Grammaticalization and Pragmatics: Facts, Approaches, Theoretical Issues

Download or read book Grammaticalization and Pragmatics: Facts, Approaches, Theoretical Issues written by Corinne Rossari and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-11-02 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The studies collected in this volume deal with pragmatic factors involved in the evolution of grammatical or lexical forms or in the emergence of complex syntactic structures in various languages (Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian and Spanish). They are set against the theoretical framework of grammaticalization. The main methodological tools are cross-linguistic contrastive analysis and diachronic perspective. The two main issues that emerge from these studies are the place of pragmatic factors in language change (input, output or setting/frame of the process) and the existence or otherwise of a prevailing mechanism for explaining change phenomena.