From possession to obligation: modal grammaticalization and variation
Open Access
- Author:
- Bauman, Joseph Robert
- Graduate Program:
- Spanish
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- April 12, 2013
- Committee Members:
- Rena Torres Cacoullos, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
John Lipski, Committee Member
Philip Baldi, Committee Member
Barry Richard Page Jr., Committee Member - Keywords:
- Language change
language variation
grammaticalization
Spanish
linguistics
historical linguistics - Abstract:
- Previous studies of grammaticalization and semantic change have found evidence of a crosslinguistic tendency for lexical verbs of possession to develop modal meanings (Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca 1994; Heine and Kuteva 2002). The present research finds quantitative evidence of the mechanisms contributing to gradual meaning change in one such instance, that of the Modern Spanish deontic modal construction [tener que + Infinitive] ‘to have to’. In the process, the grammaticalizing form is considered as part of a variable context, in which it alternates with several other modal constructions. The investigation outlined here is aimed at delineating and quantifying the processes at work via text-based, measurable evidence, and accomplishes two objectives. The first is to survey the grammaticalization of the [tener que + Infinitive] construction itself, assessing the factors involved its semantic development, such as semantic bleaching and abstraction, internal structural changes, increases in its token frequency, and its distribution among ever larger numbers of distinct lexical verb types. Second, the individual form is considered as part of a variable context, in which it alternates with several other modal constructions. Utilizing variationist methodology (Sankoff 1988) in the analysis of the construction’s diachronic advancement provides a theoretical and empirical perspective whose benefits have only begun to be explored by researchers of grammaticalization (Poplack 2011). From a corpus of written texts and transcribed interviews representing Spanish from the 12th to the 20th centuries, a total of 5168 tokens were extracted. These were analyzed through an operationalization of various factors conditioning the occurrence of the tener que construction; the results find that grammatical person, aspect, and polarity are all influential in the selection of the innovative [tener que + Infintive] over alternative forms (haber de, deber (de), haber que). In the nine centuries considered here, the tener que construction develops from an effectively nonexistent particular usage of the lexical possession verb tener ‘to have’ to eventually become the predominant periphrastic modal expression used to express obligation. The systematic methodology used here to trace its development provides quantitative detail not found in previous accounts of the evolution of [tener que + Infinitive]. Furthermore, the results of this study confirm several predictions made by theoretical descriptions of grammaticalization, call into question certain claims about Spanish obligation expressions, and present a fresh perspective on the arrangement of conditioning factors that shape the modal domain of obligation.