From 'big' to 'much' : On the grammaticalization of two gradable adjectives in Swedish
(2021) p.319-337- Abstract
In this paper, I give a short description of a language change that can be viewed as an instance of grammaticalization, namely the transition of the two adjectives mycken/t and liten/t into quantifiers. Data from the corpus of Swedish drama dialogue reveal that liten/t became a quantifier as early as the 1700s, whereas mycken/t seems to have gone through the same change roughly 150 years later. Inherent plurals (such as pengar, 'money') appear to be a promising context for the starting point of the transition. I further illustrate how both quantifiers have weak and strong versions in present-day Swedish, and I argue that weak mycket (myke) has turned into a negative polarity item that is found in negated clauses (but not for example in... (More)
In this paper, I give a short description of a language change that can be viewed as an instance of grammaticalization, namely the transition of the two adjectives mycken/t and liten/t into quantifiers. Data from the corpus of Swedish drama dialogue reveal that liten/t became a quantifier as early as the 1700s, whereas mycken/t seems to have gone through the same change roughly 150 years later. Inherent plurals (such as pengar, 'money') appear to be a promising context for the starting point of the transition. I further illustrate how both quantifiers have weak and strong versions in present-day Swedish, and I argue that weak mycket (myke) has turned into a negative polarity item that is found in negated clauses (but not for example in questions and conditionals), whereas weak lite(t) has turned into a positive polarity item and is found elsewhere. Ifwe assume that weak versions of quantifiers are more frequent than strong ones, and that positive polarity contexts are more frequent than negative ones, we expect the frequency of mycken/t to drop, whereas the frequency of liten/t should rise over time. A preliminary study that seems to confirm this prediction is presented here.
(Less)
- author
- Delsing, Lars Olof LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2021-08-31
- type
- Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Adjectives, Grammaticalization, Language change, Negative polarity, Positive polarity, Quantifiers, Swedish
- host publication
- Morphosyntactic change in Late Modern Swedish
- pages
- 19 pages
- publisher
- Language Science Press
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85199215812
- ISBN
- 9783985540211
- 9783961103256
- DOI
- 10.5281/zenodo.5792965
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 7755e4da-ee1d-4974-a9d3-861cb046ceb4
- date added to LUP
- 2025-02-12 15:09:31
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 14:24:51
@inbook{7755e4da-ee1d-4974-a9d3-861cb046ceb4,
abstract = {{<p>In this paper, I give a short description of a language change that can be viewed as an instance of grammaticalization, namely the transition of the two adjectives mycken/t and liten/t into quantifiers. Data from the corpus of Swedish drama dialogue reveal that liten/t became a quantifier as early as the 1700s, whereas mycken/t seems to have gone through the same change roughly 150 years later. Inherent plurals (such as pengar, 'money') appear to be a promising context for the starting point of the transition. I further illustrate how both quantifiers have weak and strong versions in present-day Swedish, and I argue that weak mycket (myke) has turned into a negative polarity item that is found in negated clauses (but not for example in questions and conditionals), whereas weak lite(t) has turned into a positive polarity item and is found elsewhere. Ifwe assume that weak versions of quantifiers are more frequent than strong ones, and that positive polarity contexts are more frequent than negative ones, we expect the frequency of mycken/t to drop, whereas the frequency of liten/t should rise over time. A preliminary study that seems to confirm this prediction is presented here.</p>}},
author = {{Delsing, Lars Olof}},
booktitle = {{Morphosyntactic change in Late Modern Swedish}},
isbn = {{9783985540211}},
keywords = {{Adjectives; Grammaticalization; Language change; Negative polarity; Positive polarity; Quantifiers; Swedish}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{08}},
pages = {{319--337}},
publisher = {{Language Science Press}},
title = {{From 'big' to 'much' : On the grammaticalization of two gradable adjectives in Swedish}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5792965}},
doi = {{10.5281/zenodo.5792965}},
year = {{2021}},
}