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The Structure of the English NP
  • ISSN 0929-998X
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9765
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Abstract

In this paper we report on a historical corpus study of English , an adjective which underwent a process of grammaticalization starting from lexical uses with the meaning ‘composite’, e.g. multiple , to grammaticalized uses as individualizer, paraphrasable as ‘different’, e.g. multiple , and as quantifier ‘several’, e.g. multiple . is just one of several adjectives going down this path of grammaticalization. However, as we show in this paper, the trajectory of each adjective includes different micro-processes of change. New diachronic case studies on the grammaticalization of individual items thus remain crucial to further advancing our understanding of the potential environments and changes underlying grammaticalization processes. The case of shows that, firstly, not only attributes, but also classifiers can serve as input for grammaticalization, and that, secondly, grammaticalization and lexicalization processes can have non-adjacent functions in the noun phrase as their input and output.

© 2016 John Benjamins Publishing Company
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2016-06-09
2025-04-19

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