Time and truth: The grammaticalization of resultatives and perfects within a theory of subjectification

This paper is concerned with the “invisible hand” behind the polygenetic pathways of semantic change in grammaticalization. A comparison between Old English habban + Past Participle and Spanish tener + Past Participle brings to light specific discourse strategies which speakers use resultatives for. On the basis of this analysis, the paper re-examines the problem of explaining the shift from non-temporal to temporal meaning. It is argued that this shift is brought about by some very basic discourse strategies which are strong motives for repeated meaning change in the same direction.