Source meanings and unidirectionality

Which meanings serve as sources for grammaticalization?17 _{According to Bybee et al.}

(1994:9), “the actual meaning of the construction that enters into grammaticalization uniquely determines the path that the grammaticization follows and, consequently, the resulting

grammatical meanings”. Certain source meanings lead to certain grammatical categories18_.

Heine et al. (1991:32) state that “[t]here is a limited number of basic cognitive structures (…) that make up the source of or input to grammaticalization”. Bybee et al. do not assume that one source meaning can lead to different grammatical categories. It might seem that the same source gives rise to different categories, but this is because the grams are at different stages on the same developmental path. For example, the source meaning ‘resultative’ may be at a state where it denotes anteriority (as in Standard Spanish) or simple past (as in German). Bybee et al. (1994:12) actually go as far as stating that “the source meaning uniquely determines the grammaticization path that the gram will travel in its semantic development”. In addition, we do not assume that it is the specific item that enters grammaticalization; we assume that it is the construction. We can assume this on the basis of items like habere. This verb both occurred in the construction that became the future marker in Romance, and also in the mentioned construction that became the perfect.

This unidirectionality is not to be confused with the unidirectionality described in 2.3. This type comes in addition to the unidirectionality of semantic change; this is a more specific unidirectionality in the grammatical and phonological change that accompanies grammaticalization (Bybee et al. 1994:13).

The question that arises is why certain source meanings serve as sources for grammaticalization. They seem to have at least two characteristics in common; they are general in their semantics, and they are frequent. For instance, ‘go’ may serve as a source, but we can be pretty sure ‘stroll’ never will. The latter provides too much detail about the nature of the movement, and is not applicable to all subjects. Givón (1995:25) suggests that the selection of source meanings may have to do with what he labels cognitive markedness; marked structures are harder to process, that is, to memorize and retrieve, and therefore perhaps less eligible as source meanings. As usual, the frequency ‘explanation’ presents us with the question of causality; in this case, the fact that source meanings are frequent may be because they are general (general concepts are usually frequent), but it may well be that general concepts are used as source meanings because they are frequent. We don’t know; we do know that frequency is a prerequisite, but not in itself enough, since most frequent concepts never grammaticalize.

18 _{For a critical view on the ”auxiliation constraint”, see Detges (2004), in which he argues that functional}

Movement along the paths follow the same mechanisms as discussed above; the general cognitive abilities that are reflected in language use govern both which forms go into grammaticalization, and what paths these forms later choose. Bybee et al. (1994) identify three major paths of development; the perfect path, the imperfective path and the future path. Here I present them schematically. The left indicates source meaning.

Figure 2. Perfective path

Bybee et al. (1994:86) state that “[t]he change of an anterior to past or perfective is typical for grammaticization changes”, and that “an actual diachronic relation can be demonstrated between pairs of grams: a perfect tends to develop into a past or perfect as in Romance languages” (Bybee and Dahl 1989:56). These predictions do not hold for the development in Rioplatense. However, as I will soon turn to, the other paths predicted (see figure 3 and 4 below) are indeed exemplified in Spanish, including Rioplatense.

Figure 3. Future path

Interestingly, Rioplatense Spanish (and Standard Spanish) has followed both “The future path” and “The imperfective path” exactly as predicted. The Spanish progressive is expressed through the verb estar, which originally (and in other contexts) means ‘to be located’, as in (14):

(14)

Estoy cantando estoy cant-ando

be 1SG.PRES.IND sing-PRES.PART

‘I am singing’

The development of the future is an even better example, since it exemplifies the development of two of the source meanings mentioned, ‘movement towards goal’ and ‘obligation’. In Spanish today there exists an old, morphological future. This is the result of the grammaticalization of the following construction:

(15)

Cantare habeo cantare habeo

sing INF must 1SG.PRES.IND

‘I have to sing’

Notice that this is the same verb as in the construction that led to the formation of the perfect category. This exemplifies what I stated in 1.1; it is not the single item that goes into grammaticalization, it is the construction. Here, the same item has appeared in two different constructions, from which two different tenses have evolved; future and perfect (Heine 1993:30). The construction underwent grammaticalization and consequently (see 2.1.2.2 for the co-variation hypothesis) phonological reduction and looks like this today:

(16) Cantaré cantar-é sing-1SG.FUT

However, today this form is being replaced by a periphrastic future, and the original meaning of the verb being grammaticalized (ir) is that of ‘movement towards goal’:

(17)

Voy a cantar voy a cantar

go 1SG.PRES.IND to sing INF

‘I will sing’

Strangely, the perfective path does not fit: the source meaning is the resultative, and its semantic development has gone as expected up to a point (the point where it functions as perfect) where it suddenly halted. It has not continued its development into perfective. It seems as if the source meaning in this case has not determined the path of the gram, as posited by Bybee et al. (1994). I discuss this in further detail in chapter 5.

2.5 The grammaticalization of the Latin

habere + past participle

construction

The development of the Romance Perfect is a good illustration both of the creative role of repetition and of the frequency effects such as erosion and reduction, as well as of loss of specific meaning components and gained pragmatic strength. Its development is highly relevant for the present topic because it illustrates that the process from Romance to Spanish seems to have followed the predicted development (that is, followed the perfective path, as sketched above) up to a hundred years ago. This indicates that we are dealing with a sudden halt in an otherwise predictable grammaticalization process.