On deriving complex polysemy: the grammaticalization of get

Abstract

This paper examines the polysemy in the English verb get, which can denote possession, movement, causation, obligation, and change of state among other senses. The analysis builds on a decomposition of get (based on the Benveniste/Freeze/Kayne analysis of possessive constructions) into [ingressive + ‘be’ + preposition]; this lexical entry allows the current polysemy to be derived from a number of reanalyses within different syntactic contexts. Using diachronic data, I show that possession leads to movement as well as stative uses (possession and obligation), movement develops into the causative and inchoative, from which the passive develops, and the infinitival causative gives rise to permission and ingressive aspect. The appearance of each new meaning-construction is motivated by context-dependent mechanisms of reanalysis which account for language change as the result of the language learner reanalyzing the correspondences between syntactic and semantic elements.