Affordances perspective and grammaticalization: Incorporation of language, environment and users in the model of semantic paths

• Authors: Alexander Andrason , Marianna Visser
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The present paper demonstrates that insights from the affordances perspective can contribute to developing a more comprehensive model of grammaticalization. The authors argue that the grammaticalization process is afforded differently depending on the values of three contributing parameters: the factor (schematized as a qualitative-quantitative map or a wave of a gram), environment (understood as the structure of the stream along which the gram travels), and actor (narrowed to certain cognitive-epistemological capacities of the users, in particular to the fact of being a native speaker). By relating grammaticalization to these three parameters and by connecting it to the theory of optimization, the proposed model offers a better approximation to realistic cases of grammaticalization: The actor and environment are overtly incorporated into the model and divergences from canonical grammaticalization paths are both tolerated and explicable.

Keywords

EN

affordances; grammaticalization; cognitive maps; verbal semantics; complexity; optimization

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 5
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 663-696

Dates

published

2015-12-10

Contributors

author

Alexander Andrason

• Department of African Languages, Stellenbosch University; Matieland 7602, South Africa

author

Marianna Visser

• Department of African Languages, Stellenbosch University; Matieland 7602, South Africa

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Identifiers

DOI

10.14746/ssllt.2015.5.4.7