Gram - SEAS

130 5 The hypothesis of unidirectionality
and the contemporary period, Laury ascertained that the use of the demonstrative
se (and its case forms) is becoming increasingly obligatory. In lhe direct object
role, for example, the number of lexical nouns that were accompanied by se rises
from 49% in the nineteenth century, to 60% in the I 930s, to 74% in the modern
language. Although Finnish is often characterized even in linguistic descriptions
as a language that lacks a definite article, Laury notes that the use of se is entirely
comparable with the use of the definite article in languages where its existence is
universally recognized.
For diachronic studies, access to texts of comparable genres over a fa irly long
period is needed. It is only in a few languages that we are fortunate enough to have
this kind of textual history. And it is for only a small subset of these languages
that we have any statistical studies at all of the development of grammatical items.
Sometimes a slowly emerging construction can be seen to take over very rapidly,
perhaps at the expense of competing constructions, as in the case of do-support
discussed by Kroch (1989a,b; see also Stein I 990a). Dramatic changes of this type
are often d ' iscussed in terms of S-curves, that is, gradual beginnings, rapid spread,
and gradual tapering off. To date too few historical studies have been conducted
to determine to what extent S-curves are the product of multiple correlated factors
contributing to morphosyntactic change or of individual localized changes, but it
seems likely that they result from the former. There is a need for additional reliable
statistical studies of a variety of phenomena in which early grammaticalization appears
to be involved. Among such studies, in addition to Hook (1991), there are
Givon (1991 a) on the development of relativizers, complementizers, and adverbial
clause markers in Biblical Hebrew; the large number of statistical studies of
grammaticalization of case-related phenomena (inflections, prepositions. etc.) in
Spanish by Company may be illustrated by her recent work on the spread of prepositions
(Company 2002); studies on developments in English include Hopper and
Martin (1987) on the indefinite article, Kyto (1991) on the auxiliaries may/might
and call1cou/d, Hundt (200 I) on the get-passive, Mair (1997, Forthcoming) on
be going to, be V-ing, seeing that and other constructions. Statistical studies of
grammaticalization changes that appear to be occurring in current speech situations
include Givon (199Ib) on verb serialization in four languages of Papua
New Guinea, and Thompson and Mulac (1991) on parenthetical I thillk in English
(discussed below in Section 7.5.3).
5.7 Counterexamples to unidirectionality
As has been stated frequently in previous chapters, there is nothing deterministic
about grammaticalization and unidirectionality. Changes do not have