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    The Transitation of Language

    Uploaded by

    estela
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    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    ee —— SrupiEs IN THE EVOLUTION oF LaNouace Generel os nme. thsord Ueno bg eae Newmeye Linney of Wingo “ise provi aform for wok inguin ate els that ska enters t quant shee og tection fling Mplacene Frou oa sound schol ronal hongh an edie wing ‘The Troon Language "ed by Aon Wey The Origins of owe Sten Tar de Boer Langage Diersty ‘Dil Nee anc Slton and tease ‘he mega Langue Unerals ‘Son Ry ‘The Origins of Compe argue: A gin th Bn Beng of Sot, Se nd rath ‘Ande arse eCard 1 Paeranarion Language Boe Tesiawsoftheart ated by Mace Chrisansen an Simon Kirby 18 Onthe Evolution of Grammatical Forms Bern Heine axp Tanta Kureva 181 Introduction [A munber of approaches ze aval to the Magus for studying eat ‘hase inthe evolution of human language or Ianguages This chapter xplres the potential for grmaticalzation theory to throw light on lan {gugeevlationGrommatiea atlon theory eles on regularitiesintheevor Jeon of linguistic form, drawing onthe unidectonaity principle and its Smplcations forthe reconstruction of ener language tates (Traugot and Hone 191; Heine, Claud, and Hnemeyer 199; Hopper and Traugott 1998) The main purpose ofthis chapter io show that there ae certein ‘lascvof grammatical forma thatcanbeassumed presupposé othe gram: ‘nail forms in time. An temps made o reconstruct sequences of gram ‘tial evolution with a view to exsblishing how language may have been structured at eae stages of human evolution, While ere ate a number ‘of interesing cena for how ely human guage ay have Ben sic tured (2g Bckarton thi wore’ Way this wlume) its har to find com vincing hypotheses for how functional categories eveledout of othe tems ‘orstractares hat may have ben use in ea uman communication. “Work bated on dans! mathods of historical linguistics has brought shout a numberof vgs nt te on and sructae of ea forms ak Fn languages I woud sem, hovrever, that this work gives us acces tocnly afar small phase inthe eolton of huis anguages linguist construction becomes notorious fuzy once we are dealing with time depth exceeding 10000 yours While there exis a wide array of opinions “scapes a ech cil oy Bend Hea wee ws fe he Tere Aeris Cr taste troche re tfc hte sto cts anyon’ sr bok amos of ER Aiteouty rmensotle agen Boaktonof Grammatical Forms 377 ‘on how far ackreconsruction can be pushed and on what th genticand eal reltionship ptens among cai languages may bave been there ‘ppeats to be gener agreement on one point: the languages that were spoken 10,000 or more years agp were spolopcally not mach diferent fom present-day languages ‘Here we want to argue ha is possible to push back Lingus reson struction io ear phase of Linguntc evolution, tht yo phases where ‘human lnguage or languages can be sasumes to ave been lieent in structaze ram whats oan day. The approach that we adopt ere sone of intergoneticgramatialization comparison hat compton actos the Boundaries of language fle cr pla). Tis approach dfs rm other linguistic proaches i tha deals either wit language palgy nor with areal or genetic elatonships Like genetic linguistic es y= smology a6 tool fr historical reconstruction But instead of dealing with seveti relational among longings, tht, eh comparisons within a single langage family iis concemed with principles of grammatical en lukon. The goal so reonsiuc grammar aan earierstagen ran i tory—a sage that snot aecesbeby using asic methods of itor linge Lea stage were language was not ye developed the way we know it foe pst and present revonde let wcll t Seago X ‘The approach wed here is ot enizely news has ben used implcly ‘rexplcly—in some works dedlng with hesubjact matter unde seating (steeg.Sankot 1979; Comrie 1992; Atchison [996). Is epaceened with ‘he develoomen of gsmmoteal eateries and wes the methodology snd Sindings of grammmaaliation theory inorder t deserve grammatical ev- luton Ina it dawson, but isnot confined to (ee sec 182) prin: ple thats commonly ascrisedto another method efhistorcl lings, amy neal construction 182 The Present Approach (Gremmaticaliation concerns the evolution from lex to grammatical forms and fro grammatical t even more grammatical forms This evo ahem si dpaalegitens ‘tetanic are fr Sepia ace en et ce tan ‘herrea ndeendy ne ngags Th wl 378_Bernd Heineand Ta Kates ‘Taste 181 Mockaniome of he ramaticaiaton process Neha ey Desemaniiciation (Heachag) Lasso meaning Decetegociaization (downgrading) Lossofestegoril properties rosin (phoneticreduction) —_Lossofphoneti substance tion, whichis essentially unidirectional? involves a numberof interrelate, ‘mechanisms n particular the onesistedin Table 181 Tn fact thing ze slighty mors comple than Table 18.1 impli. In pa ‘icalatheresre not only sss ut ao guia Forexamplealom of meas= Ing may’e compensse or by neve meanings arising the conten which the eleva form used (se Heine a 1991 fr deta). weve, for our preset purpose wl sufie to adopt the simpler famework in “Table Thethece mechanisms aesnterelatodinthe ens that desea ‘seition Waste gua non for erosion and destgoralization to happen, {hat ln in meanings immediately remonsible or tiggerng the ler ‘ve mechanisms “Toeeectrof this voiton can be llstrats with example (1 from Soa bil the atonal laguageet Tanzania and Kenya. (0) Sai Banta Niger Congo’) G2) ata fenganyumba rer build hoase “penlbuild aoe 0) a taka Ba Jesgasyumba Chore want arte Bouse ‘sbewants to bld shone ‘toa ghes annals "Thre a tbo act mai of roe ccc scone pence odo oman ns Cal 19 ‘aus rome 096 en icy Rewer 1 20, Ses no Tease ree echt hee eel eae een ty ee oa yest lng unber ef um a cenfor othe Fcpe Haat £02) Steere ch epscan Feu baca a when o ‘terns arr aye ans ope ao amastei te ‘ced Nenmoyr ote tet sto emmejer era) "Sine act rae ung ad Evohtionsf Grammatical Forms 379 (0) atakaeyes —jenganpumba cuentas build howe “hewho wild akousd ‘ae “Theresa faturesense marker 2: in Ua) whih ssi derives rom ‘th ull er ta, want strated (16) That hss canbe deduced, Sr rom the fact that the future marker has sine is aller form aka in certain contexts, insta meat clases, canbe seen (00. Second the same poocess, fom yl ver future marker, he ‘curred independent in quite amber goneially snd realy ante: lated languages, perhaps in hundeeds nls onc of them In English the future marker wilislsohisteeally derived frm voltion verb andes in ‘the eof Sahil, mor consevalveffatures ave bee resid in subor- dinate clauses. The voliton meaingafEnglsh wc stile ound nuses suchas De its jeu wil om Largely predictably the proces from 2 ull wer tke o future tense marker a ivelved a umber of indi meshsriims os fel te ‘nelited in Table 181 1. Desemantczton: the este verb lasts lei! meaning (aqui Ing grammatical meaning). 2 Decetegorialization: the ver lost popes characteristic uth suc asthe expacty to form the predicate miles of he clase ant ake rgumens Decatgorializtion basa mamiberof diferent manifestations (a) Clitciration being reduced toa grarmmatical marr, te erstwhile sain verb lost its independent stats and became dependent on another verb, in example (1) the new mala ve Jenga built lurned into aeliticand eventually ei. (b) ParadigmatcnarowingYerbsareopen-classitems while grammat ical markers are loed-ls items With the transtion fom verb 10 une marker, takashifed om the open claseof verbo the las of tense-apect markers which basa memberbipofles than Joven 3 Erosion:theitem akalox: phonetic substance being reduced 0, Tocanclde the Smailieumpeisan instanceof more gener evolution whereby ei ters and the structures associated with them, turn ino srammatca tems asthe ult ofa network of intersted mechanisms Surman refered eo as graramatiaistion, 30_Berd Heine a Tia Kate the second part ofthe approach used here can be desribed by means of theschema presented in Fg 181 Puinaton: x rent stuaon: XY 10.181 Pandpleofremnstracton. Languages reveal layers of past changes in their present stractore—they secaptlte ther pst development as Greenberg (1992158) puts Sup ose we know that angus strotureX under spcitc conditions devl- ‘opsegulary ntoY and conversely. can regliybetaced back toX Now, if wefind that given inguage hs both XandYthen we cas conciude tha orme eater development tage ofthat language there as X but 00 “The approach that can be derived from this observation Bas been described ly Comrie (192) thus Certain kindof present inguist alternation can be reconstructd back to eae states without that alternation: This pro cer wl known from ere sts ntral constrain wher= ‘vere fndan instanceof morphophonenic alternation, we econsractan ‘lier stage where there leno correponding morphophonemicsltenation, nda plausible environment condoning te alfertion onan allopbonc basis (bi 205), ‘Comrie us this approach to argue that certain complexities ofall oF many presently atest languages ere ot peesnt in early human lan= {Zug see Below Applied to oer Sah example meazeve tthe follow {ngetnclsion.Thereatetwo morphemesin modem Swabia futuretense + emi apd dh sporch wots cae whe sri one sence cast me ae othr on Cs i eee | ‘earns ant sack ean aan ee a eV ecn epee ts scom-n nas rocedae melee Se ci especies Tay apps feos at ssh poeta wee et nut ‘alse ane econ etl emp crsoee Fs tac a el megs mse (28 a upped eh he | ‘Botnet hasan weyers tie ar iene ware Oe ao ean star ps ‘apni olives nisopt oe ep SEIrSEetn Chante Ge mpl esha Bree ei, vohion of Grama Forme 381 marker -ta- anda verb aka want Since there regular elation fom ‘olin verbs to fture tense markers, we can seconstrct anette tion where there was the verb but et the future tense marker” However, alike internal econstrcton, ou pproachis ot etictd tothe analy ‘of language internal processesrathertscomparaivin atte andalows ‘orreconsruction eros languages? In the remainder of thischaperwe will us this combined approach to Aiscusssome traits of grammatical evlation, 183 Some Findings (On the bas ofthe approach just sktched we ll now present some find- ings on the elation of gramasatil forms. These findings are based on Heineand Knteva forthcoming) and involve geneslations on mare tha 300 instances of gramatial elution, 183.1 Morphosyotctic Otgaries Inthe ist instance, we hall focus onus neo the mechanisms identified ln Table 181, namely desstepyrilzaton. Te efecto this mechanism in ‘the processofgrmmatcalation sha gist forns en tose prop «ties characteris ofthe morphem casa syntactic category to wich they belong, and to become member feter more grammatical asgor- ies With reference to our Sali exampl the cfc was tha ily edge ‘ver ot fn some ofits ses mos ofits verbal properties an jnel more ‘grammatical mogpheme paca, that of tense aspect inlcion, The

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