The role of pragmatics for grammatical change: the case of preverbal non

Abstract

What is the role of pragmatics in the evolution of grammatical paradigms? It is to maintain marked candidates that may come to be the default expression. This perspective is validated by the Jespersen cycle, where the standard expression of sentential negation is renewed as pragmatically marked negatives achieve default status. How status changes are effected, however, remains to be documented. This is what is achieved in this paper that looks at the evolution of preverbal negative non in Old and Middle French. The negative, which categorically marks pragmatic activation (Dryer 1996) with finite verbs in Old French, loses this value when used with non-finite verbs in Middle French. This process is accompanied by competing semantic reanalyses of the distribution of infinitives negated in this way, and by the co-occurrence with a greater lexical variety of verbs. The absence of pragmatic contribution should lead the marker to take on the role of default, which is already fulfilled by a well-established ne ... pas, pushing non to decline. Hard empirical evidence is thus provided that validates the assumed role of pragmatics in the Jespersen cycle, supporting the general view of pragmatics as supporting alternative candidates that may or may not achieve default status in the evolution of a grammatical paradigm.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.12.012
Divisions: ?? 29721300Jl ??
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Centre for Language Research at Aston (CLaRA)
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Aston Centre for Europe
Additional Information: NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Pragmatics. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Larrivée, Pierre (2011). The role of pragmatics for grammatical change: the case of preverbal non. Journal of Pragmatics, 43 (7), pp. 1987-1996. Doi 10.1016/j.pragma.2010.12.012
Uncontrolled Keywords: pragmatics,evolution,grammatical paradigms,default expression,Jespersen cycle,sentential negation,pragmatically marked negatives,evolution of preverbal negative,non,Old French,Middle French,negative,pragmatic activation,finite verbs,non-finite verbs,semantic reanalyses,infinitives negated,Arts and Humanities(all),Language and Linguistics,Artificial Intelligence,Psychology(all),Linguistics and Language
Publication ISSN: 0378-2166
Last Modified: 20 Mar 2024 08:09
Date Deposited: 14 Dec 2010 14:42
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2011-05
Authors: Larrivée, Pierre

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