Stefanie Kuzmack
e-mail: Kuzmack AT uchicago.edu
Presentations:
International Conference on Grammaticalization and
(Inter)Subjectification (GRAMIS) 2010
Written language as a factor in language change
Linguistic Society of America (LSA) 2009, session on
semantic change
Origin and its connotations: A cline of semantic degrammaticalization
Degrammaticalization is often dismissed on the grounds that it is sporadic and irregular; previously, no clines of degrammaticalization had been identified. However, this paper introduces five parallel cases of degrammaticalization which together suggest such a cline: origin > lexical connotations of origin. The tendency to connect origin with stereotyping and with language varieties, for example, has led to degrammaticalization multiple times. Origin markers (-ish, -ese, etc.) became semantically enriched through the accretion of connotations, until lexical connotations replaced the original genitival functions. Degrammaticalization thus has patterns thought not to exist, and it must be taken into consideration in studying grammaticalization.
American Dialect Society Annual Meeting 2009
Plural all in wh + all constructions (with Rod Edwards as co-author)
Some authors (Hopper & Traugott 2003, Hymes 2004) have claimed that all’s use as a plural marker is limited to you all/y’all, and is not paradigmatic, since it is not used with other personal pronouns. However, all is also productively used with wh-words (e.g. who all, what all…), constructions which have never been closely examined. Indeed, not only does the use of plural all extend to wh + all constructions, but these constructions occur in the northern U.S. dialects as well as in the South, and side-by-side with the plural you guys.
High Desert Linguistics Society (HDLS-8), 2008
Mixed-up metaphors: Temporal metaphors for space in written language
Metaphors are often used in language so that speakers can process abstract concepts in terms of concrete concepts that are “more accessible to human experience” (Claudi & Heine 1986). Thus, space is conceptualized as an object, time as space, etc. Although it has been claimed that this cline of metaphor is unidirectional, space is seen to be conceptualized as time in written language, particularly in academic writing. Written language occurs in space on a page, and writers often use temporal metaphors to refer to that space:
(1) All of these have been studied, but we have no time to go into the details.
(2) There is not enough time to describe all of the algebraic transformations which interrelate the three types of problem.
This inversion of the usual direction of metaphor is due to the fact that written language occurs in space, but speakers are accustomed to thinking of speech acts as something that occur in time. Thus, an abstract concept can metaphorically represent a less abstract concept. It is not abstractness that is the key issue, but rather familiarity: being “accessible to human experience.” As a rule, the concrete is more familiar than the abstract, but in some cases, as in this one, the reverse holds true.
In re degrammaticalization
In a new case from English, the preposition re ‘about, regarding’ offers us an example of degrammaticalization that is not subject to the criticisms used to challenge the legitimacy of other examples of the phenomenon. Re, used in memoranda to indicate the subject line, was adapted to email with a crucial change that made degrammaticalization possible: in email re occurs only in the subject lines of reply messages. This led some speakers to reanalyze re as a noun ‘reply’ instead of a preposition. This reanalysis was made possible by the structure of e-mail headers, a structure of written English that permits prepositions and nouns in the same position. Whether re was interpreted as ‘regarding’ or ‘reply,’ no changes in the construction were necessary. Accordingly, re’s degrammaticalization followed the same sequence of events as in grammaticalization, but in the direction of less grammaticality, rather than more.
Studies in the History of the English Language (SHEL5),
2007
Quotative re: Language change online
A new quotative complementizer, re, has entered English. Unlike the quotatives like and all, re developed online. As a result of that environment, it developed a unique use: bringing quotations (often taken from earlier in the same conversation) back into the discourse in order to set up responding to those statements. This usage stems from the nature of threaded discussions, where the long turns make it useful to quote previous statements in order to clarify what is being responded to. The case of re demonstrates that language change can occur in a written medium without input from spoken language, and illustrates the role that context of use plays in shaping change.
Linguistic Society of America (LSA) 2007, session on
historical syntax
Ish: A new case of antigrammaticalization
The history of the English morpheme –ish is a clear-cut instance of degrammaticalization. This paper applies Haspelmath’s (2004) concept of antigrammaticalization and the stringent criteria that it sets for legitimate examples of degrammaticalization to the case of –ish (‘somewhat’). Although Haspelmath found only nine examples that met his criteria, -ish does so, as well: it has gradually degrammaticalized, moving from a suffix, to an enclitic, to an independent word, and has preserved its identity as a qualifier throughout. Ish thus constitutes a tenth example of antigrammaticalization and the third in English alone.
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