Introduction: The pace of grammaticalization in a typological perspective

Abstract

A grammaticalization process, by which an item shifts from lexicon to grammar, is by definition a cline or a continuum. Consequently, items undergoing grammaticalization processes can occupy different positions on the cline between its two extremes. The main claim we want to argue for in this thematic issue is that the same idea of gradation can be extended to language typology, by showing that, within a language family, comparable grammaticalization phenomena can be at the outset or on-going in one language and have reached a stage further down the cline in another language, or even that grammaticalization phenomena present in one language may be absent in the other one. Thus, with respect to Romance, several authors, such as Boysen (1966), Delattre (1966), Harris (1978), Posner (1996), Lamiroy (1999 and 2003), Marchello-Nizia (2006), Detges (2006), Carlier (2007) and Lindschouw (2010, 2011), have pointed out that for the majority of grammaticalization phenomena, French is further on the cline than the other Romance languages. Research on several independent domains, viz. word order (Marchello-Nizia 1995), prepositions (Lamiroy 2001), external possessor constructions (Lamiroy 2003), existential sentences (Meulleman, forthc.), tense, mood, demonstratives, auxiliaries (Lamiroy & De Mulder 2011 and De Mulder & Lamiroy, forthc.), the partitive (Carlier & Lamiroy forthc.), has furthermore shown that in most of these domains, Italian is ahead of Spanish, although the respective positions of Italian and Spanish on the cline seem to allow for more variability than the position of French. These studies suggest that with respect of the pace of grammaticalization, the three Romance languages can be situated on a scale in the following way. The pace of grammaticalization