Eng gram 2 L10W33 06/05/26
Where do auxiliaries come from? 1: New Modals
Grammaticalization
Where does grammar from?
What’s the most creepily intelligent thing your pet has ever done
→ creepily intelligent thing pet done: relatively concrete because they refer to a thing, concept, action, emotion, …
→ what most your ever: Somewhat abstract, requires more abstraction or context-dependent perspective
→ ‘s the has: most abstract
Grammaticalization: The change whereby lexical items and constructions come in certain linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions and, once grammaticalized, continue to develop grammatical functions
Grammar is cyclical. Ultimately grammaticalized items tend to dissappear. disappearance and emergence of grammar are gradual processes
1/ Be going to / gonna
Has grammaticalized the most
Various stages: Movement> intention > prediction > command
I am going to / * gonna church
I am going to / gonna marry
It’s going to / gonna rain tomorrow
You’re going to / gonna take your shoes off before you come here
Original situation: Spatial motion to place + action to be performed once arrived
Step 1: Motion is lost, animacy (control remains)
Generally more attention to purpose than motion → Backgrounding / bleaching of spatial semantics eventually leads to loss of motion
Syntactic reanalysis: Loss of motion leads to reanalysis of the grammatical pattern: [Be going to] [to V] > [be going to V].
A construction is born
[To INF] no longer optional
Sense of futurity holistically redistributed across entire construction
The future changed: inanimates
Step II: Control is lost, inanimates are introduced
5: i am going to die
6: Now death is going to deliver me from the Barbarians
Actualization: a point of no return
Formal evidence: going has become an auxiliary without a subject of it’s own
7: No privateers are suffer’d to go out as yet, but we hear there is going to be a new Regulation about it.
Phonetic reduction
High frequency leads to reduction
Am going to → ‘m going to → ‘m gonto → ‘m gonna / ‘m a
Reduced forms
8: Now Willie Lad, i’m gonna gie
9: Drake says he gonna do some reggae riddims
10: i’m a stand on this corner where she can see me
Later and more recent developments: Statements about distant feature, Hypothetical future: progressive semantics is lost, obligation
divergence of lexical and grammatical use
Syntactic divergence:
Ex. Harry and meghan are going to Dubbo on October 17th
Phonological divergence
Ex. Harry and Meghan *gonna Dubbo
From possesive have got to to gotta
Originally possessive: → problem: there appears to be no transition between these uses. Does this contract the assumption of gradualness
at stage II: The object is shared by have and to-infinitive
At stage III (invisible): The double relationship is backgrounded
At stage IV: The object only depends on the to-infinitive
→ Syntactic status of the object has changed
The role of bridging contexts: say verbs
In have X to SAY possessive meaning has bleached
→ Hearer looks for more newsworhy interpretation
Pragmatic context: Forced to say X
Next → Semantics: ‘being obliged’ becomes part of meaning of have
From III to IV
Word order change started in relative clauses and questions
…
Further developments
Analogical extension to intransitive infinitives
extension to epistemic modality
→ actualization: all conections with possession are lost
From have to to have got to
Have got to occurs with sense of obligation
Have got to probably borrowed it’s modal semantics directly from have to
Wanna
Original sense : lack or absensce
Need and desire: Many contexts of lacking evoke necessity or desire → implied sense becomes coded meaning.
Recent developments: Advice giving. Pragmatically implied meaning: it is in your interest to do so
Conclusion
grammaticalization involves returning phenomena
Backgrounding of original meaning
Foregrounding of implied meaning
Syntactic reanalysis and expansion
Actualization: extension to forms and meanings that are incompatible with original function and meaning
New modals
Finna: Different from gonna semantically.
Gonna means planned future, finna is for circumstances or situations which will probably happen but not necessarily
Historically and sociolinguistically:
Be going to starts grammaticalizing in pre-colonial times and spreads worldwide
Be fixing to starts in Afro-American English in souther states
derives from fix (set in order, arrange)
…