The Linguistic Cycle:
grammaticalization, economy,
and pronouns
Elly van Gelderen
Workshop Internacional sobre Gramaticalização
26 August 2010
ellyvangelderen@asu.edu
Outline
Grammaticalization
Linguistic Cycle
Formal account of both: Feature Economy
Subject Cycle across languages
Implications
Aims
• To identify recurring linguistic change
• To explain this in terms of the child
interpreting input in a particular way
• Examine internal and external factors of
linguistic change and their interaction
Grammaticalization
(1)
phrase > word/head > clitic > affix > 0
adjunct > argument > agreement > 0
(2)
lexical head > grammatical > 0
Examples of Cycles
Negative Cycle
a negative argument > negative adverb > negative
particle > zero
b verb > aspect > negative > C
Subject Agreement
demonstrative/emphatic > 3 pronoun > agreement
> zero
noun/emphatic > 1/2 pronouns > agreement > zero
Case or Definiteness or DP
demonstrative > definite article > ‘Case’ > zero
Future and Aspect Auxiliary
A/P > M > T > C
Negative Cycle in Old English
450-1400 CE
a.
no/ne
early Old English
b.
ne
after 900, esp S
c.
(ne) not
d.
not >
(na wiht/not)
after 1350
-not/-n’t
after 1400
Old English:
(1) Men ne cunnon secgan to soðe ... hwa
Man not could tell to truth ... who
`No man can tell for certain ... who'.
(2) Næron 3e noht æmetti3e, ðeah ge wel ne
dyden
not-were you not unoccupied. though you
well not did
`You were not unoccupied, though you did
not do well'.
Weakening and renewal
(1) we cannot tell of (Wycliff Sermons from the
1380s)
(2) But I shan't put you to the trouble of farther
Excuses, if you please this Business shall rest
here. (Vanbrugh, The Relapse1680s).
(3) that the sonne dwellith therfore nevere the
more ne lasse in oon signe than in another
(Chaucer, Astrolabe 665 C1).
(4) No, I never see him these days (BNC - A9H
350)
The Negative Cycle
XP
Spec
na wiht
X'
X
not > n’t
YP
…
Cycle or Spiral?
von der Gabelentz 1901:
“always the same: the development curves back
towards isolation, not in the old way, but in a
parallel fashion. That's why I compare them to
spirals.”
(“immer gilt das Gleiche: die Entwicklungslinie
krümmt sich zurück nach der Seite der Isolation,
nicht in die alte Bahn, sondern in eine
annähernd parallele. Darum vergleiche ich sie
der Spirale”, p 256).
The Linguistic Cycle
- Gardiner (1904): Egyptian Negative cycle
- Hodge (1970: 3): Old Egyptian
morphological complexity (synthetic stage)
turned into Middle Egyptian syntactic
structures (analytic stage) and then back
into morphological complexity in Coptic.
- Givón (1971) “today’s morphology is
yesterday's syntax“.
Language Change =
- Cycles are the result of reanalysis by the
language learner who apply Economy
Principles. I argue that the real sources of
change are internal principles.
- This is very different from models such as
Lightfoot's and Westergaard’s that examine how
much input a child needs to reset a parameter.
According to Lightfoot, "children scan their
linguistic environment for structural cues" (2006:
32); for these, change comes from the outside
Internal Grammar
Macrocycles or Microcycles?
- Hodge (1970: 3): Old Egyptian morphological
complexity (synthetic stage) turned into Middle
Egyptian syntactic structures (analytic stage)
and then back into morphological complexity in
Coptic.
- Heine et al. (1991: 246): there is “more
justification to apply the notion of a linguistic
cycle to individual linguistic developments.”
- EvG: some cycles (e.g. agreement) are more
important for the typology of a language than
others (e.g. negative)
Why are Cycles interesting?
If these are real patterns of change,
then they give insight in the Faculty of
Language
Factors:
1. Genetic endowment
2. Experience
3. Principles not specific to language
Three factors, e.g. Chomsky 2007
(1) genetic endowment, which sets limits on the
attainable languages, thereby making language
acquisition possible;
(2) external data, converted to the experience that
selects one or another language within a narrow
range;
(3) principles not specific to [the Faculty of
Language]. Some of the third factor principles
have the flavor of the constraints that enter into
all facets of growth and evolution, [...] Among
these are principles of efficient computation"
Faculty of Language:
what, how, why
Descriptive and explanatory
But currently also why, e.g.
- structure dependence rather than linear?
- why grammaticalization?
Economy
Locality = Minimize computational burden
(Ross 1967; Chomsky 1973)
Use a head = Minimize Structure (Head
Preference Principle, van Gelderen 2004)
Late Merge = Minimize computational
burden (van Gelderen 2004, and others)
If there are Economy Principles,
they should be visible in Lg Change
Two main patterns (van Gelderen 2004 etc):
a)
b)
Phrase to Head
Up the tree: both phrases and heads
Principles: acquisition and derivation
What:
(a) Phrase (Specifier) > Head
Full pronoun to agreement
Demonstrative that to complementizer
Demonstrative pronoun to article
Negative adverb phrase to negation marker
Adverb phrase to aspect marker
Adverb phrase to complementizer
and (b) higher in the tree
On, from P to ASP (I am on going)
VP Adverbials > TP/CP Adverbials
Like, from P > C (like I said)
Negative objects to negative markers
Modals: v > ASP > T
Negative verbs to auxiliaries
To: P > ASP > M > C
PP > C (for something to happen)
Reanalysis of `how’ as Yes/No:
How/why: Cognitive Economy
(or UG) principles
help the learner, e.g:
Phrase > head (minimize structure)
Avoid too much movement
(1)
XP
Spec
X'
X
YP
Y
…
Computational - Lexical
• Structural Economy is computational
• If all variation is in the lexicon, is there also
`help’ for the learner there?
• Yes, Feature Economy: if you have a LI
with i-F, use it with u-F as well.
The Subject Cycle
(1) demonstrative > third person pron > clitic > agrmnt
(2) oblique > emphatic > first/second pron > clitic > agrmnt
Basque verbal prefixes n-, g-, z- = pronouns ni ‘I’, gu ‘we’,
and zu ‘you’.
Pama-Nyungan, inflectional markers are derived from
independent pronouns.
Iroquoian and Uto-Aztecan agreement markers derive from
Proto-Iroquoian pronouns
Cree verbal markers ni-, ki-, o-/ø = pronouns niya, kiya,
wiya.
Subject vs Agreement
Theta XP/X fixed lang
Full pron
yes
Head pron yes
Agrmnt =PAL yes
Agreement no
XP
no
X
X
X
no
yes
yes
Hindi/Urdu,
Japanese
French, (English)
Arabic, Navajo
Hindi/Urdu, English
Some stages
Japanese and Urdu/Hindi: full pronoun
(1)
watashi-wa kuruma-o
unten-suru kara.
I-TOP
car-ACC
drive-NONPST PRT
‘I will drive the car'. (Yoko Matsuzaki p.c.)
(2)
tiisai kare
small he
(3)
watashi-wa drove the car
I-TOP
‘I drove the car.’ (Yoko Matsuzaki p.c.).
(4)
mẽy nee
us
ko
dekha
1S
ERG him DAT saw
(5)
ham log `we people‘
(6)
mẽy or merii behn doonõ dilii mẽy rehtee hẽ
I and my sister both Delhi in living are
English: in transition
(a) Modification, (b) coordination, (c) position,
(d) doubling, (e) loss of V-movement, (f) Code switching
Coordination (and Case)
(1)
Kitty and me were to spend the day.
(2)
%while he and she went across the hall.
Position
(3)
She’s very good, though I perhaps I shouldn’t say
so.
(4)
You maybe you've done it but have forgotten.
(5)
Me, I was flying economy, but the plane, … was
guzzling gas
Doubling and cliticization
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Me, I've tucking had it with the small place.
%Him, he ....
%Her, she shouldn’t do that (not
attested in the BNC)
*As for a dog, it should be happy.
CSE-FAC:
uncliticized
I
2037
you 1176
he 128
cliticized
685 (=25%)
162 (=12.1%)
19 (=12.9%)
total
2722
1338
147
Loss of V-movement and Code
switching
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
What I'm go'n do?
`What am I going to do'
How she's doing?
`How is she doing‘
*He ging weg `he went away’ Dutch-English CS
The neighbor ging weg
Standard to Colloquial French
(a) Modification, (b) coordination, (c) position, (d) doubling,
(e) loss of V-movement, (f) Code switching
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
et c'est elle qui a eu la place.
and it was her who has had the place
*Je et tu ...
*je lis et ecris
Moi, j’ai pas
vu ça.
Et toi, tu aimes le rap?
on voit que lui il n'apprécie pas tellement la politique
one sees that him he not-appreciates not so the
politics (LTSN corpus, p. 15-466)
More doubling, loss of V-movement
and code switching
(1) une omelette elle est comme ça
Swiss Spoken
an omelette she is like this
(2) c'est que chacun il a sa manière de ...
Swiss Spoken
it is that everyone he has his way of
(Fonseca-Greber 2000: 335; 338).
(3) Alors pourquoi moi aussi je n'aurais pas le droit d'enfumer les
autres quelques minutes
dans un bar?
Then why me also I not-have not the right to fill-with-smoke the
others some minutes in a bar
(4)
(5)
tu
vas
où
Colloquial French
2S
go
where
nta tu vas travailler
Arabic-French
you you go work
(from Bentahila and Davies 1983: 313).
Brazilian Portuguese
(1)
Vossa mercê > Vosmecê
your favor/mercy
> (V)ocê
you
>
cê
you-indefinite
(see Mattoso Câmara 1979; Gonçalves 1987; Dutra 1991, cited in Vitral &
Ramos 2006)
(2)
cê only in subject position and pre-V
(3)
ele(s) >
ela(s) >
(4)
es inventa um bocado de coisa / eles inventam …
`they invented (S) …’
el, es
éa, éas
Italian
Venice
(1)
Ti te magni sempre
you you eat always
(2)
Nissun (*el) magna
Nobody he eats (both from Poletto 2004)
Trentino
(3)
Nisun
l'ha dit
niente
nobody
he-has
said nothing
`Nobody said anything'
(4)
Tut
l'è
capita
de not
everything it-has happened
at night
(both from Brandi & Cordin 1989:118)
Subject Cycle: HPP and LMP
TP
DP
pron
T’
T
TP (=HPP)
DP
T’
VP pron pron-T
VP
…
Urdu/Hindi, Japanese
…
Coll French, CVC
TP
[DP]
[pron]
T’
pron-T
Navajo, Spanish, Arabic
(=LMP)
VP
Actual Mechanism
• stage (a): the pronoun moves from specifier of
vP to specifier of a higher FP
• stage (b): the subject pronoun moves from vPinternal position. At what point is the pronoun a
head? Chomsky (1995: 249) says "a clitic raises
from its [theta]-position, and attaches to an
inflectional head. In its [theta]-position, the clitic
is an XP; attachment to a head requires that it
be an Xo".
• stage (c): pronouns in the higher position are
reanalyzed as agreement markers (=LMP)
Why does `person’ start the cycle?
Definiteness Hierarchy
1/2 > 3 > definite > indefinite/quantifier
Another instance: Mexican Spanish, overt
Subject:1sg 24.4%
2sg 12.5%
3sg 8.2% (Lopez, 2007)
Poletto (2000): SCL replaces features on a
verb; different positions.
Feature Economy
and the Subject Cycle
emphatic/
demonstrative >
[i-phi]
[i-deixis]
personal > agreement
[i-phi]
[u-phi]
[u-Case]
Feature Economy
Minimize the interpretable features in the derivation, e.g:
(1)
(2)
Adjunct
Specifier
Head affix
semantic
>
[iF]
>
[uF]
emphatic > full pronoun > head > agreement
[i-phi]
[i-phi] [u-1/2] [i-3] [u-phi]
Chomsky (1995: 230; 381) "formal features have
semantic correlates and reflect semantic properties
(accusative Case and transitivity, for example)." This
makes sense if a language learner uses the semantic
features in the derivation, these features turning into
interpretable ones so to speak.
Feature Economy:
select minimum from the lexicon
Locative
semantic >
Specifier
[iF]
>
Head
[uF] >
Head
>
[iF] / [uF]
(higher) Head
[uF]
>
uF is a Probe
0
affix
--
What are some of the features?
TP
T'
T
vP
DP
v
[u-phi]
[ACC]
v'
VP
DP
[i-phi]
[u-Case]
V’
V
Semantic, interpretable, and uninterpretable
Source of renewal
Subject
Oblique
Old French
Emph
Regular
tu
zero
toi
te
(from Harris 1978)
Modern French
Emph Regular
toi
tu
toi
te
Pronominal Argument Languages, e.g.
Navajo
(a) optionality of nominals and sentences with more than
one nominal are rare. Therefore: nominals are adjuncts,
sometimes with a different case system (e.g. Jelinek
1989)
(1)
(2)
bínabinishtin
b-í-na-bi-ni-sh-tin
3-against-around-3-Q-1S-handle-IMPF
`I teach it to him' (Y&M 1987: 223)
(Diné bizaad) yíníshta'
Navajo language 1-study
`I am studying Navajo'.
(b) Absence of anaphors and non-referential
quantified DPs and (c) minimal embedding
(1)
(2)
má'ii
ałtso dibé
baayijah
coyote
all
sheep
3-3-ran-away
`The sheep ran away from all the coyotes' or
`All the sheep ran away from the coyotes'.
(Jelinek 2001: 18).
honeesná-nígíí
yoodlá
3.win-NOM
3.believe
`He believes he won' or
`he believes the winner' (Willie 1991: 178).
Back to English: features of DP
(1)
(2)
a.
b.
c.
*That the dog loves their the toys.
I saw that.
*I saw the.
DP
DP
that
D’
D
NP
[i-loc] D
NP the
3S
[i-ps]
3S [u-phi]
History: Dem > Article
(1) hu ða
æþelingas ellen fremedon
how those nobles
courage did
'how the nobles performed heroic acts' (Beowulf 3)
(2) se wæs Wine haten & se wæs in Gallia rice gehalgod.
he was wine called and he was in Gaul consecrated
(3)Hi habbad mid him awyriedne engel, mancynnes feond,
and se hæfd andweald...
They have with them corrupt angel, mankind’s enemy,
and he [the angel] has power over... (Ælfric, Homilies
ii.488.14)
(1) gife to … þa munecas of þe mynstre
give to … the monks of the abbey (Peterborough
Chron 1150)
(2) *the (Wood 2003: 69)
(3) Morret's brother came out of Scoteland for
th'acceptacion of the peax
(The Diary of Edward VI, 1550s)
(4) Oh they used to be ever so funny houses you
know and in them days … They used to have
big windows, but they used to a all be them
there little tiny ones like that. (BNC - FYD 72)
OE pronouns and demonstratives
He, heo, hit, hi
non-deictic
reflexive
-
se, seo, etc.
deictic
relative clause
So 1200: a reanalysis
(1) & gaddresst swa þe clene corn All fra þe chaff
togeddre
`and so you gather the clear wheat from the
chaff.’ (Ormulum 1484-5, Holt edition)
(2) 3ho wass … Elysabæþ 3ehatenn
`She was called Elisabeth.’ (Ormulum 115)
(3) & swa þe33 leddenn heore lif Till þatt te33
wærenn alde
`and so they led their lives until they were old.’
(Ormulum 125-6)
(4) þin forrme win iss swiþe god, þin lattre win iss
bettre.
`Your earlier wine is very good, your later wine is
better.’ (Ormulum 15409)
Internal
se -->
the
that -->
that
him/her --> him/herself
External
seo --> she
hi --> they
a. se
>
the
[i-loc]/[i-phi]
[u-T]/[u-ps]
b. he/hi
is replaced by
he
heo/ha is replaced by
she (possibly via seo)
hi/hie
is replaced by
they
[i-phi]
[i-phi]/[i-loc]
Conclusions
• (Micro)-Cycles exist
• Economy Principles = Third factor
• Children use these to analyze their input +
there is language change if accepted.
• Change is from the inside
• Possible Principles: HPP and LMP;
Feature Economy
• Grammaticalization (SM Economy) vs
renewal(CI Economy)
And uF is `normal’
Chomsky (2002: 113) sees the semantic
component as expressing thematic as well
as discourse information. If thematic
structure was already present in protolanguage (Bickerton 1990), the
evolutionary change of Merge made them
linguistic. What was added through
grammaticalization is the morphology, the
second layer of semantic information.
Some References
Chomsky, Noam 2007. Approaching UG from below, in Uli Sauerland et
al. (eds), Interfaces + Recursion = Language, 1-29. Berlin: Mouton
de Gruyter.
Gardiner, Alan H. 1904. The word ... Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache
und Altertumskunde 41: 130-135.
Gelderen, Elly van 2004. Grammaticalization as Economy. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
Gelderen, Elly van to appear. The Linguistic Cycle. OUP.
Givón, Talmy 1971. Historical syntax and synchronic morphology.
Chicago Linguistic Society Proceedings 7: 394-415.
Hodge, Carleton 1970. The Linguistic Cycle. Linguistic Sciences
Vitral, Lorenso & Jânia Ramos 2006. Gramaticalização: uma
abordagem formal. Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro.