Abstract
Grammaticalization has proven to be an insightful approach to semantic-morphosyntactic change within and across languages. Many studies, however, rely on assessing the large, obvious differences before and after the change. When investigating burgeoning or ongoing grammaticalization processes, it is notably harder to objectively measure the degree of grammaticalization. One approach is to gauge changes in the well-known ‘parameters’ of Lehmann, Hopper, and Himmelmann, but this approach is often qualitatively oriented. Quantitative studies mainly rely either on token frequency of a construction, assuming that grammaticalization is accompanied by a frequency increase, or by tracing the development of two competing constructions, looking at the proportion of their respective token frequencies. In this article, we argue for a wider range of quantitative measures, beyond token frequency, as dependent variables. We will show that these measures can jointly point to subtle ongoing grammaticalization. As a case study, we will focus on Dutch binominals with soort ‘sort’, a core member of the much-discussed sort-kind-type (SKT) construction in the languages of Europe. Based on a large dataset of over 14,000 instances from the period between 1850 and 1999, we investigate quantitatively measurable changes in the construction’s surface behavior (i.e., the gradual loss of the relator van ‘of’ and increasing restrictions on premodification and pluralization, pointing to a process of ‘decategorialization’). In addition, we will also use Gries’s deviation of proportions (DP) to gauge the dispersion of soort, a valuable but under-used metric in quantitative studies of grammaticalization.
Highlights
Grammaticalization has proven to be an insightful approach to semantic-morphosyntactic change within and across languages
The use of token frequency comes basically in two guises: either the rise of construction is traced through normalized frequency, or two competing constructions are set off against each other, and the shifting proportion of their respective token frequencies is seen as a new form encroaching on an older one, which is gradually ousted
The underlying idea in both approaches is that increased grammatical status goes hand in hand with increased frequency
Summary
Grammaticalization is the process whereby new grammar is created from erstwhile lexical material in specific constructions. The use of token frequency comes basically in two guises: either the rise of construction is traced through normalized frequency (the number of instances per fixed number of tokens, most often 10,000 or 1,000,000), or two competing constructions are set off against each other, and the shifting proportion of their respective token frequencies is seen as a new form encroaching on an older one, which is gradually ousted The latter approach takes its inspiration from variationist linguistics (see Pintzuk 2003), and its preferred method is logistic regression. The underlying idea in both approaches is that increased grammatical status goes hand in hand with increased frequency (pace some cases where rapid or instant grammaticalization occurs on the basis of analogy; see Hoffmann 2004 and Aaron 2016) While informative, this is a brutally restricted view on how to approach language change quantitatively (see Szmrecsanyi 2016 and Hilpert 2017, for well-taken considerations). In contrast to earlier studies on the development of this Dutch construction, we will adduce quantitative diachronic evidence on the changing syntax, using frequency measures, including ‘dispersion’, a valuable metric in quantitative approaches to grammaticalization, but one not very commonly used at present
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