Motivating Certain Variation Patterns in Degree Constructions: Semantics Meets Grammaticalization

Abstract

We analyze patterns of variation in degree constructions as ultimately semantically motivated (Beck et al. 2004); more precisely, as rooted at the (structured) level of logical form via a pa3 rameter based on binding. The paper pursues two related objectives. First, we complement the sharp distinction between languages like Japanese vs. English with a case of a language that seems to be parametrically intermediate. We suggest that Modern Romanian is sensitive to largely the same configurations which are conspicuous in the Japanese/English split, but that it marks the relevant dependencies overtly. Second, we probe for the grammaticalization process of the pertinent functional items involved in marking degree dependencies by conducting a dia3 chronic pilot study. In this part of the article, we analyze data from (literary) Old Romanian. We investigate the degree constructions at this stage of the language in preliminary fashion and point out that they display a particularly instable situation with regard to the diagnostics of the degree parameter discussed, a factor which may have enhanced the grammaticalization of the particular strategies under discussion and hence co3motivates the apparently idiosyncratic current distribu3 tion in the language.