A Functional Discourse Grammar Theory of Grammaticalization

Riccardo Giomi

ISBN 10: 9004520449 / ISBN 13: 9789004520448

Published by Brill, NL, 2023

About this Item

Meaning change in grammaticalization has been variously described in terms of decreasing semantic weight and increasing generality, abstraction, (inter)subjectivity or discourse orientation. The author shows that all these trends are subsumed by the notion of scope increase along a precise hierarchy of semantic and pragmatic layers of grammatical organization such as endorsed by Functional Discourse Grammar. The scope-increase hypothesis is immune from the exceptions and veritable counterexamples to all the aforementioned generalizations and has the decisive advantage of being more objectively measurable, given its direct bearing on actual linguistic structure. The extremely rare exceptions to this generalization are also addressed and found to always result from a type of change independent from grammaticalization - the merger of two separate speech acts.

Seller Inventory # LU-9789004520448

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Functional Discourse Grammar Theory of Grammaticalization
• Publisher: Brill, NL
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9004520449
• ISBN 13: 9789004520448
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Dimensions: 15.5W x 3.3H x 23.5D centimeters 15.5 centimeters width by 3.3 centimeters height by 23.5 centimeters depth
• Weight: 870 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Meaning change in grammaticalization has been variously described in terms of decreasing semantic weight and increasing generality, abstraction, (inter)subjectivity or discourse orientation. The author shows that all these trends are subsumed by the notion of scope increase along a precise hierarchy of semantic and pragmatic layers of grammatical organization such as endorsed by Functional Discourse Grammar. The scope-increase hypothesis is immune from the exceptions and veritable counterexamples to all the aforementioned generalizations and has the decisive advantage of being more objectively measurable, given its direct bearing on actual linguistic structure. The extremely rare exceptions to this generalization are also addressed and found to always result from a type of change independent from grammaticalization – the merger of two separate speech acts.

About the Author

Riccardo Giomi, Ph.D. (2020), University of Lisbon, is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Liège. He has authored several publications on Functional Discourse Grammar, among which Headedness and modification in Functional Discourse Grammar (Glossa 5.1, 2020) and The place of interpersonal lexemes in linguistic theory, with special reference to Functional Discourse Grammar (Corpus Pragmatics 5.2, 2021).