Grammaticalization – Theory and Data

Download or read book Grammaticalization – Theory and Data written by Sylvie Hancil and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1980s theories and studies of grammaticalization have provided a major source of inspiration for the description and explanation of language change, giving rise to many publications and conferences. This collection presents original, empirical studies that explore various facets of grammaticalization research of both formal and functional orientation. The papers of this selection deal with general issues and specific empirical domains, such as personal pronouns; indefinite pronouns; final particles; tense and aspect markers; comitative markers and coordinating conjunctions. The languages covered include English, German, dialects of Italian, Japanese, Polish, and Walman (Papuan). The book will be of great interest to linguists working on language change in a wide variety of languages.