Gram - SEAS

5. 7 CounterexampLes to tinidirectionaLity 135
to minor classes - aspectual markers, modals, degree words - and are therefore
considered grammatical. Univerbation has occurred in all of them. Furthermore,
in many languages what originate as phonologically predictable alternations may
eventually be morphologized (e.g.,foot-/eet is the modern reflex of an earlier stage
when the plural was/o f-i; phonetically, the 0 was fronted before the -i, and when the
-i (plural marker) was lost for phonological reasons, the fronted vowel remained
as the marker of plurality). These examples and others show that there is a point
at which grammaticalization and lexicalization may intersect (see, e.g., Hagege
1993; C. Lehmann I 989a, 2002; Wischer 2000). Indeed, as Lehmann has pointed
out, lexical phrases such as as Long as must first be lexicalized (frozen) before
grammaticalization can set in. In many ways lexicalization in the sense of univerbation
and grammaticalization are parallel and both "constrain the freedom of
the speaker in selecting and combining the constituents of a complex expression."
They "are not mirror images" (c. Lehmann 2002: 15).
Another term that has many interpretations and has been seized on as evidence
for counterexamples to grammaticalization is what Lass (1990) called
"exaptation," a term he borrowed from biology to account for what he saw as "the
opportunistic co-optation of a feature whose origin is unrelated or only marginally
related to its later use" (Lass 1990: 80) as a result of "bricoLage, cobbling, jerrybu
ilding; ... recycl[ing], often in amazingly original and clever ways" (Lass 1997:
316). The "unrelatedness" is the key to notions that exaptation is a counterexample
to unidirectionality. An example he gives is the reanalysis of a Dutch adjectival
number-gender agreement marker as a marker of a subclass of morphologically
complex attributive adjectives. At about the same time, Greenberg (1991) used the
term "re-grammaticalization" to refer to similar phenomena, including changes
in the late development of demonstratives. Demonstratives frequently give rise to
delinite articles ("Stage I"), and then expand their range to include all specific
nouns, whether definite or indefinite ("Stage II"). At this stage the article often
becomes morphologized as a prefix or suffix on the noun (cf. The Mississippi),
but it retains some of its article-like fu nctions, in, for example, not being used in
generic expressions (compare English at schooL, on /oot, etc.). In the next stage
("Stage III"), the use of the affix spreads to virtually all nouns, including proper
names. This new distribution leads to a situation in which the former demonstrative
assumes new functions having to do with a form's status as a member of the category
"noun," for example they can be used to derive nominalizations, or to mark
pluralization (Greenberg 1991: 304-5). Stages I and II can be considered classic
cases of grammaticalization, but not so the third stage, according to Greenberg, because
there is renewal of an old, marginalized function and "disjunctive" semantic
change (1991: 30 I). One problem with both Lass's and Greenberg's examples is
that although the changes may be semantically and functionally unexpected, a