The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

Grammaticalization and grammar change 291strained by the structure of the grammar; some restructurings are thereforemore likely than others. For this reason we do not believe that there is universal,semantically driven unidirectionality. Our misgivings on this point will be illustratedby our discussion of the case studies in section 9.3. For instance, concerningJespersen’s cycle in section 9.3.2, it will be argued that, although thebleaching of the negative adverb (not and its precursors in Old and MiddleEnglish) is part and parcel of the sequence of changes involved, the history ofEnglish negation may be considered a pure example of a morphosyntacticchange; nothing whatever changes in the semantics of the construction.The emphasis on unidirectionality and on the graduality of a process thatcannot be cut up into segments has also led to the idea that the process ismechanistic, that it is itself a mechanism or cause for change. Bybee at al.(1994: 298), for instance, write: ‘Thus our view of grammaticization is muchmore mechanistic than functional: the relation between grammar and functionis indirect and mediated by diachronic process. The processes that lead togrammaticization occur in language use for their own sakes; it just happensthat their cumulative effect is the development of grammar’ (emphasis added).Most investigators of grammaticalization describe it vaguely as a ‘phenomenon’,a ‘process’ or an ‘evolution’. However, the fact that for most linguists itsintrinsic properties are graduality and unidirectionality suggests to us that intheir view the process must have some independence. Heine et al. (1991a: 9)write that ‘Meillet followed Bopp rather than Humboldt in using grammaticalizationas an explanatory parameter in historical linguistics’ (emphasisadded), and the authors themselves seem to follow this line. Interestingly too,Vincent (1995: 434) writes, in an article which challenges the pre-eminence ofgrammaticalization as a source of new patterns, that he still does not ‘wish . . .to deny the power of grammaticalization as an agent of change’ (emphasisadded).A rather different point of view is presented in Harris and Campbell (1995),who write:Examples of grammaticalization are important in the broad database ofgrammatical changes, and instances occur in most of the subsequent chaptersof this book. As will be seen in those chapters, however, we find thatgrammaticalization cases can be explained adequately by the other mechanismsof syntactic change . . . and we therefore attribute to grammaticalizationno special status in our approach (Harris and Campbell 1995: 20)Grammaticalization is one type of macro change, consisting minimally ofone process of reanalysis, but frequently involving more than one reanalysis...Grammaticalizationis often associated with ‘semantic bleaching,’ andthis ‘bleaching’ is the result of reanalysis or, perhaps better said, it is theessence of the reanalysis itself (ibid. p. 92)