The grammaticalization of tense markers: A pragmatic reanalysis

Abstract

Grammaticalization is the process whereby lexical categories and constructions containing lexical material develop, in specific morphosyntactic contexts, into GRAMS, that is, members of functional categories, including tense and aspect markers . It is generally agreed that grammaticalization involves both structural and semantic change, and that semantic change either precedes structural change (Givon, 1991 ; Nicolle, 1998) or occurs in parallel with it (Bybee et al. 1994 : 106 ; Emanatian 1992 : 19) . To begin with, certain inferences frequently associated with the use of the grammaticalizing expression become conventionalized, and the expression undergoes ‘semantic bleaching’ (or ‘generalization’), in which components of meaning relating to perceivable events and relations between entities is lost. The expression typically also develops increased functional dependence on associated lexical material. Following these semantic changes, structural changes occur which result in increasingly restricted morphosyntactic distribution, and possibly affixation, together with corresponding phonetic reduction. This widely accepted model of grammaticalization is represented in (1) :