lehmannian structural-semantic view, obligatorification and paradigma- tization are the prime determinants of grammaticalization and are an “abstract high-level criterion for defining the target area of grammaticalization” (Diewald Smirnova 2010:99). They are sufficient but not necessary indications of grammaticalization, along with the progressive loss of lexical semantics and morphosyntactic and phonological traits (Diewald Smirnova 2010:99–104). The discourse- pragmatic conception focuses on the role of the discourse context to account for the changes, as reflected in this definition by Traugott Dasher (2002:83):
- 25. Introduction [Grammaticalization] is more properly conceived as the change whereby lexical material in highly constrained pragmatic and morphosyntactic contexts is assigned functional category status, and where the lexical meaning of an item is assigned constructional meaning. As observed by Hopper (1996:232), “it may be said that they complement each other in that the first [structural approach] explains what is grammaticalized and the second [pragmatic approach] how this occurs”. In the first decade of the twen- tieth century, the idea that elements grammaticalize in context became the central tenet of several articles such as Himmelmann (2004), Traugott (2003a) and was generally acknowledged and incorporated into existing definitions of grammati- calization.6 The role of the context in triggering and furthering grammaticaliza- tion was spelt out in the models of change proposed by Heine (2002) and Diewald (2002, 2006, 2008) (see above). 4. Outcomes and sources of grammaticalization So far, this introduction has focused on definitions and recognition criteria of grammaticalization versus other processes of change. These elements have also been the main focal points in grammaticalization studies in the past thirty years. The sources of grammaticalization processes, by contrast, have been studied in a less systematic way. In the early days of grammaticalization studies considerable attention went to the fact that certain grammatical meanings cross-linguistically develop out of lexical items within the same restricted range of meanings. Hence, paths of grammaticalization can be defined in terms of their semantic sources and outcomes (Heine 1992). For example, Heine, Claudi Hünnemeyer (1991) studied paths of change which build on metaphors, i.e. the representation of a “target domain” by means of a “source domain”, based on some perceived or functional similarity between them (Heine, Claudi Hünnemeyer 1991:29). For instance, space is used to code time (and time in turn to code cause) and physical objects are used to represent abstract ones. This observation leads to a metaphorical scale of increasing abstractness, which entails that in grammaticalization the notions to the left of the arrow will be used to code those on the right (Heine, Claudi Hünnemeyer 1991:48): person object activity space time quality 6. Lehmann (2002:7) recognized the importance of context when he reformulated his parameters as affecting the “autonomy of a linguistic sign in a certain construction”.
- 26. Tine Breban et al. In a similar vein, Bybee, Perkins Pagliuca (2004) proposed, for instance, three possible sources for the development of future tense markers, i.e. verbs meaning ‘come to’ (de-venitive schema), ‘go to’ (de-allative schema) and ‘want’ (volition schema). The detection of such paths culminated in Heine Kuteva’s (2002) World Lexicon of Grammaticalization, which offers a typology of cross-linguistic paths of grammaticalization. Ronan’s contribution in this volume about Irish and Welsh tense and aspect markers deriving from spatial and temporal prepositions situates itself within this tradition. Other aspects of the items serving as input for grammaticalization have remained under the radar, including one particularly elusive issue stemming from Kuryłowicz’ definition. His definition pertains to the development (a) from lexical to grammatical as well as (b) from less to more grammatical (see Section 2). To capture the distinct processes, the terms “primary” versus “secondary” grammati- calization were coined (Givón 1991; Hopper Traugott 1993). Givón (1991:305) first used the term secondary grammaticalization in the context of markers of one morphosyntactic category shifting to another, e.g. from aspect markers to tense morphemes. Taking a primarily semantic perspective, Hopper Traugott (2003: 91) define secondary grammaticalization as the change from one gram- matical meaning to a more grammatical one, such as the development from temporal to concessive conjunctive meaning of while. Most case studies of gram- maticalization have focused on cases of primary grammaticalization. The exact nature of secondary grammaticalization and its differences from primary gram- maticalization is uncharted territory and several key questions, e.g. how is one to assess that one meaning is “more” grammatical than another (Brinton Traugott 2005: 147–150), remain largely unanswered (see Breban 2010, 2012; Waltereit this volume; Norde this volume). Even more importantly, as noted by Diessel (this volume) the term secondary carries the presupposition that all primary gram- maticalization processes start from a lexical source, either directly or via another, earlier grammatical meaning. Diessel (2006, this volume) challenges this presup- position because demonstratives, which crosslinguistically form the source of multiple grammaticalization paths, cannot be related to a lexical source. Discussions of the formal aspects of the items serving as input for grammati- calization are found scattered among a wide range of articles. However, no attempt has been made so far to set up a large-scale typology in the same way as the Heine Kuteva’s World Lexicon of Grammaticalization has done for semantic sources. In the foundational definitions of Meillet and Kuryłowicz (see Section 2), the sources of grammaticalization are identified as a word (“mot” Meillet) or a morpheme (Kuryłowicz). That is, they propose that grammaticalization affects single items. This idea underlies most of the early studies of grammaticalization. It was not until the 1990s that two important observations were added. Firstly, as discussed earlier,
- 27. Introduction linguistic items were argued to grammaticalize in context rather than in isolation. Secondly, several case-studies described processes of change affecting strings of words as cases of grammaticalization, e.g. the development of complex conjunc- tive adverbials such as all the same, at the same time, in fact, and complex preposi- tions such as instead of, while, (König 1985; Traugott König 1991; Schwenter Traugott 1995; Hoffmann 2006). Later descriptive work included more and more instances of phrases grammaticalizing into complex constructions, e.g. complex quantifiers such as a lot of (Brems 2003), complex degree modifiers such as a bit of (Traugott 2008a, 2008b), reflexives such as each other (Haas 2007), as well as semi- filled constructions such as that is X for you (Gonzálvez-García 2007), to name a few. This fed into the debate whether similar developments involving the creation of a new item out of originally separate items should be considered as cases of grammaticalization or lexicalization or both (see Section 2). The question about the delimitation of grammaticalization on the basis of its formal input and output has not only been asked in relation to complex or semi-filled constructions, but also regarding larger types of structure. For exam- ple, Meillet (1912:147–148) ended his seminal paper by suggesting that the grammatical fixing of word order from Latin to modern French is an example of grammaticalization. Another example is Givón’s (1979) cline which not only includes morphologization, but also syntactization (change from discourse to syntax). discourse syntax morphology morphophonemics zero (Givón 1979:209) Over the years several studies have proposed that the development of, for example, verb second is an instance of grammaticalization. More recently, Lehmann (2008) has argued that information structure can be both the input and the output of grammaticalization. This idea has been developed by, for instance, Patten (2010) who analyses the development of the it-cleft construction. With the introduction of Construction Grammar approaches to grammaticalization, questions concerning limits and delineation of grammaticalization become even more urgent: given that any form-meaning pairing is considered a construction, as popularized in the by-now famous adage “it’s constructions all the way down” (Goldberg 2006:18), we need to ask whether the formal range of constructions that can serve as input or output for grammaticalization/grammatical constructionalization is unrestrained? 5. Motivations of grammaticalization One last question that has always intrigued grammaticalization scholars is why it occurs. Why is there a specific set of processes that give rise to new grammatical
- 28. Tine Breban et al. formatives? In asking this question, it is recognized that grammaticalization itself is not an explanatory mechanism, but has itself to be explained. In the course of time, several explanations have been proposed. Older research tended to adopt a causal explanation of grammaticalization, typically using the imagery of so-called ‘push’ and ‘pull chains’. A construction B was said to grammaticalize either to fill a gap left by the grammaticalization of a construction A or its grammaticalization was said to be the reason for the loss of A. According to Lehmann (1985:9), these explanations miss the mark, because they do not explain why a system that functions today could not func- tion in the same way tomorrow; in other words, they fail to explain why change occurs. A more tenable position, he proposes, is to see constructions A and B as being in mutual harmony. Diewald (1997:109–110) observes that many languages have synchronically competing strategies for instance for the expression of the future tense. Given a causal explanation one would expect the older construction to vanish, so that it could be replaced, yet this is not always the case. A similar non-causal interpretation of chains or cycles of grammaticalization from a formal- ist perspective is proposed in the works by van Gelderen (especially van Gelderen 2011) and Abraham (2010). Another approach explains grammaticalization by means of typological universals such as Economy and Clarity. Most famous are the Bequemlichkeitstrieb ‘urge towards ease’ and the Deutlichkeitstrieb ‘urge towards clarity’ of von der Gabelentz (1901 [1891]:256). People’s desire towards ease of communication leads to attrition and erosion of forms, but the fact that the meaning of these forms must still be expressed leads to the formation of new communicative strategies. In a comparable vein, Langacker (1977:105), speaks of ‘signal simplicity’ and ‘percep- tual optimality’. Within the generative tradition that locates languages change in language acquisition, Roberts Roussou (2003) and van Gelderen (2004, 2011) propose that change is not merely the result of transmission errors, but instead is driven by a design preference for structure simplification. According to Roberts Roussou (2003), upward reanalysis, i.e. realization in a higher position in struc- ture, can trigger grammaticalization. Focusing on lexical rather than derivational characteristics, van Gelderen (2008, 2011) proposes that reanalyses that can be responsible for certain grammaticalizations are motivated by Feature Economy. Lehmann (1985) argues that in order to explain grammaticalization, we must see the language system not as given, but as created by language activity. Language activity is an unrestricted creation of interpersonally available meanings or signs, but it occurs to solve a set of ever-recurring problems, and is therefore systematic. As language activity is interpersonal and speakers are born into a certain tradition, this system will be largely similar, but not necessarily identical, across speakers. On the one hand speakers have the freedom to be creative, on the other they are restricted by rules and traditions. Within this rule-governed creativity, “[e]very speaker wants
- 29. Introduction to give the fullest possible expression to what he means” (Lehmann 1985:10). Gram- maticalization is ultimately driven by the speakers’ wish for more expressivity. The notion of expressivity as motivation of grammaticalization in the con- text of a language community has been further elaborated by Haspelmath (1999). Building on Keller (1990 [1994]), he proposes to view grammaticalization (and language change in general) as an invisible-hand process, which results from the individual actions of speakers realizing similar intentions. He amongst other things identifies as set of Maxims that guide language change. The final and most important maxim is Extravagance (Haspelmath’s term for expressivity), which states that you should talk in such a way that you are noticed. However, as pointed out by amongst others Waltereit (this volume), the need for expressivity is less easily conceived for grammatical items than for lexical ones. Another recent proposal which places the origin of grammaticalization in lan- guage use is Croft (2010). Croft suggests that morphosyntactic change, including grammaticalization, is triggered by natural variation of verbalization in discourse. Morphosyntactic change, including grammaticalization, is the distillization of essentially arbitrary speaker choice when it comes to verbalizing the same piece of experience. Grammaticalization is hence the result of the inherent variabil- ity of speech, rather than of singular events of innovative language use. Croft’s proposal captures the fact that grammaticalization is a ubiquitous and frequent phenomenon – it happens all the time in ordinary speech, rather than being rare, as the expressivity – and rhetoric-based accounts of grammaticalization would lead one to believe. This proposal chimes in with many of the usage-based accounts that have emphasized the determining role of frequency and routiniza- tion for grammaticalization. Finally, a recent set of papers (including Traugott 2008c; Waltereit Detges 2008; Schwenter Waltereit 2010; Couper-Kuhlen 2011; Waltereit 2011, this volume) explore the idea that grammaticalization can be motivated by another aspect of language use, i.e. language as interaction. They propose that several types of grammatical items, such as discourse markers, develop out of discursive inter- action strategies. Again these studies emphasize the role of routinization and the procedural character of the ensuing constructions. 6. Contributions to this volume With this review of the tradition within which this volume is situated, we have set the scene for a discussion of the contributions it makes. The volume is divided into two parts, a more theoretical and a more descriptive one. The first, theoretical, part deals with “New theoretical perspectives on grammaticalization and other processes of change: sources and motivations, recognition criteria and outcomes”.
- 30. Tine Breban et al. The first two contributions in this part deal with the origins of grammati- calization from two different perspectives. Holger Diessel makes an important theoretical point with regard to the sources of grammaticalization. He challenges the standard assumption in much of current grammaticalization theory that all grammatical markers are based on content words. The main challenge is formed by demonstratives, which provide a frequent historical source of definite articles, third person pronouns, relative pronouns, complementizers, conjunctive adverbs, copulas, focus markers and other grammatical markers, yet cannot be related to a lexical source. At the same time, the communicative function of demonstra- tives differs from that of genuine grammatical markers, which serve language- internal, organizational functions, whereas demonstratives are commonly used with reference to things and situations in the outside world. Diessel therefore proposes to view demonstratives as a unique source class for the development of grammatical markers. While currently an isolated position in the grammati- calization literature, this view is found in the work of earlier historical linguists such as Wegener (1885) and Brugmann (1904), which inspired Bühler’s (1934) more psychologically-oriented work. It is on the latter that Diessel’s contribu- tion focuses. In Bühler’s organon model of communication, speakers using deic- tic expressions, often with added pointing gestures, actively guide the addressee’s search for a particular referent in perception. This led Bühler to develop his two-field theory, which identifies the two basic types of linguistic signs as pointing and naming. Pointing, or deictic, words belong to the deictic field, the physical or verbal context of the speech event. Lexical items belong to the symbolic, or the synsemantic environment of relations to other lexemes. Bühler did not posit a separate class of grammatical markers, because he saw their (communicative) function as relating both to the deictic and symbolic fields. With regard to demon- stratives, Bühler argued that ‘pure deictic signals’ are particles, while demonstra- tive pronouns and articles exhibit features of both the deictic and symbolic fields, serving pointing functions like deictic particles but exhibiting also semantic and morphosyntactic features like symbolic terms. For the diachronic development of demonstratives into grammatical morphemes, the crucial step is the emergence of anaphoric uses. These involve pointing specific to language, with a ‘disembodied’ origo, located in the unfolding stream of words and sentences. They direct the addressee’s attention backwards and forwards along the speech stream, creating links between non-adjacent elements. Here lies the diachronic functional basis for grammatical elements such as relative pronouns, definite articles and conjunc- tions and conjunctive adverbs, which he views as syntactic pointing words. From the perspective of Bühler’s two-field theory, Diessel points out that, while there are grammatical morphemes that may originate from both deictics and symbols, e.g. sentence connectives and copulas, some of the most frequent grammatical
- 31. Introduction markers derive exclusively from either symbols, e.g. adpositions, or deictics, e.g. definite article and third person pronoun singular. In the next contribution Richard Waltereit considers the basic question why grammaticalization and language change more generally occur in the first place, when there is no apparent need for it, since any language, including its gram- mar, is perfectly serviceable at any given time. This ‘paradox of language change’ (Roberts Roussou 2003) has been tackled in both formal and functional approaches. In generative grammar, change has tended to be located in first language acquisition, which according to van Gelderen (2004) is driven by a design preference for structural simplification. In the functional-cognitive camp, Croft (2010) has recently challenged the idea of deliberate departure from lin- guistic conventions. Instead, he sees diachronic change as driven by synchronic morphosyntactic variability. Against this, Waltereit holds on to the idea of change as non-abidance, or ‘tweaking’ (Keller 1994 [1990]), of the current conventions of language, i.e. the use of forms not for their actual meaning but for perceived advantages in communication. Waltereit’s basic claim is that grammaticalization, and related types of change, arise as a side-effect of strategic, rhetorical language use by speakers. The outcome of these processes is determined by the strategy for which the underlying lexical items are used, rather than by the lexical content of these items or by pre-set characteristics of types of change. He illustrates this with the three grammatical uses that derived from lexical bien in French: modal particle, concessive conjunction and discourse particle. In each case, he argues, the scope of the grammaticalized use can be related to specific strategic uses that were still ideational but in which bien had the tweaked communicative function and scope that led to the grammatical uses. Waltereit argues that this approach to grammaticalization and other changes sheds new light on persistence, subjectification and pragmaticalization. Lexical-semantic persistence links grammaticalized meanings to the lexical source from which they developed. Looked at pragmatically, lexical source meanings have a degree of suitability to be used for particular strategies, but there is nothing ‘hard-wired’ to change in the lexical meanings as such – given suitable circumstances, meanings may be pragmatically linked in a way that would seem unlikely in the abstract. Subjectification, or the shift from ideational to speaker- centred, interactional meaning, is a by-product of metonymic meaning change motivated by argumentation. The relation between the source and the outcome is characterized by pragmatic affinities such as similarities between the ideational effect of the underlying lexical meaning and its interactional purpose in the case of subjectification. Waltereit also notes that while metonymy-based primary grammaticalization incorporates subjectification as an integral part, this is less so with secondary grammaticalization, the ‘un-marking’ of marked subjective
- 32. Tine Breban et al. uses, which tends to involve loss of subjectivity. As to the controversial distinction between grammaticalization and pragmaticalization, Waltereit proposes that, rather than being distinct historical trajectories ‘out there’, they reflect the widely different diachronic trajectories source items may follow, motivated by similari- ties between bridging contexts and target uses at different levels of abstraction. Waltereit concludes that high-level generalizations such as subjectification, prag- maticalization and persistence do not become obsolete under his approach but they need to be complemented with lower-level generalizations about the rhetori- cal strategies that are driving them. The next two contributions of Part 1 focus on the recognition criteria of grammaticalization and related changes. Muriel Norde’s contribution focuses on the recognition criteria of the hitherto neglected phenomenon of degram- maticalization. She sets out to develop, for all Lehmann’s (1995 [1982]) param- eters of grammaticality and grammaticalization, the counterparts of decreasing grammaticality and degrammaticalization. In the process, she also elucidates Lehmanns’s parameters, for, as she points out, they have been widely used in à la carte fashion as criteria of grammaticalization, but have been the subject of remarkably little scrutiny and reflection in their own right. She first sur- veys Lehmann’s parameters in relation to primary grammaticalization (from lexical to grammatical) and secondary grammaticalization (from grammatical to more grammatical). She concludes that the parameters identify primitive changes whose diagnostic potential may vary in relation to primary and sec- ondary grammaticalization and the earlier and later stages of these processes. She then goes on to define the inverse parameters of degrammaticalization and its primitive changes. On the paradigmatic axis, these are: resemanticiza- tion, phonological strengthening and recategorialization of the linguistic sign, deparadigmaticization, and deobligatorification and increasing paradigmatic variability. On the syntagmatic axis, they are scope expansion; severance, dein- flectionalization or debonding, and syntagmatic flexibilization. She explores these criteria systematically for instances advanced in the literature of primary and secondary degrammaticalization. Again, not all parameters need apply to establish these processes, and the strength as recognition criteria of the other parameters depends on the type of degrammaticalization. Phonological strengthening and scope-related criteria do not prove very useful. For degram- mation, she finds resemanticization and recategorialization to be crucial. Dein- flectionalization is characterized primarily by inflectional affixes ceasing to form part of inflectional paradigms, i.e. deparadigmaticization, and is further accompanied by a degree of severance and resemanticization. For debonding, severance is the crucial parameter. She concludes that Lehmann’s taxonomy, albeit not perfect, provides a very useful set of criteria to distinguish (sub)types
- 33. Introduction of (de)- grammaticalization, because the parameters correlate with primitive changes related to the inherent properties of (de)-grammaticalization. Gabriele Diewald Elena Smirnova approach grammaticalization from a construction grammar perspective. They propose a constructionist scenario of grammaticalization, spelling out the four diachronic stages constitutive of the grammaticalization process. They argue that this model is sufficiently general to capture all types of grammaticalization, but also allows one to distinguish grammaticalization from other types of change by the fourth, newly proposed, stage of paradigmatic integration. This new model builds on and expands their previous work on the three successive stages of untypical, critical and isolating contexts (Diewald 2002, see above). In unatypical contexts the lexical source unit shows via conversational implicature (cf. Traugott Dasher 2002) an unspe- cific expansion of its distribution. In this first stage, which still involves compo- sitional processing of the construction, the preconditions of grammaticalization are created. Critical contexts are characterized by multiple structural and seman- tic ambiguities. They can be related to Fillmore, Kay O’Connor’s (1988:505) notion of extragrammatical idioms, expressions whose “structures... are not made intelligible by knowledge of the familiar rules of the grammar”. Critical contexts invite several alternative interpretations, including the new grammatical mean- ing. It is thus in this second stage that the grammaticalization process is actually triggered. Isolating contexts, in which the new grammatical meaning is consoli- dated as a separate meaning, can be equated with Fillmore, Kay O’Connor’s (1988:505) formal and lexically open idioms, whose “syntactic patterns [are] dedi- cated to semantic and pragmatic purposes not knowable from their form alone”. Isolating contexts are often in complementary distribution with contexts featur- ing the older more lexical meanings. This three-step model, Diewald Smirnova argue, can be applied to all types of grammaticalization, but also to other processes of change such as lexicaliza- tion and the development of polysemy. They therefore introduce paradigmati- cization, or paradigmatic (re)integration, as the fourth criterial stage, which distinguishes grammaticalization from other diachronic processes. In the stage of paradigmatic integration, the new grammatical sign is gradually more tightly integrated into its new grammatical paradigm (cf. Lehmann 2002). Its semantic contrasts with other members of the paradigm are sharpened and it becomes increasingly associated with the more abstract grammatical meaning serving as common denominator for the whole paradigm. These paradigmatic oppositions and general features integrate the constructions involved into a closely interre- lated network of constructions. Paradigmaticization thus conceived, it is argued, is unique to grammaticalization and allows to distinguish it from lexicalization and semantic change.
- 34. Tine Breban et al. The last two contributions of the theoretical part deal specifically with the distinction between grammaticalization and lexicalization. Laurel Brinton confronts this issue for ‘ghost morphology’. She first makes the point that, even though inflections figure at the end of the typical grammaticalization clines such as posited in Hopper Traugott (2003 [1993]), they have not received conclusive treatment in grammaticalization studies so far. Ghost morphology is inflectional material that has lost its grammatical function, but which is neither refunctionalized (‘exaptated’) nor shed. Examples of such morphological resi- due are adverbial genitives such as once, nowadays, erstwhile comparatives, e.g. near, rather, and superlatives, e.g. next, erstwhile. In the literature, these cases have been variously treated as (the final stage of) grammaticalization, degram- maticalization, lexicalization, and trans- or recategorization. Brinton reviews these various proposals and observes that they focus on different aspects of the formation of ghost morphology. How this process of change is classified also depends on the definitions given of grammaticalization and lexicalization. Both processes are generally viewed as affecting constructions, not individual items, and as involving fusion and loss of compositionality. Grammaticalization theo- rists are agreed that lexicalization leads to a new linguistic sign with specific referential meaning entering the lexical inventory, without any systemic effect on the grammar. Grammaticalization, by contrast, yields a unit with schematic meaning. Some theorists stress that it becomes part of a (new) grammatical paradigm, after having undergone decategorialization as a crucial element of grammaticalization. Others focus more on the ‘expansion’ of the pattern – its productive, instance-sanctioning effect. According to Lehmann (2002), lexical- ization involves holistic access to a unit because the internal relations of the source construction are lost. By contrast, grammaticalization involves analytic access to a unit, with the internal relations becoming increasingly regulated by the constraints of the grammar. Brinton argues that the cases of ghost morphology cannot plausibly be construed as either grammaticalization, degrammaticalization or lexicalization. Arguments against, for instance, the adverbial genitives and erstwhile compara- tives and superlatives resulting from grammaticalization are: they are not produc- tive patterns, they are not analytically accessed and are not subject to constraints of grammar, and there is no increased schematicization. They cannot be viewed either as instances of degrammaticalization according to its most thorough dis- cussion to date by Norde (2009, this volume), as they fail to show most of its parameters such as resemanticization, phonological strengthening, recategorial- ization, severance, etc. Nor are they likely exemplars of lexicalization in that the affixes themselves do not become more contentful, but are simply emptied of any content and frozen onto forms that are already themselves lexical or grammatical
- 35. Introduction (adverbial) to begin with. She concludes that ghost morphology is best treated as petrification, i.e. freezing and simple loss of grammatical meaning. Graeme Trousdale’s contribution outlines a constructional approach to gram- maticalization and lexicalization with reference to both morphological and gram- matical constructions. He distinguishes grammaticalization and lexicalization in terms not only of their outcomes, but also of their necessary and sufficient condi- tions. Traditional approaches to grammaticalization have tended to focus on the formation of atomic schematic elements, for instance the modal auxiliary should from the lexical verb sceolde. A construction approach conceives of grammati- calization clines more holistically. It considers the emergence and development of whole constructional types, and how these are optimized in constructional networks. A construction approach seeks to clarify in what way complex sche- matic constructions such as the Modal Auxiliary construction (not just one modal auxiliary) grammaticalize, i.e. become more grammatical, by reconfiguration of the constructional taxonomy they belong to. This involves investigating the inter- actionbetweentheModalconstructionandotherrelatedconstructions,suchasthe Passive, Perfect and Progressive constructions, and how these meso- constructions converged in a macro-construction such as the Auxiliary construction. Situating himself to the “more cognitive end” of the Construction Grammar cline, Trousdale posits that grammaticalization, or grammatical constructionaliza- tion, involves – – an increase in generality, with. the constructional schema licensing an increas- ing number of micro-constructional types; – – an increase in productivity, or token frequency; – – a decrease in compositionality, i.e. erosion of the predictability of the form-meaning pairing. He illustrates this with the Degree Modifier construction, of which new types such as hella, as in hella worried, are emerging in analogy with more entrenched types such as a lot/a bit happier. All of these originate in the NP of NP construction (Traugott 2008b). Some of them developed the Degree Modifier construction from the Partitive over the Quantifier Construction, e.g. a lot/a bit. Others developed it from the Evaluative NP of NP construction, e.g. hella. The complex network of partly related and partly different constructions undergoes ‘crystallization’, that is, users exploit similarities and differences between layered forms of constructions to fulfil their particular communicative goals. It is this crystallization that consti- tutes grammaticalization in the constructional approach. The only other type of language change recognized in this constructional approach is lexical constructionalization, conventionally called lexicalization. It is
- 36. Tine Breban et al. illustrated with the development of some English words from possessive phrases. For example, an historical instance of the genitive construction is fool’s cap, which came to be used metonymically for a piece of paper of a certain size, and has been reanalysed as fullscap in Present-day English. Other erstwhile instances of genitive phrases are kinsman (from Old English cynnum-gen man), craftsman, spokesman. The Nsman pattern is no longer productive. Lexical constructionalization may thus result from the bonding of atomic and substantive (lexically filled) construc- tions, like fullscap, or from more schematic ones, like the Nsman set. In all cases, lexical constructionalization is characterized by – – a decrease in generality; – – a decrease in productivity; – – no change, or decrease, in the compositionality of the construction. The diachronic construction grammar model of grammatical organization, Trousdale concludes, is equipped to deal with both grammaticalization and lexi- calization, and gives equal attention to form and function. The five papers in the second part, “New perspectives on the description of grammaticalization”, relate to theoretical issues dealt with in the first part, such as paradigmatization and obligatorification (De Mulder Lamiroy, Ronan), construction grammar and constructionalization (Melis Flores), pragmatic and discourse perspectives on language change (Vazquez Rozas García, Eckardt). At the same time, they constitute original descriptive case studies in their own right. De Mulder Lamiroy propose that the notion of grammaticalization as a gradual process can be extended to language typology. Within the same language family, grammaticalization phenomena can be ongoing in one language and have reached a stage further down the cline in another language. In other words, lan- guages may represent different degrees of grammaticalization, even though they all started from the same sign. This entails that diachronically languages of the same family may grammaticalize at a different speed. De Mulder Lamiroy make their case for the main Romance languages, French, Italian and Spanish. They operationalize ‘degree of grammaticalization’ as degree of paradigmatization with reference to Lehmann (2002). The reduction of alternatives is viewed as repre- senting a higher degree of paradigmaticity and of grammaticalization. They note the same line of thinking in Haspelmath’s (1998:318) broad definition of gram- maticalization as “the gradual drift in all parts of the grammar towards tighter structures, toward less freedom in the use of linguistic expressions at all levels”. They compare the development of paradigmaticity thus conceived in two verbal domains, auxiliaries and mood, and one nominal domain, demonstratives. For aspectual auxiliaries, they observe that, purely in terms of numbers, Italian has
- 37. Introduction roughly twice as many as French, and Spanish even three times as many. As to subtypes, French, in comparison with Italian and Spanish, has fewer auxiliaries with inchoative meaning, no iterative or habitual auxiliaries, and it has lost the equivalent of to be/to go + gerund to express progressive aspect. As the class of French auxiliaries is smaller and also shows less syntactic heterogeneity than the corresponding classes in Italian and Spanish, it scores highest on the scale of para- digmaticity. The diachronic studies of the subjunctive and of demonstratives in the Romance languages reveal very similar tendencies. De Mulder Lamiroy conclude that in Romance we find the following cline of grammaticalization: French Italian Spanish, i.e. with French being most grammaticalized, Spanish least, and Italian inbetween. Ronan investigates the development of periphrastic progressive and perfec- tive constructions in Irish and Welsh of the form ‘be’ + temporal preposition + gerund’. The analysis of these developments as cases of grammaticalization refers to the well-established parameters of Hopper and Lehmann. In the two languages, the periphrastic progressive, ‘be at’ + gerund, emerged first, based on earlier spa- tial expressions, which came to be interpreted temporally. It gradually spread into subordinate as well as main clauses, becoming necessary in all possible contexts, i.e. it obligatorified. Particularly in Welsh, it spread even further, being now used as a general present tense in the spoken register. The two languages later also developed periphrastic perfective structures, ‘be after’ + gerund. Ronan argues that it is unlikely that the perfective structures developed from prepositions, a trajectory of which Bybee et al. (1994:55–6) found no instances. From the Old Irish to Middle Irish texts, no increase in numbers of temporal adverbial struc- tures can be observed. Nor can a gradual change be observed by which expressions of ‘after’ + verbal noun come to be complemented by full periphrastic expressions with be + after + gerund. The history of the Welsh periphrastic perfect is very simi- lar. Ronan concludes that in both languages perfective periphrasis developed on the analogy of the prepositional structures that had previously grammaticalized to express the progressive. The similarity in development seems due to drift, rather than language contact, i.e. to the mechanism of long-term evolution that changes the grammatical characteristics of (groupings of) languages over time. Melis Flores’s case study of the development of the Spanish Accidental Event construction relates in interesting ways to Trousdale’s (this volume) work on diachronic construction grammar and constructionalization. The Acciden- tal Event construction features the originally reflexive morpheme se, the dative clitic pronoun, a transitive or intransitive verb, and a subject NP referring to a typically inanimate entity, e.g. Se me rompío el vaso ‘I broke the vase’. The most intriguing feature of this construction is the dative marking of the volitional but inadvertent actor who brings about the accidental event, as datives generally
- 38. Tine Breban et al. have a feature of ‘affectedness’. However, in this construction it is the subject that is the affected and the dative is the actor. This construction is traced back to the historical source of the Spontaneous Event construction with external dative. Here, the dative codes an external participant affected by the change of state undergone by the inanimate subject. This change of state is expressed by se + the intransitive form of the verb, which abstracts away from possible causes and presents the event as spontaneous. This source construction extended through time, taking new verbs, coding different types of processes, thus caus- ing the meaning of the construction to shift. The first shift was to the Involun- tary Mental Event construction, which emerged with the verb olvidar (‘forget’). In this new construction, the dative profiles the experiencer, which entails a change from event-external to event-internal participant. With olvidar, the experiencer is a real patient with little control over the event. The next shift was to the Involuntary Mental Event construction, which takes more active cogni- tive verbs such as ‘think’, and in which the dative codes more instigative and controlling experiencers. In the final stage, the se dative pattern extended to the domain of volitional causal actions. This led to the Accidental Event construc- tion, in which the dative codes the actor who accidentally causes a change in another entity without actually being himself affected. The meaning resulting from the interaction between the semantics of the frame and the semantics of the verb is modified to such an extent that the emergence of a new construction has to be recognized. The whole process from source to resulting construction can be viewed as grammatical constructionalization (Trousdale this volume), as it involves schematization of meaning, greater productivity (more verbs are sanctioned by the schematic construction), and decreased compositional- ity (the meaning of the construction is less derivable from the meaning of its constituent elements). Vázquez Rozas García Salido focus on Spanish clitic object doubling, i.e. the copying by a clitic of the DO or IO from a diachronic perspective. In recent work it has been shown to be an agreement affix, with the clitic realizing a copy of some features of the object attached to the verb. Hence, its diachronic development can be viewed as grammaticalization, which in this contribution is approached from a discourse angle to grammaticalization. Vázquez Rozas García Salido first verify the hypothesis of Topic Continuity, which associates the development of agreement from pronouns with the so-called Topic-Shift construction. The Topic-Shift construction is a device for reintroducing an entity that has not been referred to in the immediately preceding context with a fronted strongly referring expression, which is picked up by an anaphoric expres- sion within the clause. According to Givón (1976), this construction sets up the context that allows a pronominal element to be reanalysed as an agreement affix.
- 39. Introduction The Topic-Shift theory has been used to account for the origin and extent of object agreement in several languages, including Spanish clitic doubling (Silva- Corvalán 1984). Vázquez Rozas García Salido point out a number of problems with this hypothesis: amongst others, the Topic-Shift construction was and is too infrequent in Spanish to be the source of object agreement, and it cannot account for the unequal spread of clitic doubling, which is found with the major- ity of IOs, but only with preverbal DOs. They also argue that a fundamental shortcoming of descriptions so far is that they have paid little attention to con- structions which have only a clitic. They then offer a diachronic usage-based study of IO and DO constructions with clitic doubling, systematically compar- ing them with constructions containing only clitics and constructions contain- ing only non-clitics. (The term “clitic” is used as a cover term for clitic pronouns and the affixes they developed from.) They advocate an alternative explanation to Givón’s Topic-Shift account, viz. an approach in terms of the accessibility of discourse referents (Ariel 1990). Their data study reveals that clitic doubling and encoding by clitics alone have come to be preferred by IOs, while coding by NPs or more complex constituents is favoured by DOs. They conclude that the differ- ence in accessibility of the discourse referents is the main factor determining the grammatical forms of IOs and DOs in Spanish. Eckardt’s study of negative polarity items (NPIs) can be related to Waltereit’s (this volume) reflections about the role played in language change by rhetori- cal strategies and such pragmatic processes as presuppositions, implications and entailments. Like Waltereit, she draws attention to the persistence of pragmatic ingredients of old uses in new uses. She focuses on “[t]he many careers of nega- tive polarity items”, taking a diachronic perspective on NPIs in general and on scalar NPIs in particular. Her main thesis is that scalar NPIs are prototypical NPIs. The downward entailing contexts of NPIs can be explained and made cognitively accessible by the pragmatic mechanisms associated with scalar NPIs, viz. the capacity to evoke alternatives (ALT) and the scalar interpretation of these alter- natives (SCALE). Moreover, NPIs with standard contexts of distribution are, or are otherwise tied to, scalar expressions, while NPIs with an idiosyncratic range of contexts are not. Finally, the diachronic development of core NPIs crucially involves the loss, change or replacement of ALT and/or SCALE. ALT and SCALE are, for instance, present in emphatic negation, found in expressions such as not sleep a wink. In their original uses, they evoke alternatives, which are discharged according to a scale. For instance, not sleep a wink discharges alternatives such as sleep (even) a minute/five minutes/a quarter of an hour/etc. thus conveying ‘not sleep at all’. As illustrated by the well-known example of Old French ne pas/point/ mie/rien/etc. such pragmatically licensed emphatic scalar NPIs may eventually develop into non-pragmatic, structurally licensed elements such as Present-day
- 40. Tine Breban et al. French (ne) pas (Hopper 1991). Eckardt views this as the “traditional” career of “well-behaved” NPIs. English any is another example, with regard to which Eckardt shows how the pragmatic ingredients of ALT and SCALE persist in the newer ‘indiscriminative’ and ‘universal quantifier’ uses, which developed from its original existential (‘some’) sense. Indiscriminative any, illustrated by We need a doctor – any doctor, is currently being investigated as an epistemic indefinite. All analyses agree that epistemic indefinites refer to different possible extensions of the head noun, which can be viewed as a further development of the earlier ALT alternatives, accessed as denotations of alternative nouns. The universal quanti- fier reading of any, e.g. Sue can solve any problem, also involves a – changed – ALT ingredient: it refers to alternative dimensions of quantification, allowing for variation over possible worlds. Eckardt recognizes that non-scalar elements can also become NPIs. She distinguishes three cases: 1. escort particles, which accompany scale-licensed material and therefore occur in downward entailing contexts; 2. analogy NPIs, viz. nonce words which adopt the meaning and restrictions of scalar NPIs; 3. mimicry NPIs, with no ties at all to scalar elements, which occur in standard NPI contexts, which cannot be captured by any known logical or pragmatic mechanism. These three types are non-prototypical NPIs with non-standard careers and marked properties in comparison with the prototypical scalar NPIs. All the studies in this volume contribute, in their own right and in dialogue with each other, to a more precise identification of sources, paths and outcomes of grammaticalization. Diessel’s article, for instance, points out the unique sta- tus of demonstratives as source of a rich and distinctive cluster of grammati- calization paths. They also deepen our understanding of recognition criteria of grammaticalization and related processes, mainly lexicalization. The robust parameters of Lehmann (1985 [1982]) and Hopper (1991) are reflected on and, in a number of cases, proposed to be complemented by additional recognition criteria in the contributions by Brinton, Diewald Smirnova, Norde, Trousdale, De Mulder Lamiroy, Melis Flores and Ronan. If we situate the work in this volume in the history of grammaticalization studies, it is characterized by increasing integration of the structural-semantic and discourse- pragmatic perspectives. This is perfectly evident in the contributions by Waltereit, Eckardt and Vázquez Rozas García Salido. In all these ways, this volume reflects the current state of the field but also points ahead at the directions it is heading to in the future.
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- 49. Bühler’s two-field theory of pointing and naming and the deictic origins of grammatical morphemes Holger Diessel University of Jena Current research on grammaticalization argues that grammatical markers are generally derived from content words (or lexical expressions); but earlier research by Brugmann (1904) and Bühler (1934) showed that grammatical markers are also commonly derived from (spatial) deictics (or demonstratives). The present paper provides an overview of this research focusing on Bühler’s two-field theory of pointing and naming. In this theory, there are two basic types of linguistic expressions, deictics (or ‘pointing words’) and symbols (or ‘naming words’), that are functionally and diachronically independent of each other. The paper argues that Bühler’s two-field theory can be seen as an alternative to the standard model of grammaticalization in which all grammatical markers are ultimately based on content words. Elaborating this approach, it is argued that the grammaticalization of deictic expressions involves a different mechanism of change than the grammaticalization of content words and that the two developments give rise to different types of grammatical markers. 1. Introduction One of the most basic assumptions of grammaticalization theory is that grammat- ical markers are generally derived from content words, notably from nouns and verbs. According to Hopper Traugott (2003:4), it is commonly accepted that all languages make some kind of distinction between lexical expressions (i.e. con- tent words) denoting concepts for things, actions, and qualities, and grammati- cal markers (or function morphemes) serving language internal, organizational functions such as adpositions, auxiliaries, or modal verbs. Since the latter are frequently derived from lexical expressions, it has become a standard assumption of grammaticalization theory that all grammatical markers are ultimately based on content words (for a recent statement of this view see Bybee 2003:161 and Heine Kuteva 2007:Ch. 2).
- 50. Holger Diessel This hypothesis is difficult to verify, however. To be sure, there is good evidence that adpositions, auxiliaries, and modal verbs are frequently derived from content words; but for the vast majority of the world’s languages there are hardly any historical records so that the diachronic evolution of grammatical markers can only be studied indirectly by language comparison and historical reconstruction (which is a solid methodology for recent diachronic changes but not for changes of the more distant past). A similar problem occurs in the analysis of grammati- cal markers in languages for which we do have historical records. In this case, there is usually good evidence that at least some grammatical morphemes are derived from content words; but very often grammatical markers are so old that it is impossible to determine their ultimate source. Indeed, what the historical data show is that many grammatical markers are based on other function morphemes, which in turn may have descended from a lexical source; but this is not evident from the historical data, either because the developments occurred so early that they are not attested in the historical records or because these function words did not originate from a lexical source. Although the latter possibility is hardly ever taken into account in the gram- maticalization literature, there is no a priori reason to exclude it. On the contrary, the available data suggest that grammatical morphemes are not generally derived from content words, but also from demonstratives or spatial deictics (cf. Diessel 1999a, 1999b, 2003, 2006, 2011).1 In languages across the world, demonstratives provide a frequent historical source for definite articles, third person pronouns, relative pronouns, complementizers, conjunctive adverbs, copulas, focus markers, and a wide range of other grammatical items that have no, or no obvious, relation- ship to content words. However, since demonstratives may function as pronouns or determiners, they are commonly included in the class of grammatical markers, which according to (some) grammaticalization researchers must have descended from a lexical source; but this hypothesis is unwarranted. There are two general problems with this. First, there is no evidence that demonstratives (i.e. spatial deictics) are com- monly derived from content words. On the contrary, the available data suggest that demonstratives are very old. In the Indo-European language family, for instance, the deictic roots *to- and *so- can be traced back to the earliest histori- cal records and it is commonly assumed that they are part of the Proto-language (cf. Brugmann 1904; Brugmann Delbrück 1911:307ff). However, although the old age of the Indo-European demonstratives is well-known in the historical 1. In accordance with the earlier literature on deixis by Brugmann (1904) and Bühler (1934) I use the terms demonstratives and spatial deictics interchangeably (cf. Diessel 1999a).
- 51. Bühler’s two-field theory of pointing and naming and the deictic origins literature, it is often tacitly assumed that demonstratives are included in the class of function morphemes that originated from a lexical source. In a recent study, Heine Kuteva (2007) made this assumption explicit, arguing that demonstra- tives may evolve from motion verbs; but their analysis is based on very little data from only three languages in which demonstratives are phonetically similar to the verb ‘go’, which does not seem to be sufficient to explain the existence of demon- stratives as a cross-linguistic class (see Diessel 2011 for a more detailed critique of this proposal). Apart from this study, and two related studies by Frajzyngier (1987, 1996), there is no indication in the historical and typological literature that demonstratives developed from motion verbs or any other lexical source suggest- ing that they may have a different origin than other function words (cf. Diessel 1999a, 2006, 2011). Second, although demonstratives are often used as pronouns and determin- ers, their communicative function differs from that of other function morphemes. In contrast to genuine grammatical markers serving language-internal, organiza- tional functions, demonstratives are commonly used with reference to things and situations in the outside world (cf. Fillmore 1997; Levinson 2004; Lyons 1977). In their basic use, they function to establish a joint focus of attention, i.e. they create a ‘common ground’ (cf. Clark 1996), providing a prerequisite for all other joint activities between speaker and addressee (cf. Diessel 2006). Since this is one of the most fundamental functions of human communication, cognition, and language (cf. Tomasello 1999; Eilan et al. 2005), it seems plausible to assume that demonstratives emerged very early in language evolution and independently of content words. Note that the communicative function of demonstratives to establish joint attention is independent of their grammatical function. In European languages, demonstratives usually belong to particular grammatical word classes – they are pronouns, determiners, or adverbs; but in other languages they are sometimes not associated with a particular grammatical class. In Acehnese, for instance, there are three demonstrative particles, nyoe ‘proximal’, nyan ‘medial’, and jêh ‘distal’, that can occur in a wide range of contexts in which other languages require (demon- strative) pronouns, determiners, or adverbs; but the Acehnese demonstratives are particles with no specific syntactic function, suggesting that the grammatical properties of spatial deictics are not an inherent and universal property of this class (cf. Diessel 1999a, 2006). In fact, a number of scholars have argued that gen- uine demonstratives are deictic particles that only later developed into pronouns, determiners, and adverbs (cf. Brugmann Delbrück 1911: 311; Bühler 1934: 144; Himmelmann 1997: 21). While this hypothesis cannot be verified by concrete his- torical data, there is good evidence that demonstratives constitute a particular (function) class distinct from both ordinary grammatical markers and content
- 52. Holger Diessel words. I suggest therefore that we abandon the hypothesis that all function mor- phemes are eventually derived from a lexical source and take demonstratives for what they are: a unique class of linguistic expressions providing another frequent source for the development of grammatical markers (cf. Diessel 2006, 2011). While this is currently an isolated view in the grammaticalization litera- ture, it is interesting to note that earlier research in historical linguistics predat- ing grammaticalization theory stressed the importance of demonstratives for the diachronic evolution of grammar. The Neogrammarians showed that at least in Indo-European languages grammatical morphemes are commonly recruited from demonstratives (cf. Wegener 1885; Brugmann 1904; Brugmann Delbrück 1911: 307ff). Later, Karl Bühler (1934) emphasized the importance of spatial deictics for communication and grammar. As a psychologist, Bühler was mainly con- cerned with synchronic aspects of deixis; but his research also provided important insights into the diachronic development of grammar (see Ehlich 1979, 2007 for some discussion of this aspect of Bühler’s work). It is the purpose of this paper to make grammaticalization researchers aware of Bühler’s two-field theory of pointing (deictics) and naming (symbols) and to consider the implications of his theory for current research on grammaticaliza- tion. We will see that Bühler approached the study of grammatical categories from a very different perspective than current researchers in grammaticalization and other subfields of linguistics, providing a ‘fresh’ look at the classification and dia- chrony of grammatical markers.2 The paper is divided into two parts. The first part presents an overview of Bühler’s two-field theory and his analysis of deixis and anaphora, and the second part discusses the implications of Bühler’s work for the analysis of grammatical markers in grammaticalization theory. 2. Bühler’s two-field theory of pointing and naming and the deictic origin of grammatical morphemes Bühler’s theory rests on earlier work by Karl Brugmann and other Neogrammarian scholars who conducted extensive comparative research on demonstratives and other deictics in the Indo-European language family (cf. Wegener 1885; Brugmann 1904; Brugmann Delbrück 1911). This research revealed that demonstratives . In a similar vein,Abraham (2011) shows that Bühler’s notions of the speech act Origo and Organon, despite being overlooked by modern linguists, can be linked to several other – also formal – theories with integrations of speaker and hearer that were developed for typologi- cally diverse languages.
- 53. Bühler’s two-field theory of pointing and naming and the deictic origins provide a common historical source for many grammatical markers, includ- ing (personal) pronouns, (definite) articles, and various types of sentence con- nectives (e.g. relative pronouns, complementizers, subordinate conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, correlatives), which Brugmann attributed to the particular communicative function of spatial deictics. Specifically, he argued that demon- stratives are ‘acoustic pointers’ (“lautliche Fingerzeige”, 5) that speakers use to draw the addressee’s attention to concrete objects and locations in the surrounding situation, but which can also be utilized for language internal functions, provid- ing the basis for their development into pronouns, articles, and conjunctions (cf. Brugmann 1904: 5, 13–21; see also Brugmann Delbrück 1911: 307ff). Building on this work, Bühler (1934) developed a psychological theory of deixis and anaphora that is grounded in his organon model of communication. In this model, language is seen as an instrument that speakers use to perform ‘speech acts’ (“Sprechhandlungen”, 53), i.e. verbal actions that are produced with the intention to accomplish particular goals in the communicative interaction with the addressee. In accordance with this interactive view of language, Bühler characterized the use of deictic expressions as ‘a complex human act’ (“eine komplexe menschliche Han- dlung”, 79) in which the speaker does not simply indicate the location of an object, but also plays a ‘role’, i.e. the role of the sender as distinct from that of the addressee (“er [der Sprecher] spielt auch eine Rolle, die Rolle des Senders abgehoben von der Rolle des Empfängers”, 79). Specifically, deictic expressions are used by the speaker to ‘guide’ (“steuern”) the addressee’s search for a particular referent in perception: Kurz gesagt: die geformten Zeigwörter, phonologisch verschieden voneinander wie andere Wörter, steuern den Partner in zweckmäßiger Weise. Der Partner wird angerufen durch sie, und sein suchender Blick, allgemeiner seine suchende Wahrnehmungstätigkeit, seine sinnliche Rezeptionsbereitschaft wird durch die Zeigwörter auf Hilfen verwiesen und deren Äquivalente, die seine Orientierung im Bereich der Situationsumstände verbessern, ergänzen. (Bühler 1934: 105–6) To put it briefly: the formed deictic words, phonologically distinct from each other just as other words are, are expedient ways to guide the partners. The partner is called by them, and his gaze, more generally, his searching perceptual activity, his readiness for sensory reception is referred by the deictic words to clues, gesture- like clues and their equivalents, which improve and supplement his orientation among the details of the situation. (English translation from Goodwin 1990: 121) Like Brugmann, Bühler emphasized that demonstratives are frequently accompa- nied by a deictic pointing gesture and other nonverbal means of communication. Brugmann (1904: 7–8) speculated that demonstratives may have emerged in the context of concrete gestures, and other scholars of that time hypothesized that verbal language may have evolved from gestural communication, notably from deictic pointing. Bühler does not go so far, calling it ‘the myth of the deictic origin
- 54. Holger Diessel of language’ (“der Mythos vom deiktischen Quellpunkt der darstellenden Sprache”, 86); but then he adds that myths need not be false and stresses the importance of deictic pointing for human communication (cf. Bühler 1934: 83–6). Embarking from this view of deixis and verbal action, Bühler developed his two-field theory of pointing and naming, in which demonstratives and other deictic expressions are analyzed as one of the two basic types of linguistic signs. The other type subsumes a much larger class of items including nouns and verbs and all other lexical expressions, to which Bühler referred as ‘naming words’ (“Nennwörter”). Deictic words and naming words are two strictly distinguished word classes belonging to separate ‘fields’, i.e. the ‘deictic field’ (“das Zeigfeld”), which is the physical or verbal context of a concrete speech event, and the ‘symbolic field’ (“das Symbolfeld”), which Bühler defined as the ‘synsemantic environment’ (“synsemantische Umfeld”, 81) of linguistic expressions and which modern linguists would probably characterize as the symbolic (or semantic) network representing our lexical knowledge. The two fields determine the meaning (or interpretation) of linguistic expressions: the meaning of deictic expressions is determined by a refer- ence frame for pointing, and the meaning of symbolic expressions is determined by their relationships to other linguistic items in the language user’s linguistic knowl- edge and/or language use (i.e. cooccurring lexemes). On this account, deixis (i.e. pointing) and naming are two separate acts for which language provides two basic types of signs that are strictly distinct both functionally and historically: Es muss aber betont werden, dass Deixis und Nennen zwei zu sondernde Akte, Zeigwörter und Nennwörter zwei scharf zu trennende Wortklassen sind, von denen man z.B. für das Indogermanische nicht anzunehmen berechtigt ist, die eine sei aus der anderen entstanden (cf. Brugmann Delbrück 1911: 307ff). (Bühler 1934: 86) However, it must be stressed that deixis and naming are two different acts and must be distinguished from each other, that deictic words and naming words are two different word classes that must be clearly separated; there is no justification for assuming that in Indo-European, say, the one emerged from the other (cf. Brugmann Delbrück 1911: 307ff). (English translation from Goodwin 1990: 101) Note that Bühler did not posit the existence of a separate class of grammatical markers because he believed that the (communicative) functions of grammatical markers are related to the deictic and symbolic fields so that pronouns, articles, and other grammatical markers can be subsumed under the class of deictics and symbols. That does not mean, however, that Bühler did not recognize the par- ticular role of grammatical markers in syntax – he was well aware of the fact that grammatical morphemes serve a specific function in the syntactic formation of phrases and clauses; but he distinguished the morphosyntactic aspects of words from their communicative functions.
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- 56. “It must be unanimous,” remarked Erb, speaking in fragments, and endeavouring to entice Payne’s mind to imperial subjects as the policeman’s hand allowed them to go on, “or else it might as well not be done at all. It’s a case of all of us sticking together like glue. If it don’t have no effect, what I’ve been thinking of is a deputation to the General Manager.” “She’s not a going to manage me,” returned Payne, catching something of the last sentence. “If I’m treated with proper respect I’m a lamb, but if anyone attempts to lord it over me, I’m simply a —” William Henry, ordered back to the tail of his van, made note number two. Trouble brewing, and, in the case of wholesale discharges, a fair chance of honest lads gaining promotion. The van foreman waited at the entrance to the railway arch where the up parcels office, after many experiments in other places, had decided to settle; he looked on narrowly as the vans drove up the side street. The van foreman had been a carman in his day (to say nothing of a more lowly start in boyhood), and he openly flattered himself that he knew the whole bag of tricks: he also sometimes remarked acutely that anyone who had the best of him had only one other person to get over, and that other person did not live on this earth. The van foreman was not really so clever as he judged himself to be (but his case was neither unprecedented nor without imitators), and his maxim—which was that in dealing with men you had to keep hammering away at them—was one that in practice had at times defective results. “Yes,” said the van foreman gloomily, as though replying to a question, “of course, you two are not the first to arrive. Barnes and Payne—Payne and Barnes. There ain’t a pin to choose between you. What’s your excuse?” “Wh-oh!” said Erb to his horse, assuming that it had shied. “Wo— ho! my beauty. Don’t be frightened at him. He ain’t pretty, but he’s
- 57. quite harmless.” “I want no sauce,” snapped the van foreman. “Good manners cost nothing.” “You might as well replenish your stock, then,” retorted Erb. “Re-plenish!” echoed the other disgustedly. “Why don’t you talk the Queen’s English like what I do? What’s all this I ’ear about a round robin to the guy’nor?” “Fond of game, isn’t he?” “Look ’ere,” said the van foreman seriously, “I’m not going to bemean meself by talking to you. I’ve spoken to some of the others, and I’ve told them there’s the sack for every man jack of ’em that signs it. I give no such warning to you, mind: I simply turn me back on you, like this.” “Your back view’s bad enough,” called Erb as the other went off; “but your front view’s something awful.” “I was a better lookin’ chap than you,” called the van foreman hotly, “once.” “Once ain’t often,” said Erb. He backed his van into position, and was about to cry, “Chain on!” but William Henry had anticipated the order, and had, moreover, fetched from the booking-up desk the long white delivery sheet, with its entries of names and addresses. William Henry also assisted in loading up the parcels with more than usual alacrity, that he might have a few minutes in which to saunter about with an air of unconcern and pick up news concerning possible vacancies. The carmen who had finished their work of loading, went up to the further end of the arch, waiting for the hour of twenty to nine, and snatching the opportunity for discussing a
- 58. matter of public interest. Erb followed, watched keenly by the van foreman. “Got the document, Erb?” “’Ere it is,” said Erb importantly, drawing a long envelope from the inside pocket of his uniform jacket. “All drawn up in due order, I think.” “What we’ve got to be careful about,” said a cautious, elderly carman preparing to listen, “is not to pitch it too strong, and not to pitch it too weak.” “The same first-class idea occurred to me,” remarked Erb. “Read it out to ’em, Erb,” suggested Payne. Pride and a suggestion of Southwark Park was in the young man’s tones, as, unfolding the sheet of foolscap paper, he proceeded to recite the terms of the memorial. The style was, perhaps, slightly too elaborate for the occasion, but this appeared to be no defect in the eyes and ears of the listening men. “‘And your petitioners respectfully submit, therefore, these facts to your notice, viz.,’—” “What does ‘viz.’ mean?” asked the cautious, elderly carman. “‘Viz,’” explained Erb, “is quite a well-known phrase, always used in official communications. ‘To your notice, viz., the long hours which we work, the paucity of pay, and the mediocre prospects of advancement. Whilst your petitioners are unwilling to resort to extreme measures, they trust it will be understood that there exists a general and a unanimous determination to improve or ameliorate’—” “He’ll never understand words like that,” said the elderly carman despairingly. “Why, I can only guess at their meaning.”
- 59. “‘Or ameliorate the present environments under which they are forced to carry on their duties. Asking the favour of an early answer, We are, sir, your obedient servants—’” “That,” concluded Erb, “that is where we all sign.” “Your respectful and obedient servants, I should say,” suggested the elderly carman. “Hark!” said Erb authoritatively. “The terms of this have all been very carefully considered, and once you begin to interfere with them, you’ll mar the unity of the whole thing. Payne, got your pen?” Payne seemed to feel that he was adjusting his quarrel with domestic events by dipping his penholder into an inkstand and signing his name fiercely. Erb followed, and the other men contributed to the irregular circle of names. The elderly carman hesitated, but one of his colleagues remarked that one might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and the elderly carman appeared to derive great encouragement from this, signing his name carefully and legibly, and looking at it when done with something like affection. “I sha’n’t ask you to get away with your loads many more times,” shouted the van foreman from the other end of the arch. “Yes, it’s you I’m talkin’ to. You’re all champion mikers, every one of you. I wouldn’t give three ’apence a dozen for you, not if I was allowed to pick and choose.” The men flushed. “Chaps,” said Erb quickly, “there’s only one thing we might add. Shall we recommend that this old nuisance be done away with? I can easily work it in.” “I beg to second that,” growled Payne. “Thought you wasn’t taking any suggestions?” remarked the elderly carman.
- 60. “This is more than a suggestion,” said Erb masterfully. “Are we all agreed?” The men held up their hands, shoulder high. “Much obliged! Payne, after you with that pen.” Many of the van boys had snatched the opportunity to have a furtive game of banker with picture cards, but William Henry stood precisely at the tail of his mate’s van, responding in no way to the raillery of his young comrades, who, in their efforts to move him from the path of good behaviour, exhausted a limited stock of adjectives, and a generous supply of nouns. To William Henry, as a safe lad, was entrusted the duty of taking the long envelope to the Chief’s office, and his quick ears having gained something of the nature of the communication, he ran, and meeting the Chief at the door of the private office, gave it up with the message, “Answer wanted sharp, sir!” a gratuitous remark, ill-calculated to secure for it an amiable reception. The labour member who had given to Erb a golden compliment on the previous evening had many proud titles; he was accustomed to say that the one he prized highest was that of “a manager of men,” and, indeed, the labour member had lost the colour of his hair and added lines to his face by piloting many a strike, guiding warily many a lock-out, but he had been rewarded by the universal acknowledgment that he could induce the men to do as he wished them to do; having gained this position, any idea of revolt against his command appeared, on the face of it, preposterous. It pleased Erb, as he drove his soberly-behaved horse and his van through the City to commence deliveries in the Pimlico district, to think that he, too, at the very outset, had impressed the colleagues with a confident manner. It was fine to see the wavering minds pin themselves to his superior direction, and give to him the duty of leading. He rehearsed to himself, as he drove along the Embankment, the speech which he would make when they held a meeting consequent on a refusal of the application; one sentence that came to his mind made him glow with delight, and he felt sure it had occurred to no one before. “United we must succeed; divided
- 61. we most certainly shall fail!” He talked himself into such a state of ecstasy (William Henry, the while, swinging out by the rope, and repelling the impertinent action of boys driving shop cycles, who desired to economise labour by holding on at the rear of the van), that when he drove his thoughtful horse round by the Houses of Parliament it seemed to him that if the House were sitting he had almost achieved the right to get down and go in there and vote. At his first delivery to a contumacious butler, ill-tempered from an impudent attempt on the part of his master to cut down expenses, recalled Erb to his actual position in life, and as he went on Grosvenor Road way he was again a carman at twenty-three shillings and sixpence a week. Later, at a coffee shop which proclaimed itself “A Good Pull-up for Carmen,” and added proudly, “Others Compete, Few Equal, None Excel,” he stopped for lunch, having by that time nearly finished his first round of deliveries. He shouted an order of “Bag on!” to William Henry, and, stepping down, went inside. Other drivers from other companies were in the coffee-house, and Erb, taking a seat in one of the pews, listened with tolerant interest to their confused arguments. All the variously uniformed men had a grievance, and all were quite certain that something ought to be done. The least vague of all the preferred solutions came from a North Western man, who said that “We must be up and doing.” “The great thing is,” went on the North Western man, encouraged by the absence of contradiction, “to keep on pegging away.” “Which way?” asked the carman at the end of the room. “That,” said the North Western man modestly, “that it is not for me to decide. I leave that to wiser men than me. I candidly confess that I’m not one of your busybodies.” “Seems to me,” remarked a Great Western man, cutting the thick bacon on his bread gloomily, “that every other department’s getting a look in excepting the drivers. We’re out of sight part of the day,
- 62. and out of mind all the day. Take my own case. I’ve got children growing up, and I find,” here the Great Western man rapped the handle end of his knife on the table, “I find they all want boots.” “What can I get for you?” said the matronly waitress, coming down the aisle. “I didn’t call you, my dear. I was only arguin’.” “Man-like!” said the waitress, going back to the kitchen. “I find ’em in boots,” went on the man, “but do I ever ’ave a chance of seeing the kids ’cept Sunday?” A murmur of anticipatory agreement with the coming answer went round. “My youngest is about a year old, and takes notice in a manner that’s simply wonderful—my wife says so, everybody says so, but he forgets me from one Sunday to another, and screams like anything when he catches sight of me.” “P’raps you smile at him, old man?” “And that’s why I agree,” concluded the Great Western man earnestly, “that some’ing ought to be done. Has anybody got ’alf a pipe of ’bacca to spare?” “What we want,” remarked the North Western man, “is a chap that’ll persuade us to—” “Yes, but—after you with the metch, old sort—but where is he?” Erb closed the black shiny bag which his sister Louisa had packed and stood out in the gangway between the pews. He held his peaked cap in his hand, and fingered at the brass buttons of his waistcoat. “I’ve took the liberty of listening,” he said, speaking slowly, “to the remarks you chaps have been making, and if there’s two minutes to spare, I should like to offer my views. I sha’n’t take more’n two minutes.”
- 63. “Fire away,” said the others, leaning out of their pews. “Let me first of all preface my observations by telling you what we have done only this morning at my place. We have simply—” Erb described the procedure; the men listened interestedly. “And now let me tell you, friends, what we propose to do when this round robin of ours gets the usual sort of answer. We shall fix on a certain morning—this is in confidence, mind. We shall resolve upon a certain, definite, and final course of action. Then it’ll be war, and we shall find out who’s master.” “And s’posing they are?” “They would stand no chance,” cried Erb, “if we could but preserve a united front. But you’re too nervous, all of you, to do that. You’ve been tied up, hand and foot, too long to know how to move. It will be for us at our place to show you a lead, and I can only ’ope for your sakes that when we prove successful you will ’ave the common- sense, the energy, and the intelligence to go and do likewise. Meanwhile, so long!” He punched at the inside of his peaked cap and strode out of the doorway, an exit that would have been dignified had not the stout waitress hurried down after him with a demand for fourpence- halfpenny. Even in these circumstances, he had the gratification of hearing inquiries, “Who is he, who is he?” And one commendatory remark from the North Western man, “Got his ’ead screwed on the right way.” “Now, why ain’t you lookin’ after the van, William Henry?” asked Erb appealingly. “I’m very sorry, mate,” said the boy, “but I never can resist the temptation of listening to you.” Erb accepted the explanation. He climbed up to his seat, and, awakening the well-fed horse, induced him to finish the deliveries. Eventually he drove back to the station. There he heard the latest
- 64. news. The Chief had sent for the Van Foreman, a cabinet council had been held, the Chief had gone now to consult the General Manager. So far, good; the dovecotes had been fluttered. He met five or six of the carmen as he waited for his second deliveries, and criticised the writing of the clerk at the booking-up desk; they were nervous now that the arrow had been shot, and they impressed upon Erb the fact that it was he who really pulled the bow. He accepted this implication of responsibility, his attitude slightly reassured the nervous. A young horse was brought up from the stables to take the place of the solemn animal, and its eccentric and sportive behaviour served to occupy Erb’s thoughts during the afternoon. He had occasion to deliver a hamper of vegetables at a house in Eaton Square, and to collect a basket of laundry, and as he waited he saw his sister Alice on the steps of her house whistling for a hansom; he would have offered assistance, only that he remembered that in the eyes of that house he was an Inspector; when a cab answered the appeal a very tall, neatly-dressed young woman came down the steps, preceded by Alice, who ran to guard the muddy wheel with a basket protector. An attractive face the tall young woman had. Erb would have thought more of it, but for the fact that at this period of his career he had determined to wave from his purview all members of the fair sex, excepting only his sisters; the work before him would not permit of the interference that women sometimes gave. He resented the fact that the lame young woman of Southwark Park would not go from his memory. Erb reproved him sharply, and ordered him to mind his own business. “Carman Barnes. To see me here, on to-day, certain.” This was the endorsement in red ink on the sheet of blue foolscap which had set out the grievances of the carmen, and Erb flushed with pride to find that he, and he alone, had been selected to argue the grievances of his colleagues with the Chief of the department. The men appeared not to grudge him the honour, and the van foreman held himself austerely in a corner, declining to open his mouth, as though fearful of disclosing an important state secret. Erb
- 65. thought it diplomatic to ask the others whether they had any suggestions to offer for the coming debate (this without any intention of accepting advice); they all declared moodily that it was he who had led them into trouble, and his, therefore, should be the task of getting them out. Payne wished him good luck, but appeared to have no great confidence in his own powers of prophecy. Erb washed in a zinc pail, parted his obstinate hair carefully with the doubtful assistance given by a cheap pocket mirror which William Henry always carried, and, watched by the carmen and chaffed by the casually interested porters and clerks, he went to endure that experience of an interview with the Chief, known as “going on the carpet.” The Chief was engaged for the moment; would Carman Barnes please wait for a few moments? It happened that Erb himself was boiling for the consultation, and this enforced delay of a few moments, which grew into ten minutes, disconcerted him; when at last a shorthand clerk came out, and he was admitted into the presence, some of his warm confidence had cooled. The Chief, a big, polite, good-tempered man, sat at the table signing letters. “Shan’t keep you half a second,” he remarked, looking up. “Very good, sir.” “Beautiful weather,” said the Chief absently, as he read, “for the time of the year.” “We can’t complain, sir,” said Erb meaningly, “of the weather.” The clock up high on the wall of the office ticked on, and Erb endeavoured to marshal his arguments in his mind afresh. “That little job is finished,” said the Chief, dabbing the blotting paper on his last signature. “I wonder how many times I sign my name in the course of a day; if only I had as many sovereigns. Let me see, what was it we wanted to talk to each other about?” Erb produced the memorial, and stood cap in hand as the Chief read it with an air that suggested no previous knowledge of the communication. “Oh,
- 66. yes,” said the Chief, “of course. I remember now. Something about the hours of duty.” “And wages,” said Erb, “et cetera.” “I get so much to think of,” went on the Chief, autobiographically, “that unless I put it all down on a memo I forget about it. Now when I was your age. What are you, Barnes?” “Twenty-one next birthday, sir.” “Ah,” sighed the Chief, “a fine thing to be one and twenty, you’ve got all the world before you. You ought to be as happy as a lord at your age.” “The ’appiness that a lord would extract from twenty-three and six a week would go in a waistcoat pocket.” “There’s something in that,” admitted the other, cheerfully. “But, bless my soul, there are plenty worse off. A man can grub along very well on it so long as he is not ambitious.” “And why shouldn’t a man be ambitious?” demanded Erb. “Some people raise themselves up from small beginnings”—the Chief took up his paper cutter—“and all honour to them for it.” The Chief laid down the paper cutter. “It must be a great satisfaction to look back when they are getting their three or four ’undred a year and think of the time when they were getting only a quid a week. It must make ’em proud of themselves, and their wife and their women folk must be proud of ’em too.” “Married, Barnes?” “No, sir. Live with my sister.” “Engaged perhaps?” “Not on twenty-three and six.”
- 67. Difficult to use the well-rehearsed arguments and the violent phrases to a courteous man, who showed so much personal interest. If he would but raise his voice or show defiant want of sympathy. “But some of us are married, sir,” Erb went on, “and some of us have children, and I tell you straight, when the rent is paid, and when the children’s clothes are bought and just the necessaries of life are purchased, there’s precious little left over. You can’t realise perhaps, sir, what it means to look at every penny, and look at it hard, before it’s paid away.” “Pick up a bit, don’t you, you carmen?” “An occasional twopence,” cried Erb, “and think what a degrading thing it is for some of us to accept voluntary contributions from those placed in a more fortunate position in life?” “Never knew a railway man object to it before,” mused the Chief. “You’re thinking of the old school, sir. Men are beginning to recognise that capital can’t do without them, and capital must therefore fork out accordingly. This memorial which you hold at the present time in your ’and, sir, contains a moderate appeal. If that moderate appeal is refused, I won’t be answerable for the consequences.” “And yet, I take it, you know more about the consequences than anyone else?” “Be that as it may, sir,” said Erb, flattered, “we needn’t go into hypo —hypo—” “Hypothetical?” “Thank you, sir. We needn’t go into that part of the question at present. But it’s only fair to warn you that when I go back to the men and tell them that their very reasonable applications have been one and all refused, and refused, if I may say so, with ignominy, then there’ll be such an outbreak. Mind you, sir, I’m not blaming
- 68. you; I only talk to you in this way, because ’ere’s me representing labour on this side of the table, and there’s you on the other side of the table representing capital.” “Labour,” remarked the Chief, trying to make a tent of three pen holders, “is to be congratulated.” “Therefore, not wishing to take up your time any longer, I should like to conclude by remarking in the language of one of our poets of old, who remarks—” “No, no,” protested the Chief gently, “don’t let us drag in the poets. They were all very well in their way, but really you know, not railway men. Not one of them. What I want you to tell the others is that if I had the power of deciding on this matter, likely enough I should give them everything they ask. But above me, Barnes, above me is the Superintendent, above the Superintendent is the General Manager, above the General Manager are the Directors, and above the Directors are the Shareholders.” “And all of you a stamping down on poor us.” “To a certain extent,” admitted the Chief, in his friendly way, “but only to a certain extent. What they want, what I want, is that everything should go on smoothly.” “To come to the point,” suggested Erb. “I take it that you answer this application, sir, in the negative. I take it that I’m to go back to the men and say to them, ‘All my efforts on your behalf have been fruitless.’” “Your efforts?” “My efforts,” said Erb proudly. “You are mainly responsible then?” “I don’t deny it.”
- 69. “I see,” said the Chief, slowly pulling the feathers from a quill pen. “My information was to that effect, but it is well to have it confirmed by you. Now look here, Barnes.” He took up the sheet of blue foolscap, with a change of manner. “The men ask for the removal of the van foreman. That suggestion will not be acted upon. If we were all to be allowed to choose our own masters we should be playing a nice topsy-turvy game. You understand?” “I’ve taken a note of it,” remarked Erb darkly. He wrote something with a short pencil on the back of an envelope. “Negative answer also, I s’pose, to the question of hours?” “Not so fast. In regard to the question of hours some concession will be made. They have increased of late without my knowledge. The men will take it in turns, in batches of three or four, to go off duty at six o’clock one week in the month. This will necessitate a couple of extra carmen.” “Good!” approved Erb, making a fresh note. “We now approach the question of wages.” “The men who have been in the service for five years will receive an additional two shillings a week.” “That’s a fair offer.” “The men who have been with us for more than a year will, with one exception, receive an increase of one and six.” Erb wrote the figures on the back of the envelope. Already he was composing in his mind the elaborate sentences by which he would make the satisfactory announcement to his colleagues. A telephone bell in the corner of the office stung the ear; the Chief rose, and bidding Erb wait outside for a few minutes, went to answer it. Erb closed the door after him in order to avoid any suspicion of overhearing, and, big with the important news, could not resist the temptation to hurry through into the arch where the men in a group
- 70. were waiting; the van foreman sat on a high stool in the corner, in an attitude that suggested contrition. “Well, chaps,” said Payne, when Erb, in one long, ornate sentence had given the information, “this is a little bit of all right. I think I’m speaking the general opinion when I say we’re very much indebted to Erb for all the trouble he’s took.” “Hear, hear!” said the men cheerfully. “I could see from the first,” remarked the eldest carman, “that he meant to pull it off for us.” “The occasion being special,” said Payne, bunching his short, red beard in one hand, “I think we might all of us treat ourselves to a tonic.” “Not me,” said Erb. “I’ve got to get back just to say a few words to the gov’nor. But don’t let me stop you chaps from ’aving one.” “You won’t!” remarked Payne with candour. The conversation at the telephone was still going on when Erb returned to the Chief’s office; some time having been occupied, apparently, with the usual preliminaries of one party begging the other to speak up, and the other urging on the first the advisability of seeking some remedy for increasing deafness. The Chief rang off presently, and came to the door and opened it. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Barnes.” “Was there anything else you wanted to say, sir?” “Only this. I told you there was one exception in this scheme of increases.” “Everitt is a bit too fond of the glass, sir, but p’raps a word of warning from you—”
- 71. “Everitt drinks, but Everitt does his work quietly, and he doesn’t disturb the other men. The one exception, Barnes, is yourself.” “Me?” exclaimed Erb. “It’s like this,” said the Chief, going on with the work of plucking a quill pen. “You’re a restless organiser, and no doubt somewhere in the world there is a place for you. But not here, Barnes, not here! Of course, we don’t want to sack you, but if you don’t mind looking out for another berth—No hurry, you know, next week will do—why —” The Chief threw down the stark quill pen; intimation that the conference was at an end. “I’m not the first martyr that’s suffered in the cause of right and justice,” said Erb, his face white, “and I’m probably not the last. I take this as a distinct encouragement, sir, to go on in the path that Fate has mapped out for me, ever striving, I trust, not so much to improve my own personal position, as to better—” “Shut the door after you,” said the Chief, “and close it quietly, there’s a good chap.”
- 72. CHAPTER III Turmoil of the mind that followed in the next few days was increased by the worry of a Society engagement. To the servants’ party in Eaton Square, Erb, having been formally invited, sent answer that he was busy with meetings of one sort and another, and begged, therefore, to be excused: this to his sister Louisa’s great content. Arrived another post card from Alice, saying that if this meant that he would not come unless Louisa were invited, then she supposed there was nothing to do but to ask them both; she would send a few things down by Carter Paterson the day before the party, that Louisa might adorn herself with something like distinction, and do as little harm as possible to the repute of Alice. To this, after an enthusiastic discussion, that was not a discussion, in that Louisa did all the talking, a reply was sent, stating that Louisa and himself would arrive by a series of ’buses on the night mentioned, and that Louisa begged her sister would not deprive herself of articles of attire, “me having,” said Louisa’s note, “ample.” The incident had its fortunate side, insomuch that it absorbed the whole mind of the delighted young sister, and prevented her from giving much attention to the matter of Erb’s forced resignation. Lady experts called every evening at the model dwellings to give advice in regard to costume, and, in the workshop, other white-faced girls pushed aside the relation of their love affairs in order to give their minds to this subject: Louisa’s current young man received stern orders not so much as dare show his face in Page’s Walk for a good fortnight. It was only on the evening of the party, when Louisa, gorgeously apparelled, sat in the living-room, ready a full hour before the time for starting, and Erb in his bedroom about to start on the work of
- 73. changing from a parcels carman to a private gentleman, that the short girl found leisure and opportunity to review Erb’s affairs. “And all the rest,” said Louisa severely in conclusion, “all the rest of these ’umbugs reaping the fruits of your labours, and you thrown out neck and crop. I can’t think how you come to be such a idiot. You don’t see me doing such silly things. What do you think your poor mother would say if she were ’ere?” “You haven’t seen the evening paper, I s’pose?” asked the voice of Erb, muffled by soap-suds. “Evening paper,” echoed the short sister, fractiously. “Is this a time for bothering about evening papers? The question is what are you going to do next, Erb? Been round to any of the other stations?” A grunt from the bedroom intimated a negative answer. “You’ll come to rack and ruin, Erb, that’s what you’ll come to if I don’t look after you.” “Catch hold.” A bare arm held out from the bedroom doorway a pink evening paper. “What d’you want me to read now? I don’t want to go botherin’ my ’ead about murders when I’m full of this party.” “Where my thumb is,” said Erb’s voice. A damp mark guided her attention, and she read it, her lips moving silently as she went through the paragraph, her head giving its uncontrollable shake. “We understand that a Society of Railway Carmen has been formed, and that the first meeting will be held at the Druid’s Arms, Southwark, on Saturday evening, at half-past nine o’clock, a late hour fixed in order to secure the attendance of the men. There are two candidates for the position of secretary—Messrs. Herbert Barnes and James Spanswick. The former is losing his situation for taking part in a labour movement, and his case has excited a great deal of interest.”
- 74. “I say,” cried Louisa, in an awed voice, “that’s never meant for you, Erb?” “It ain’t meant for anyone else,” called Erb. “Seen anything of my stud?” “Where did you put it last? But, just fancy, in print too. And underneath is something about Royalty.” Louisa clicked her tongue amazedly. “You never said anything about it, either.” “No use talking too much. Why, here’s the collar stud in the shirt all the time. No use talking too much beforehand. Besides, it isn’t what you may call definitely settled yet. Spanswick’s got very strong support, and he hates me as much as he likes beer. I said something rather caustic on one occasion about his grammar.” “I shall snip this out,” said Louisa, as Erb appeared struggling into his coat, “and I shall show it privately to everybody I come across in Eaton Square to-night.” “I don’t know that that’s worth while,” he said doubtfully. “It’ll let ’em see,” said Louisa, with decision, “that they ain’t everybody. When you’ve done trimming your cuffs with the scissors —” No further word of disparagement came from the short girl as she trotted along proudly by the side of her brother to the junction where New Kent Road starts for Walworth and town. Indeed, outside the tram she expressed some surprise at the fact that so many people were not acquainted with her brother; she consoled herself by the assurance that once Erb obtained a start the whole world would join her in an attitude of respect; she also enjoyed, in anticipation, the reflected glory that would be hers in the workshop the following morning. Being as outspoken in praise as in blame, it resulted, as they walked over Westminster Bridge and took an omnibus, that not only Louisa, but Erb himself, had attained a glowing state of content, and when they arrived eventually at the
- 75. house in Eaton Square (lighted recklessly below and sparsely illuminated above) they felt that the world might possibly contain their equals, but they were certainly not prepared to look on anybody as a superior. “Jackson,” said the buttoned boy who opened the door as they descended the area, “this looks like your lot.” “They call her Jackson,” whispered Louisa to her brother, interrupting his protest. “Parlour-maid here is always called Jackson.” Alice came forward. A spray of wild flowers meandered from the waist of her pale blue dress to her neck; she took her brother’s hand up high in the air before shaking it. A few tightly-collared young men stood about the entrance to the cleared kitchen, encouraging white gloves to cover their hands; they also had bunches of flowers in buttonholes, and one of them wore an open dress waistcoat. A Japanese screen masked the big range; nails in the walls had been relieved of their duties, a white cloth’d table with refreshments stood at the end near a pianoforte. “You’re early,” said Alice, kissing her sister casually. Louisa took the brown paper parcel from Erb’s arm. “Thought you’d like the evening to start well,” she said. “Any gentlemen coming?” “Haven’t you got eyes?” asked Alice, leading the way upstairs and waving a hand in the direction of the shy youths. “Gentlemen, I said,” remarked Louisa. “I shall begin to wish I hadn’t asked you,” said Alice pettishly, “if you’re going on like that all the evening. I believe you only do it to annoy me.” “What else could I do it for?” asked the short sister.
- 76. “Erb,” ordered the tall sister from the stairs, “you leave your hat and coat in that room. Thank goodness I’ve got a brother who knows how to behave. Good mind now not to titivate your hair for you.” “You mustn’t mind me,” said Louisa, relenting at this threat. “It’s only me manner.” They were received on returning downstairs by the housekeeper, a large important lady in black silk and with so many chains that she might have been a contented inmate of some amazingly gorgeous and generous prison; the housekeeper having been informed that Erb was an official on a South of England railway begged him to explain why, in travelling through Ireland during the winter, it was so difficult to obtain foot-warmers, and seemed not altogether satisfied with the reply that it was probably because the Irish railways did not keep them in sufficient quantities. The cook, also stout but short, engaged Erb for the first two dances, assuring him (this proved indeed to be a fact) that she was, in spite of appearances, very light on her toes, and quoting a compliment that had been paid to her by a perfect stranger, and therefore unbiased, at Holborn Town Hall in the early eighties. “And this, Erb, is Jessie,” said Alice, introducing a large-eyed young woman in pale green. “Jessie is my very great friend.” She added, “Just at present.” “I think you speak, Mr. Barnes?” said the large-eyed young woman earnestly. “I open my mouth now and again,” admitted Erb, “just for the sake of exercising my face.” “Ah!” she sighed, looking at him in a rapt, absorbed way. “Somehow you put it all in a nutshell. I should simply love to be able to say the true, the right, the inevitable thing. I could almost—perhaps, I ought not to say it—but I could almost worship a clever man.” Erb, reddening, said that there were precious few of them about.
- 77. “Talk to me, please!” she said appealingly. “Button this glove of mine, and then tell me all about yourself. I shall be frightfully interested.” “You don’t want to hear about me,” said Erb, essaying the task set him. “If you only knew!” she said. This was really very gratifying. Erb had wondered whether the evening would interfere for a time with consideration of his great crisis: he soon found that the evening was to put that subject entirely out of his thoughts. This was in itself a relief, for, despite confidence in himself, he felt nervous about the result of the forthcoming meeting; to-night he could dismiss worry and give his mind a holiday. He found that Jessie’s surname was Luker, and the house called her Masters; the tall young woman declared that she positively hated the name of Luker, and confessed to a special admiration for the name of Barnes, strongly contesting Erb’s suggestion that Barnes was a second-class sort of name, and worthy of but little esteem. Near the cottage pianoforte that had been fixed in the corner of the kitchen, a sombre young person in black sat on a chair that had to be improved and made suitable by an enormous dictionary, fetched by the pageboy from upstairs, and, receiving orders to play just what she liked for the first, this lady struck violently into the prelude of a waltz, choosing a square in the pattern of the wall-paper before her at which she could yawn. Couples, standing up, waited impatiently for the real waltz to commence; young women moving a smartly-slippered foot; Louisa formulating her first protest against convention by saying aloud to her partner, a precise footman, “Oh, let me and you make a start!” The others said, “S-s-s-h!” and watched the butler. The butler gave a pull at his yellow waistcoat and advanced solemnly to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Margetson,” he said, “I’m not so handy on me feet as I used to be, but I trust I may have the honour of opening the dance with you?”
- 78. “Mr. Rackham,” replied the housekeeper with a slight bow, “thank you very much for asking, but, as you know, the leastest excitement makes my head a torture. Would you mind,” with a wave of the fan, “asking Mamselle to take my place?” “I shall have much plaisure,” said the French lady’s maid, promptly. “A deux temps or a trois temps, Meestair R-rackham?” “Leave it to you, Mamselle,” replied the butler. The two went half way round the kitchen before the other couples ventured to move: a nod from the housekeeper then gave permission. Erb found himself rather unfortunate at first, and this was his own fault, for, with his usual manner of taking charge, he endeavoured to pilot the agreeable Miss Luker and ran her into rocks and whirlpools and on to the quicksands of ladies’ trains; it was only after the fourth disaster, when the fiancé of the upper-housemaid (who was one of the tightly-collared men and wore his short hair brushed forward in the manner of grooms) said to him audibly, “Not accustomed to drive, apparently!” that he permitted Miss Luker to take up the duty of guidance, and thereafter they went in and out the swinging dancers with no accident. Miss Luker was quite a marvellous young woman, for she could dance and talk calmly at the same time, a trick so impossible to Erb that, when he attempted it, he found he could only stammer acquiescence to some contestable theory advanced by his partner, or ejaculate some words in acceptance of an undeserved compliment. “It seems like fate,” sighed Miss Luker, as she saved Erb from sweeping the pianiste from her dictionary and chair, “but do you know you have exactly my step? It seems like fate,” repeated Miss Luker, as the music stopped and couples began to walk around the room, “and it is fate.” “I don’t quite follow you,” said Erb, trying to regain his breath and dodging the long train of Mamselle. “To my mind, most things depend on us, and if we want anything to happen we can generally
- 79. make it happen. Otherwise, where would ambition, and energy, and what not come in?” “You mustn’t talk above my head,” said Miss Luker, winningly. “You forget how stupid we poor women are.” An accidental lull came in the clatter of conversation. “You’re an exception,” declared Erb. His sister looked over their shoulders at him with surprise, and the footman giggled. The others, with an elaborate show of tact, began to speak hurriedly on the first subject that occurred to them, and the lady at the pianoforte, checked half way through a yawn, was ordered by the housekeeper to play a set of Lancers. Erb, in his life, had many trying moments, but none seemed so acute as this, when he had been caught paying a compliment to a lady. It was the first time he had ever done it, and when his self-control returned, and, taking sides, he and cook went through the devious ways of the set dance, he warned himself to use more care in future. Nevertheless, some excuse could be urged: whenever he glanced at Miss Luker, now with the gloomy young man for partner, he found that her large eyes were looking at him, and she turned away quickly with great show of confusion. When the Lancers had, by gracious permission of the housekeeper, repeated its last figure, cook, beckoned aside by the footman, introduced her partner with due formality. Mr. Danks— the footman bowed. “We—er—know each other by reputation, Mr. Barnes.” “Very kind of you to say so,” said Erb. “When you feel inclined for a cigarette,” said the footman, “give me the tip. What I mean to say is—tip me the wink! They won’t let us smoke here, but we can go into the pantry, or we can take a whiff round the square if you prefer it.” Here the footman giggled, “I often wonder whether ’round the square’ is a correct expression. Find any trouble, may I ask, in choosin’ your language?”
- 80. “It comes to me pretty free,” said Erb, “if I’m at all ’eated.” “Heated,” corrected Mr. Danks, “heated! Before I went to my uncle’s in Southampton Street, Camberwell, to take lessons, I used to drop ’em like—like anything.” “Never trouble about trifles meself.” “For public men like me and you,” said Mr. Danks. He stopped a giggle, perceiving that what he had thought to be a humorous remark did not, judging from Erb’s expression, really bear that character. “Like me and you,” he went on, “the letter aitch is one of the toughest difficulties that we have to encounter. In my profession, at one time, it was looked on, to use your words, as a trifle. Those times, Mr. Barnes, are gone and done with. The ability to aspirate the letter aitch in the right place—in the right place, mind you—has done more to break down the barriers that separated class from class than any other mortal thing in this blessed world.” “I wonder, now,” said Erb, with some interest, “whether you’re talking rot, or whether there’s something in what you say?” “If you think anything more of it,” said Mr. Danks, feeling in his waistcoat pocket, “take my uncle’s card, and go on and chat it over with him.” “‘Professor of Elocution. Declamation Taught!’” read Erb. “His daughter knows you; heard you speak in Southwark Park.” “Not a lame girl?” “If I hadn’t gone to him,” said Mr. Danks nodding affirmatively, “I should never have known how to recite.” “Nice drawback that would have been. So her name’s Danks?” “Rosalind Danks.” “Rosalind,” repeated Erb thoughtfully.
- 81. “As it is,” said the other with a giggle of satisfaction, “my ‘King Robert of Sicily’ gets me more invites out than I know what to do with. I suppose your sister has told you all about it.” “Talks of nothing else,” declared Erb inventively. To his surprise, Mr. Danks shook him very warmly by the hand, giggling the while with satisfaction, and, with the remark that he must now do the amiable to the remaining member of the family, left Erb and went across to Louisa—Louisa, flushed and almost attractive looking from the excitement of dancing. Erb calculated the distance between himself and the fair Miss Luker, and, with an attempt to imitate the easy manner of Mr. Danks, lounged across in her direction, but before he reached her three of the young men had formed up defensively, and Erb had to lean clumsily against the wall near to his short sister and her new companion. Mr. Danks had placed a footstool for Louisa. “You are rather short,” explained the excellently mannered footman. “I stopped growin’ a purpose,” said Louisa, kicking the footstool aside. “You don’t resemble your sister at all.” “Mustn’t let her hear you say that,” remarked Louisa, “else she’ll be mad.” “It’s been a very dull season in town,” said Mr. Danks regretfully. “Have you been away, then?” “I suppose you get a good many engagements, Miss Barnes? What I mean to say is, don’t you find it a great tax? The demands of society seem to increase year by year.” “It’s some’ing awful,” agreed Louisa. “I shall be out again—let me see—” “To-morrow night?”
- 82. “In about six weeks’ time, to a cantata at Maze Pond Chapel. Scarcely gives you time to breathe, does it?” Alice perceived that her brother was growing moody in his solitude, and brought up to him the French lady’s maid, who, discovering that he had once spent a day at Boulogne—conveyed to and fro by a free pass—talked to him vivaciously on the superiority of her native country over all others. The young woman at the pianoforte, aroused from a brief nap, was ordered to play a schottische. At this point the evening suffered a check. It was Cook’s fault. Cook, fearing that the hours were not moving with enough rapidity, suggested games; suggested also one called the Stool of Repentance. Necessary for one person to leave the room, and Mr. Danks being selected for this honour, went out, and the others thereupon selected libellous statements, of which Erb took charge. “Come in, King Robert of Sicily,” called Erb. Mr. Danks entered, and was ordered by Cook (hugging herself with enjoyment) to take a chair in the centre of the kitchen. “Someone says you’re conceited.” “That’s you,” said Mr. Danks pointing to Alice. “Wrong!” remarked Erb. “Someone says all the gels laugh at you.” “That’s you,” decided Mr. Danks, pointing at Cook. Cook now convulsed with amusement. “Wrong again! Someone says you can’t recite for nuts.” “I say,” urged Mr. Danks, wriggling on the chair, “I’m as fond of a joke as anyone, but really— That sounds like you, miss.” Louisa shook her head negatively. “You’re not lucky, old man. Someone says you’ll never get married in all your life for the simple reason that no one wants you.” “That’s you this time, at any rate,” cried Mr. Danks, with melancholy triumph. And, as Louisa it was, the short young woman had to go
- 83. out. “Come in!” cried Erb, when the accusations had been decided upon. “Some of ’em have been making it warm for you, Louiser.” “I’ll make it hot for them, Erb.” “Someone says you’d be a fine looking gel if you were twice as broad and three times as long.” “Cook!” exclaimed Louisa. Cook, slightly disappointed at this swift identification, made her way out with a large sigh of regret at enforced exercise. It was determined now to show more ingenuity, and Cook had to knock two or three times ere permission could be given for her return. “Someone says,” remarked Erb, “that you’re the finest woman in Eaton Square, bar none.” Cook laughed coquettishly. “That sounds like you, Mr. Barnes.” “No fear,” said Erb. “Someone says that you’ll get engaged some day—” “What nonsense!” interrupted Cook delightedly. “If you only wear a thick veil over your face.” “Look here!” said Cook definitely. “That’s enough of it. If I find out who said that I shall make no bones about it, but I shall go straight upstairs and complain to Lady Frances, so there now.” “Someone says,” Erb went on, “that you’ve got such an uncommon size mouth that it would take three men and a boy to kiss you.” “I don’t want to lose me temper,” said Cook heatedly, and speaking with no stops, “and I’m not going to but once I know who dared say that and I’ll go to the County Court first thing to-morrow morning and take out a summons against them people shan’t go saying just
- 84. what they like about me behind me back without having to prove every single— No, no, I’m not getting cross nothing of the kind but once I know who so much as dared— It’s a silly stupid game and I can’t think why it was ever suggested.” They were going back to dancing after this unsuccessful essay, when a quiet tap came at the door of the kitchen; and the couples, standing up to begin, suddenly released each other, the French lady’s maid crying humorously, “Ciel! c’est mon mari!” Conversation ceased, and Cook bustled forward and opened the door. “May I come in, Cook, I wonder?” “Why,” cried Cook; hysterical with delight, “as though you need ask, my dear, I mean, m’lady!” It seemed to Erb that the West End possessed some exceptional forcing properties that made all of its young women grow tall. He stood upright, as though on parade, unconsciously following the lead given by the tightly collared men and by Mr. Danks. As the very tall young woman went across the silent room to the housekeeper his gaze followed her; he would have given half his savings to have been permitted to assume a light, unconcerned, and, if possible, a defiant manner. “Do you know,” she said brightly, “that I have not been down here since I was ten years old?” “That’s twelve years ago, Lady Frances,” said the housekeeper. The housekeeper adjusted a bow at the white shoulders of the new arrival with an air of privilege. “You sometimes used to let me bake things, didn’t you, Cook?” “I had to take care you didn’t eat ’em,” said Cook, admiring her from the opposite side of the room. The strain on severe countenances around the kitchen relaxed slightly. “The others,” added Cook proudly, “don’t remember. It was before their time, Lady Frances.”
- 85. “And now that I am here,” said Lady Frances, “it seems that I am to spoil your party.” The servants and their visitors murmured, “Oh, no!” in an unconvincing way. “What I thought was,” she went on brightly, “that I might play to you.” “We have taken the liberty,” said the housekeeper, “of hiring a musical person.” “But you will be glad of a rest,” said Lady Frances, touching the pianiste on the hand and stopping her in a yawn. “When I was at school at Cheltenham I used to be rather good at dance music.” She turned suddenly and looked down at Louisa. “Perhaps you play?” “Me?” echoed Louisa confusedly. Louisa’s sister Alice lifted her eyes in silent appeal to the fates. “I draw the line at a mouth organ.” Her sister frowned at the ceiling. “And even that I’m out of practice with.” Louisa found her handkerchief in a back pocket, and with some idea of hiding her confusion, rubbed her little nose vigorously. “I think you have dropped this,” said Lady Frances, stooping. “Oh, that’s only a bit out of this evening’s newspaper. About my brother,” added the girl. “Really! May I read it, I wonder.” “Spell the words you can’t pronounce,” said Louisa. The room waited. Erb shifted his feet and endeavoured to look unconcerned. “Are you— Are you Miss Spanswick, then?” pleasantly and encouragingly. “Am I Miss Spanswick?” echoed Louisa with despair in her voice. “Give it ’old! This is my brother’s name—Herbert Barnes—and, consequently, my name is Barnes. Not Spanswick.” “I see! tell me what can I play?”
- 86. “Play something you know,” advised Louisa. “Rackham! please suggest something.” “If it wasn’t troubling your ladyship,” said Mr. Rackham, taking off the dictionary, “and putting you to a great amount of ill-convenience, I should venture to suggest—hem!—a set of quadrilles.” Something in the playing, once the couples had persuaded themselves to make up sets and to dance to such an august musician, that had escaped the art of the hired pianiste. An emphasis at the right place; a marvellous ability for bringing the music of each figure to an end just as the dancing ceased, so that there was no longer necessity for clapping of hands to intimate that further melody was useless, or to go on dancing with no music at all. For the next, Lady Frances played a well-marked air for a new dance that had possessed town, and in this Miss Luker gave up her partner and undertook to teach Erb, who was not fully informed on the subject. It occurred to Erb, as he tried to lift his foot at the appointed moment, and prepared immediately afterwards to swing the agreeable upper housemaid round by the waist, that although his partner had modelled her style on that of the young woman seated at the pianoforte, there existed between them a long interval. Both had the same interested way of speaking, the same attention in listening, but, with Miss Luker, there seemed to be nothing at the back of the eyes. Erb, finding himself possessed with a hope that Lady Frances might presently speak to him, tried to compensate for this weakness by telling Miss Luker, when they were lifting one foot and swinging round at the far end of the kitchen, that the title meant nothing to him, and that, for his part, he preferred to mix with everybody on a common platform, to which Miss Luker replied, “Ah! that’s because you’re a railway man.” Presently, in one of those sudden blanks of general talk that surprise the unwary, his raised voice was heard to say,— “—Consequence is that the few revel in luxury, while the many—” He hesitated, and went on floundering through the silence. “Whilst
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