On the Uzbek Converb Construction Starting with <em>olib</em>, its Reanalysis, and its Grammaticalisation

Abstract

Converb constructions are widely used in Uzbek, as in many other Turkic languages. A less studied type of converb construction is the one which can be referred to as the Converb Construction of Motion (CCM). In this article, first, four groups of Uzbek CCMs are distinguished and it is argued that the CCMs starting with olib, the converb of the verb ol- (‘take’), constitute an important subgroup within the second group. It is further claimed that these olib CCMs are unique in that their first converb shows signs of grammaticalisation, accompanied by reanalysis. Based on data from a monolingual Uzbek corpus, a specific path is tracked down, leading through a number of syntactic levels from the use of the converb as a clause chaining device to its final univerbation with the following verb. It is demonstrated that the different levels of this process exhibit different morphosyntactic, prosodic and/or phonological behaviours. Reanalysis is especially apparent in the transition from a biclausal syntactic structure to a monoclausal structure, while the changes occurring in a set of parameters allow us to characterise the entire process as grammaticalisation.