Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

46 Sections
On the diachrony of Italian mica
Visconti, Jacqueline
University of Genoa
Jacqueline@unige.it
This paper provides an account of the origins and evolution of the Italian negative particle
mica. Starting from Schwenter’s (forthcoming) analysis of the information-structural nature
of the constraints observed in the use of “non-canonical” forms of negation, such as Catalan
pas and Italian mica, this paper looks at the diachronic data as a key for capturing the
synchronic properties of such forms. The data are from the Letteratura Italiana Zanichelli and
the Tesoro della Lingua Italiana. The results bear on three main issues: (i) the synchronic and
diachronic properties of negation in a wider context; (ii) concepts such as ‘given’, ‘new’,
‘inferrable’, ‘accessible’ information and the whole dimension of ‘giveness’; (iii) the
contribution of the lexicon to the information-structural dimension of texts.
References
Schwenter, Scott (forthcoming). “Fine-tuning Jespersen’s Cycle”, in: Drawing the Boundaries
of Meaning: Neo-Gricean Studies in Pragmatics and Semantics in Honor of Laurence R.
Horn, ed. by Betty J. Birner and Gregory Ward. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Visconti, Jacqueline (2006), “Lessico e contesto: sulla diacronia di mica”, International
Conference on Testo, Contesto, Lessico, Università di Basilea, 17-18 February 2006.
The Grammaticalisation of Will- and Shall-Futures
in Middle English
Wischer, Ilse
University of Potsdam
wischer@uni-potsdam.de
Although willan and sculan still occurred as lexical verbs in Old English, they had already
developed auxiliary status and were used in periphrastic constructions (cf. Wischer
forthcoming). Here they most often conveyed a deontic modal meaning (of volition or
obligation). However, apart from this there were already epistemic uses and occasionally the
constructions with willan and sculan even referred to mere future events. (for the latter cf.
also Jespersen 1909: 275-276; Mustanoja 1960: 489; Kisbye 1971: 111; Berndt 1982: 148-
149). Bybee et al. (1994: 244) define a genuine future tense as "a prediction on the part of the
speaker that the situation in the proposition, which refers to an event taking place after the
moment of speech, will hold". Thus, as a mere future it must be devoid of any modal meaning
and express just a prediction. Bybee et al. further claim that cross-linguistically agent-oriented
sources of desire or obligation are less amply attested than other source constructions of
future grams, such as those containing movement verbs or ‘be-/become’-verbs. The reason for
this could be that the meaning of volition- or obligation markers might be generally too
specific for a semantic attrition process. In my paper I will approach the question of how will
and shall lost their modal meanings to become future markers, i.e. in what constructions they
were used and what specific meanings they conveyed in these linguistic contexts that allowed
an interpretation in a mere future sense. I will base my analysis on data drawn from the ME
part of the Helsinki Corpus. With this I hope to shed some light on the use of will and shall in
ME, based on the analysis of empirical data as well as to contribute to a better understanding
of the grammaticalisation process of future grams in general.