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words become bound, this study aims at commenting on the feasibility of the
assumptions made in grammaticalization and diachronic typology.
Grammaticalization can be conceived of as a number of interdependent
processes on all levels of linguistic description, namely phonology, morpho-syntax and
semantics. The various phonetic, morpho-syntactic and functional processes which
constitute grammaticalization are summarized in Table 1, adapted from the essential
reading in grammaticalization, cf. Lehmann [1982] 1995, 1985; Heine & Reh 1984;
Heine, Claudi & Hünnemeyer 1991; Hopper & Traugott 1993; Diewald 1997.
Table 1: Phonetic, morpho-syntactic and functional processes in grammaticalization
Content Function Clitic Affix Zero
word word
Phonetic
processes
Adaptation, erosion, fusion, and loss
Morpho-syntactic Permutation, cliticization, affixation, and fossilization
processes
compounding
Functional
processes
Desemanticization, expansion, simplification, and merger
Concentrating on cliticization as a sub-process of grammaticalization, progression on
the function word > clitic > affix cline is associated with a number of interdependent
processes which lead to a change in the grammatical status of the element in question.
In morpho-syntax, the distribution of an element is subject to change. Whereas a full
word may be free to appear in various slots within a sentence, a cliticized function word
will typically appear in a fixed position with respect to a phrasal constituent and thus
become syntactically bound. A second step in distributional specialization is observed
when the element in question becomes dependent on a word, thus progressing from
being bound to a phrasal domain to being bound to a word domain and thus
morphologically bound (this second step is referred to as ‘morphologization’ by
Lehmann [1982] 1995 and ‘affixation’ by Heine & Reh 1984). The most obvious
functional correlate of change in morpho-syntactic status is change in scope properties.
When a function word becomes bound to a phrasal domain, it will have scope over this
very phrase; for instance, a clitic postposition will have scope over its complement NP,
even if it consists of two conjunct NPs. When an element has become bound to a word
domain, its scope will be restricted to this domain. In the example of two conjunct NPs,
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