The grammaticalization path DEICTIC SPATIAL ADVERB > ADPOSITION

Abstract

In addition to the grammaticalization of nouns and verbs into adpositions, which has been widely discussed in the grammaticalization literature, this paper identifies and describes a much less well known grammaticalization path, by which deictic spatial adverbs (i.e., words such as English here or there) are converted into adpositions. Based on data from two sub-Saharan languages (Tswana, Bantu and Jóola Fóoñi, Atlantic), this study proposes that in this grammaticalization process, the source construction is the LOCATIVE APPOSITION CONSTRUCTION, defined as a construction consisting of the juxtaposition of two coreferential spatial expressions, a deictic spatial adverb and a spatial expression whose nucleus is a noun (as in English here in the village or there on the table). Considering also some other languages, such as Hoocąk (Siouan), Baule (Kwa), Beng (Mande), and Classical Nahuatl, the study defends the idea that the initial stage of the grammaticalization path DEICTIC LOCATIVES > SPATIAL ADPOSITIONS is the routinization of the locative apposition construction, eventually leading to its reanalysis as an adpositional phrase in which the role of adposition is fulfilled by the former deictic spatial adverb.