Publicação
Shifting structures, contexts and meanings : a Functional Discourse Grammar account of grammaticalization
| Resumo: | The goal of this dissertation is to develop a general theory of grammaticalization within the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG, Hengeveld and Mackenzie 2008). As a structural-functional model of language, FDG recognizes the cognitive reality of grammar as a structured set of rules and constraints, but rejects the idea of a largely autonomous syntax and aims at explaining the morphosyntactic organization of natural languages with reference to pragmatic and semantic factors. From this perspective, the general stucture of the grammar must be plausible from a psychological viewpoint and is understood as being shaped by the communicative necessities that human languages, as inherently social tools, are meant to satisfy. A third major concern of structural-functional linguistics, and especially of FDG, is its commitment to typological adequacy, again on the assumption that the cross-linguistic variation of natural languages is limited by the common interactional needs of human communities. These three fundamental tenets of structural-functional linguistics (cognitive/psychological, pragmatic and typological adequacy) constitute the driving principles behind the theory of grammaticalization developed in this dissertation. First, by explicitly linking the development of grammaticalizing constructions to the general structure of the grammar, the proposed model gains a decisive advantage over other functionally oriented accounts of grammaticalization, as it refrains from invoking abstract notions such as semantic ‘bleaching’ or increasing abstraction and generality of meaning but singles out a precise set of empirically testable, grammar-internal constraints on possible and impossible patterns of grammaticalization. At the same time, as a structural-functional approach, it recognizes the usage-based nature of grammaticalization and thus constantly seeks to identify semantically and pragmatically plausible contexts of change. Finally, in the light of the extreme typological diversity of natural languages, morphosyntactic and phonological changes are denied the status of definitional features of grammaticalization and grammaticalization is defined as an essentially functional phenomenon. |
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| Autores principais: | Giomi, Riccardo |
| Assunto: | Gramaticalização Mudança linguística Tipologia (Linguística) Funcionalismo (Linguística) Discurso (Linguística) Linguística cognitiva Psicolinguística Teses de doutoramento - 2020 |
| Ano: | 2020 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | tese de doutoramento |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso restrito |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade de Lisboa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa |
| Resumo: | The goal of this dissertation is to develop a general theory of grammaticalization within the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG, Hengeveld and Mackenzie 2008). As a structural-functional model of language, FDG recognizes the cognitive reality of grammar as a structured set of rules and constraints, but rejects the idea of a largely autonomous syntax and aims at explaining the morphosyntactic organization of natural languages with reference to pragmatic and semantic factors. From this perspective, the general stucture of the grammar must be plausible from a psychological viewpoint and is understood as being shaped by the communicative necessities that human languages, as inherently social tools, are meant to satisfy. A third major concern of structural-functional linguistics, and especially of FDG, is its commitment to typological adequacy, again on the assumption that the cross-linguistic variation of natural languages is limited by the common interactional needs of human communities. These three fundamental tenets of structural-functional linguistics (cognitive/psychological, pragmatic and typological adequacy) constitute the driving principles behind the theory of grammaticalization developed in this dissertation. First, by explicitly linking the development of grammaticalizing constructions to the general structure of the grammar, the proposed model gains a decisive advantage over other functionally oriented accounts of grammaticalization, as it refrains from invoking abstract notions such as semantic ‘bleaching’ or increasing abstraction and generality of meaning but singles out a precise set of empirically testable, grammar-internal constraints on possible and impossible patterns of grammaticalization. At the same time, as a structural-functional approach, it recognizes the usage-based nature of grammaticalization and thus constantly seeks to identify semantically and pragmatically plausible contexts of change. Finally, in the light of the extreme typological diversity of natural languages, morphosyntactic and phonological changes are denied the status of definitional features of grammaticalization and grammaticalization is defined as an essentially functional phenomenon. |
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