Language Contact and Grammatical Change

Abstract

The phenomenon of language contact, and how it affects the structure of languages, has been of great interest to linguists. This study looks at how grammatical forms and structures evolve when speakers of two languages come into contact, and offers an interesting insight into the mechanism that induces people to transfer grammatical structures from one language to another. Drawing on findings from languages all over the world, Language Contact and Grammatical Change shows that the transfer of linguistic material across languages is quite regular and follows universal patterns of grammaticalization - contrary to previous claims that it is a fairly irregular process - and argues that internal and external explanations of language structure and change are in no way mutually exclusive. Engaging and informative, this book will be of great interest to sociolinguists, linguistic anthropologists, and all those working on grammaticalization, language contact, and language change.

On degrammaticalization: Controversial points and possible explanations

“…The fact that most instances of degrammaticalization here analyzed involve formally independent words with a rather abstract and grammatical meaning suggests that formal features of grammaticalization are more frequently contravened than its semantic features, and that semantic bleaching must therefore be considered more important than formal erosion in grammaticalization, in agreement with Heine and Kuteva (2005).…”

“…We must bear in mind that language change is not a process occurring independently of space and time, but is rather bound to the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors of a speech community. In the literature, it is often remarked that grammaticalization may be a creative act of the speaker, and that speakers are often aware of the effects of using one form instead of another in the grammaticalization cline (see, e.g., Hagège 1993;Lehmann 2004: 184-186;Heine and Kuteva 2005) -whereby awareness does not necessarily imply volition (Keller 1994). The same should be assumed for degrammaticalization.…”

“…debated whether formal erosion or semantic bleaching has to be seen as the most typical feature of grammaticalization: while Trudgill (2011), for example, advocates the former position, Heine and Kuteva (2005) prefer the latter. The fact that most instances of degrammaticalization here analyzed involve formally independent words with a rather abstract and grammatical meaning suggests that formal features of grammaticalization are more frequently contravened than its semantic features, and that semantic bleaching must therefore be considered more important than formal erosion in grammaticalization, in agreement with Heine and Kuteva (2005).…”

Cross-linguistic influence in language creation: Assessing the role of the Gbe languages in the formation of the Creoles of Suriname

“…Crucial for this proposal, which the authors discuss at length, is that the grammaticalization of the 'say'-word in the creoles follows a path that is almost identical to that found in the Gbe languages. The similarity is attributed to a process of 'replica grammaticalization' or polysemy copying, as proposed by Heine and Kuteva (2005) (see also Bruyn, 2008).…”

Multilingual Fieldwork and Emergent Grammars

“…And this creates a typologically unusual system with coexisting multiword and one-word verb sequences. Inasmuch as -sita could be interpreted as an aspect marker, this process can be considered an instance of areally triggered grammaticalization, in the spirit of Heine and Kuteva (2005).…”