Re: RT list: RT and grammaticalization

----Mensaje original----
De: steve_nicolle@sil.org
Fecha: 03/08/2009 9:22
Para: <relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk>
Asunto: RT list: RT and grammaticalization

Hi,

Has anyone apart from myself and Randy LaPolla investigated
grammaticalization from the perspective of RT? I&#39;d be grateful to
receive electronic versions of papers (off-list). These may be cited in
a chapter of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization.

Many thanks in advance,
Steve Nicolle

Dear Steve,

I published an article on grammaticalization a year ago entitled “Hacia un estudio léxico-pragmático de la gramaticalización: convencionalización de inferencias y conceptos ad hoc” (“Towards a lexical-pragmatic analysis of grammaticalization: conventionalization of inferences and ad hoc concepts”) in which I argue for the relevance-theoretic lexical pragmatic framework as the basis for an adequate account of the grammaticalization of the English modals. Specifically, I try to show that the early stages of the process consist in the creation, in certain stereotypical contexts, of ad hoc concepts (the concepts communicated by utterances containing modals differing in significant ways from the concepts encoded by these verbs). As I hope to have shown, the frequent use of modals in these contexts gives rise, on the one hand, to the conventionalization of this kind of inference and, on the other, to a loss of conceptual content, such as the modals’ semantic restrictions on argument structure (bleaching). As the result of this gradual loss of conceptual meaning, the modals acquire a more general meaning (generalization) in which only the logical (= modal) semantic properties of these verbs are retained (retention). The change from conceptual to procedural meaning is thus accounted for. It seems to me that this hypothesis is perfectly compatible with the existing synchronic accounts of modality within the Relevance Theory framework.

The paper is published in Mora Millán, M. L. (ed.), Cognición y Lenguaje. Estudios en Homenaje a José Luis Guijarro Morales, Cádiz, Univesidad de Cádiz. I’m sending you a version of the paper (off-list). If you cannot read Spanish, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thanks a lot.

José Luis
Received on Sun Aug 9 11:55:59 2009