Diachronica - Volume 37, Issue 1, 2020

Abstract

The present paper is a corpus-based study of the Voice Cycle in Hungarian. Based on data from the Old Hungarian Corpus and the Hungarian Historical Corpus, I will argue that while in Old Hungarian, middle voice was encoded through a separate inflectional paradigm (contextual allomorphy in the subject agreement suffix conditional on the feature content of a silent Voice head), in Modern Hungarian, middle voice is encoded through dedicated middle voice suffixes (i.e., the Voice head is spelled out overtly). I will claim that the underlying grammaticalization process involved the reanalysis of frequentative suffixes (v heads) as middle voice suffixes (Voice heads). I will show that this reinterpretation was not based on shared abstract features, but rather, on a principled correlation between middle voice and frequentative aspect: since some types of middles (antipassives and dispositional middles) were more likely to be associated with a frequentative or habitual reading than actives, frequentative suffixes were susceptible to reanalysis as middle suffixes in the course of language acquisition. I will thus claim that in addition to Feature Economy (van Gelderen 2011), reinterpretation based on correlation between featurally independent grammatical markers should also be regarded as a mechanism of grammaticalization.

Abstract

This paper provides a diachronic construction-based explanation of the differential perfective marking conditioned by transitivity status in Western Mande languages, using the Greater Manding group as an exemplar case. This typologically unusual phenomenon has previously been erroneously cast in terms of case alignment, either synchronically (in terms of bidirectional case markers) or historically (in terms of an earlier split-ergative stage). The central insight of my explanation is that the Positive Perfective constructions of the Western Mande languages are multiple-source constructions. The in-depth reconstruction of these constructions presented in the paper provides a theoretically significant illustration of a pattern of repeated emergence of constructional competition in a particular semantic domain, which is subsequently resolved through constructional specialization and merger, resulting in multiple-source constructions and a typologically unusual pattern of differential TAM and polarity marking.

Abstract

The paper addresses the emergence and development of the Chinese correlative comparative construction (CrCC) from the perspective of constructionalization. Most previous historical studies of the CrCC take a grammaticalization approach (e.g., Long 2013), focusing mainly on morphosyntax alone rather than investigating syntax and semantics in an integrated way. However, the architecture of construction grammar requires approaching linguistic analysis with both form and meaning equally in mind. This approach suggests that what have sometimes been considered to be merely different formal expressions of the CrCC are in fact two different constructions, one correlative, and the other a simple incremental. We identify the critical contexts (see Diewald & Smirnova 2010) that by hypothesis enabled the constructionalization of the CrCC, and point to the importance of considering network reorganization and multiple sources in the development of the simple incremental construction (see e.g., Boas 2008; Van de Velde et al. 2013).

This article reviews Unity and diversity in grammaticalization scenarios