GradEast > Courses > Summer School in Grammaticalization > Abstracts > Lecturers' abstracts > Abstract Brian D. Joseph

What grammaticalization is and is not

Brian D. Joseph

The notion of 'grammaticalization' -- the embedding into grammatical status of once non- (or less-) grammatical phenomena -- has enjoyed broad acceptance as a new paradigm for describing and accounting for linguistic change. Despite its appeal, my contention is that there are numerous foundational problems with 'grammaticalization' as it is conventionally described and discussed in the literature. My goal here is to explore what some of those problems are and to discuss where grammaticalization has "gone wrong", so to speak, and what it has gotten right. In this way, I reach a characterization of how much of grammatical change can legitimately be called "grammaticalization" and how much is something else, thus working to achieve a sense of what grammaticalization is and what it is not.

References

Joseph, Brian D. 2001. Is there Such a Thing as "Grammaticalization"? Language Sciences (Special Issue - Grammaticalization: A Critical Assessment, ed. by L. Campbell), 23.2-3.163-186.

Joseph, Brian D. 2003. Morphologization from Syntax. In B. Joseph & R. Janda (eds.) Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 472-492.

Joseph, Brian D. 2006. How accommodating of change is grammaticalization? The case of "lateral shifts". Logos and Language. Journal of General Linguistics and Language Theory 6.2.1-7.