Questions:
Since particular language changes do not have to go to completion, we are not talking about absolute or obligatory determining factors, rather about factors that enable or facilitate Grammaticalization, either singly or in combination.
Those mechanisms seem to involve:
Later we discuss possible motivations of these mechanisms:
Analogy only affects surface manifestations, doesn't affect rule change (but may affect rule spread). Reanalysis is the most important mechanism for grammaticalization, and for all change.
This model okay as long as we don't assume
This model (e.g. Anderson 1973) assumes universal laws, Universal Grammar consisting of unchanging principles etc. with parameters that allow for different "settings" so that changes from one generation to another result from diff. learners selecting different possibilities.
{B} A >{ } > B {A}where A and B coexist for a while before yielding to B.
Need to distinguish between
i.e. the rule may enter the language. abruptly, but its spread to other situations (other verbs of motion, other verbs of cognition, etc.) is gradual .
Notice diff. between. spread across linguistic contexts (environments) whatever, and spread across social groups or genres (styles) which is more sociolinguistic.
Notice also that change in the grammar of one speaker (Andersen) does not mean other speakers have changed, so when can we say that the language has changed? When has the grammar of the speech community changed? Often linguists document the beginning of a change, in the grammar of one speaker, but when can we say it is finished? It is too difficult to document all the tiny changes.
H&T give ex. of perhaps earliest attested use of OE willan 'want' in a context that can only mean 'later time', i.e. in its modern usage as would/will in reported speech. (This is c. 880, Orosius, p. 37) Later this change is seen more often in ME; if such a 'change' does not show up again, we call it a nonce form or it is attributed to scribal error.
Difference between. computer languages. and human languages.: In computer languages., one form has one meaning, every 'utterance' is unambiguous. (If it's not, we have 'bugs' and systems crash.)
Human language has small set of units and constructions that must serve many purposes and functions. Language. is a social thing, one function is to maintain social relationships, and communicate in ways that keep people involved and interested. (I.e. we don't talk like computers; if we do, we lose our audience, are thought of as 'geeky' or 'nerdy' or 'socially inept'.
Indirectness (e.g.) is necessary for politeness phenomena. We can't (unless we are some kind of tyrant or socially-inept person) just say
Other non-literal things like metaphor are part of language (Johnson & Lakoff 1980) and can't be done away with. People know how to reason from the form of what is said to the intent of what is said, so humans can interpret the two utterances above as the same in some way, and accept the second as 'more polite' than the first, and a more effective way of doing linguistic business.
Deductive reasoning applies a law to a case and predicts a result (as in above) Conclusion assumes/asserts nothing not given in premises, so if premises are true, conclusion is also true.
Inductive reasoning: proceeds from observed cases and results to establish a law.
Abductive reasoning proceeds from an observed result , invokes a law, and infers that something. must be the case. This is the kind of reasoning that occurs when speakers make assumptions based on outputs of other grammars and make inferences from them.
Pierce said this was a weak form of reasoning (i.e. not the ideal) but was useful to study because it is the basis of human perception and the only kind of reasoning by which new ideas can get started. Andersen saw this as essential to development of cultural patterns, including language; and H&T see it as the mode of reasoning that leads to reanalysis.
Consider the development of cargo cults. During WWII (and even before; the earliest cults seem to date to the period of 19th century colonialism), Americans and Australians built airstrips and landing fields in New Guinea, and then cargo planes dropped supplies, munitions etc. on those fields to be used in the war against Japan. After the war, anthropologists discovered that the people of New Guinea were building their own airstrips, hoping that supplies would then magically arrive. They used abductive reasoning:
If you build it, they will come.The original reasoning, which was "We need to drop supplies for the war effort against Japan, therefore we will build airstrips" was turned around: if we build airstrips, cargo will arrive (after all, it happened for the Australians and Americans, didn't it?) Even though cargo droppings did not result, people continued to try to find the formula that would work, i.e. in ritual and primitive religion, rather than in logic.
"change in the structure of an expression or class of expressions that does not involve any immediate or intrinsic modification of its surface manifestation"Since this (1977) the idea has become common that reanalysis means shift from one parametric setting to another.
Reanalysis is the result of abduction (conclusion from the output, working backward to the Law or principle, restating the principle):
[[back] of the barn] --> [back (behind) of [the barn]]
The hearer matches output (result) with possible NP structures ("the case"), after matching with possible nominal structures ("the Laws"), and the output structure is compatible though not identical with previous analysis.,
haec | habeo | cantare --> |
1 | 2 | 3 |
haec | cantare | habe |
1 | 3 | 2 |
New word order, and with new meaning OBLIG, or future-oriented. Cf. with English:
'what can I say?' ('what do I have to say') --> 'what will I say?'
By abduction: [[cantare] habeo] --> Late Latin [cantare habeo] --> French [chant-er-ai] "I will sing".
Literary Tamil Locatives | Gloss | Spoken Tamil Locatives |
---|---|---|
viiTT-il | in the house | viiTTule |
meel | on top | meele |
kiiR | below | kiiRe |
anku | there | ange |
vaDakku | (to the) north | vaDakke |
meerku | (to the) west | meekke |
terku | (to the) south | tekke |
kiRakku | (to the) east | keRakke |
veLi | outside | veLiye |
When the LT and ST forms are compared, the ST forms appear with a final -e(e) which traditional grammarians analyze as the "emphatic particle" and simply state that ST locatives all have to appear with this final emphatic. In fact, however, if emphasis is needed, an additional e(e) has to be added: ange-y-ee "right there" etc. What has happened is that the emphatic e(e) has been incorporated into the locative, and has in some sense become the marker of locative, since it is the common feature of all the ST forms above, whether explicitly marked with le or not, as in "semantically locative" forms (most of the above: postpositions, points of the compass, etc.). Note also how the points of the compass are marked with a now redundant dative marker ( -ku ). The emphatic has now been fused with the locative, and bracketing between it and the locative is gone. The points of the compass are, in the case of 'east' and 'west' built upon and incorporate the locational postpositions meel 'up' and kiiR 'down' (since the geography of Tamilnadu is such that west is 'uphill' and east is 'downhill.') (Cf. perhaps Kannada forms? Cf. Gai etc.)
This contrasts with maaDlilla 'didn't/doesn't make/do'. Reduction and deletion of the intervocalic lax consonants results in a short form without overt future marking or verbal noun marking, but the meaning is the same.
There is a new definition of the constituent AUX, including Tense and Modal and Modal is expanded as can, could, will, would, must, shall, should, may, might, do. Note that the past forms of modals (preterits) themselves take on special meanings, e.g. "conditional" and/or other meanings: should is not just the past of shall but has " obligative" meanings etc.
H&T refer to this set of modals as 'closed' which it is to some extent; but it's not completely closed, since newer modals are being added: gonna, hafta, sposeta, gotta etc. Now for interrogation and negation, do and other modals are preposed/inverted, other verbs can't be (except for the quasi-modals they mention: need, dare, ought to, be to etc.) which have special problems:
So we get examples such as:
Meanwhile, these new candidates for modal status ceased to have the freedom of taking NP objects, and have special morphologies ( may/might; can/could ) "preterit presents" (sic?) i.e. a cluster of factors is involved: H&T say this may be crucial and that we will find it often, or maybe always.
When new periphrastic constructions arise in shift from OV to VO (if this happens), usually. through reanalysis of lexical material . But no constraints depend solely on word order using lexical material: rather, the constraints are:
The path to future was via obligative and future-oriented sense while path to perfect via locative-possessive-existential (as in Dravidian iru becoming perfect.) More examples of English word order changes from VO to OV.
Reanalysis: linear, syntagmatic, local reorganization and rule change; not directly observable.