The origin of dual-form adverbs: grammaticalization or lexicalization? (original) (raw)

2008, Proceedings from the 31st Aedean Conference Recurso Electronico 2008 Isbn 978 84 9749 278 2 Pags 257 268

The formation of dual-form adverbs, items derived from an elementary adjective which present a suffixless and a suffixed adverbial variant, e.g. short/shortly, is a complex process in which up to three different strategies can be involved, namely conversion, derivation, and historical evolution. Some authors, such as Brinton (2002), Hagège (1993), or Quirk et al. (1985: 1525-1530), among others, have kept these processes within the bounds of lexicalization. However, taking into account the evidence provided by the analysis of the dual-form adverb great/ greatly, this paper tries to demonstrate that the same strategies can result in either lexicalization or grammaticalization. 1 Research for this paper was funded by the Autonomous Government of Galicia (grants no. PGIDIT05PXIC20401PN, 2006/XA-133), the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (grants no. HUM2007-60706 (CONSOLIDER), AP2005-1012) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This support is gratefully acknowledged. 2 I use the label "historical evolution" to refer to a chain of phonological changes which includes the levelling to /e/ of unstressed vowels, the weakening of this /e/ to schwa and its subsequent loss.