Grammaticalization as emergence of functional domains: three cases in Chadic
Journal Title: Studies in African Languages and Cultures - Year 2010, Vol 1, Issue 44
Abstract
The importance of the first grammaticalization described in this paper is that it has created a morphological means for coding functions that have not been described before. The ultimate source of these grammaticalizations lies in phonological alternations involving lexical items and grammatical morphemes. The importance of the second grammaticalization is that its emergence explains why the grammatical systems of Chadic languages have not grammaticalized the category passive. The importance of the third grammaticalization is that it provides the evidence that grammaticalization may involve the emergence of a functional domain rather than an individual construction. The formal properties of various constructions within the domain depend on the properties of lexical items chosen for the predi-cate and the locative complement.
Authors and Affiliations
Zygmunt Frajzyngier
Keywords
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