From a spatial adposition to a grammatical relations marker: contact- and context-induced grammaticalization and their interaction

Abstract

This paper is an investigation of grammatical relations marking that combines the advances of monolingual analysis with cross-linguistic comparison. It examines adpositions as grammatical relations markers and the linguistic change which leads to the rise of adpositional objects from freely insertable spatial adverbials. This study concentrates on the Finnish adposition perään, ‘after’. An empirical monolingual corpus analysis shows that perään as a grammatical relations marker is a productive device for argument linking in contemporary Finnish. In a cross-linguistic comparison, the properties of Swedish, German and Finnish adpositional objects with efter, nach and perään, ‘after’, are studied with regard to the continuum between prototypical freely insertable adverbials and prototypical adpositional objects. A diachronic comparison, in turn, focuses on the development of adpositional objects from spatial adverbials and examines three alternative possibilities for perään: native grammaticalization, contact-induced grammaticalization and the interaction of both language-internal and -external factors.

http://dx.doi.org/10.5128/LV20.04