This paper deals with controversal issues of grammaticalization discourse, involving the status of grammaticalization as a distinct process and the unidirectionality principle. We demonstrate that among the main factors of the dispute there is a deep conflict between functionalists and formalists, which is partially yielded by their different account for the concept of 'science'. We make an attempt to revise most of the degrammaticalization examples in Newmeyer's Language Form and Language Function, to show that they are not valid. By this we try to verify that there is no ground for eliminating the unidirectionality principle, although there are a few real cases of degrammaticalization. We emphasize that the processes grammaticalisation is usually reduced to constitute a qualitatively new phenomenon.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.