The Role of Partial Desemanticization in the Emergence of Grammatical Subsystems: The Case of Epistemic Modality in Northern Rural Jordanian Arabic

Abstract

Desemanticization, a mechanism of language change, is either full or partial. The former is the total loss of the lexical content while developing a gram from a lexical source, whereas the latter is the reduction of the lexical content. One of the merits of partial desemanticization reported in the relevant literature is that the remaining lexical residue in a gram often determines its function, especially through metaphor and metonymy. The present paper, from a broader perspective, sheds light on the role of partial desemanticization in developing grammatical subsystems in natural languages. Based on an acceptability judgment task and the main synchronic characteristics of the target items, this paper argues that partial desemanticization is the underpinning factor in the grammaticalization of a possibility-denoting epistemic modality in northern rural Jordanian Arabic. Its role is manifested in the derivation of the target modal auxiliaries from their lexical counterparts. The content of their sources, mostly lexical, is not fully bleached out when they develop into modal auxiliaries. The semantic residue of the source in each grammaticalized modal auxiliary, in turn, causes the variation in use of these modal auxiliaries, and therefore inevitably leads to developing a possibility-denoting epistemic modality.