Grammaticalization degrees in Catalan anar vs. estar + adjective in the 19th and 20th centuries: A language contact, corpus-based distributional approach

The present study constitutes an exploratory analysis of the use of the Catalan constructions anar (‘to go’) + adjective and estar (‘to be’) + adjective in writing during the 19th and 20th centuries. In modern Catalan, anar and estar can be used before an adjective as copulas, with an identical or...

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Autor principal:	Marc Gandarillas
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 2020
Materias:	grammaticalization corpus linguistics Romance languages historical linguistics language change pragmatics Romanic languages PC1-5498 Philology. Linguistics P1-1091
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/5fb3cafb547145279ebb6d6b23673906
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:5fb3cafb547145279ebb6d6b236739062021-12-01T12:13:59ZGrammaticalization degrees in Catalan anar vs. estar + adjective in the 19th and 20th centuries: A language contact, corpus-based distributional approach10.5565/rev/isogloss.932385-4138https://doaj.org/article/5fb3cafb547145279ebb6d6b236739062020-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://revistes.uab.cat/isogloss/article/view/93https://doaj.org/toc/2385-4138 The present study constitutes an exploratory analysis of the use of the Catalan constructions anar (‘to go’) + adjective and estar (‘to be’) + adjective in writing during the 19th and 20th centuries. In modern Catalan, anar and estar can be used before an adjective as copulas, with an identical or similar meaning (e.g., en Joan va begut, en Joan està begut ‘John is drunk’). Both constructions show evidence of being highly grammaticalized and are apparently found in free variation rather than complementary distribution. However, a closer approach seems to reveal certain underlying linguistic factors that might be informing such contrast, specifically within the semantic-pragmatic sphere. This is here explored using the narrow theory of grammaticalization (Hopper & Traugott 2003), a multistage process by which lexical (i.e., contextual) items eventually become functional (i.e., grammatical) over time. A corpus-based search was conducted using the electronic version of the Corpus Textual Informatitzat de la Llengua Catalana (CTILC), which comprises literary and non-literary texts published between 1833 and 1988. Anar + adjective and estar + adjective tokens were obtained from a sample of texts, then sorted into four different groups corresponding to century halves. The search results from the corpus were randomly sorted in terms of genre and date and, from these, the top 250 tokens on the list of results for each construction were selected and subsequently analyzed. Whereas few instances of both constructions are found overall in the first half of the 19th century, estar already prevails over anar when followed by an adjective. During the first half of the 20th century, however, this trend starts to be reversed. This suggests the possibility that anar and estar might have traditionally been found in free variation in a number of contexts, with 19th century texts showing a clear preference for estar. Marc GandarillasUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelonaarticlegrammaticalizationcorpus linguisticsRomance languageshistorical linguisticslanguage changepragmaticsRomanic languagesPC1-5498Philology. LinguisticsP1-1091ENIsogloss, Vol 6 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	grammaticalization corpus linguistics Romance languages historical linguistics language change pragmatics Romanic languages PC1-5498 Philology. Linguistics P1-1091
spellingShingle	grammaticalization corpus linguistics Romance languages historical linguistics language change pragmatics Romanic languages PC1-5498 Philology. Linguistics P1-1091 Marc Gandarillas Grammaticalization degrees in Catalan anar vs. estar + adjective in the 19th and 20th centuries: A language contact, corpus-based distributional approach
description	The present study constitutes an exploratory analysis of the use of the Catalan constructions anar (‘to go’) + adjective and estar (‘to be’) + adjective in writing during the 19th and 20th centuries. In modern Catalan, anar and estar can be used before an adjective as copulas, with an identical or similar meaning (e.g., en Joan va begut, en Joan està begut ‘John is drunk’). Both constructions show evidence of being highly grammaticalized and are apparently found in free variation rather than complementary distribution. However, a closer approach seems to reveal certain underlying linguistic factors that might be informing such contrast, specifically within the semantic-pragmatic sphere. This is here explored using the narrow theory of grammaticalization (Hopper & Traugott 2003), a multistage process by which lexical (i.e., contextual) items eventually become functional (i.e., grammatical) over time. A corpus-based search was conducted using the electronic version of the Corpus Textual Informatitzat de la Llengua Catalana (CTILC), which comprises literary and non-literary texts published between 1833 and 1988. Anar + adjective and estar + adjective tokens were obtained from a sample of texts, then sorted into four different groups corresponding to century halves. The search results from the corpus were randomly sorted in terms of genre and date and, from these, the top 250 tokens on the list of results for each construction were selected and subsequently analyzed. Whereas few instances of both constructions are found overall in the first half of the 19th century, estar already prevails over anar when followed by an adjective. During the first half of the 20th century, however, this trend starts to be reversed. This suggests the possibility that anar and estar might have traditionally been found in free variation in a number of contexts, with 19th century texts showing a clear preference for estar.
format	article
author	Marc Gandarillas
author_facet	Marc Gandarillas
author_sort	Marc Gandarillas
title	Grammaticalization degrees in Catalan anar vs. estar + adjective in the 19th and 20th centuries: A language contact, corpus-based distributional approach
title_short	Grammaticalization degrees in Catalan anar vs. estar + adjective in the 19th and 20th centuries: A language contact, corpus-based distributional approach
title_full	Grammaticalization degrees in Catalan anar vs. estar + adjective in the 19th and 20th centuries: A language contact, corpus-based distributional approach
title_fullStr	Grammaticalization degrees in Catalan anar vs. estar + adjective in the 19th and 20th centuries: A language contact, corpus-based distributional approach
title_full_unstemmed	Grammaticalization degrees in Catalan anar vs. estar + adjective in the 19th and 20th centuries: A language contact, corpus-based distributional approach
title_sort	grammaticalization degrees in catalan anar vs. estar + adjective in the 19th and 20th centuries: a language contact, corpus-based distributional approach
publisher	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/5fb3cafb547145279ebb6d6b23673906
work_keys_str_mv	AT marcgandarillas grammaticalizationdegreesincatalananarvsestaradjectiveinthe19thand20thcenturiesalanguagecontactcorpusbaseddistributionalapproach
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Grammaticalization degrees in Catalan anar vs. estar + adjective in the 19th and 20th centuries: A language contact, corpus-based distributional approach

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