Revisiting category-change processes. Towards a new (constructionist) typology

Van Goethem, Kristel [UCL]

The classification of the lexicon into categories (in the sense of ‘word classes’ or ‘parts of speech’) has been a fundamental matter of concern in linguistics since ancient times and the criteria for defining and delimiting the different categories have shifted according to the trends in linguistic theory (Hopper & Thompson 1984). Building on the Neogrammarians’ view (among others, Paul 1891), recent studies, such as Ramat (1999) and Bauer (2005), claim that lexical categories should not be seen as monolithic unities but as (structured) bundles of (formal, functional and semantic) features. The mainstream of current investigation in functional-cognitive linguistics follows this viewpoint and two major implications may be drawn from it. On the one hand, certain lexical items may combine more prototypical features of a particular lexical category than others. On the other hand, lexical items may combine properties of different categories. Diachronically speaking, the latter statement implies that shifts from one category to another may readily occur. Category change, broadly defined as the shift from one word class to another, is inherent to different processes of change, yet it is usually not given much consideration. Since the 1980s, language change and innovation have essentially been accounted for by processes of grammaticalization and lexicalization (cf. Lehmann 1995 [1982], Brinton & Traugott 2005), with category change mostly seen as an accidental side-effect of these processes. However, in spite of their considerable merits, recent studies have pointed out major shortcomings of these approaches and have started to admit the relevance of constructions and context to language and language change. The fact that Construction Grammar, a linguistic framework that considers language as a complex network of ‘constructions’ (i.e. form-function pairings), has recently gained a lot of interest (cf. Goldberg 1995, Croft 2001, Hoffmann & Trousdale 2013) should be interpreted in this context. Against this background, I will revisit the definition of (lexical) category and category change. The focus will be on category change processes with a lexical item as output. I will set out different criteria that underlie the distinction between the main processes of category change (derivation, conversion, transposition and reanalysis). At the same time, the benefits of a Construction Grammar approach to category change will be demonstrated. More particularly, I adopt the view that a lexical category can be seen as a matrix of formal (morphosyntactic) and functional (semantic) features. As a consequence, lexical categories can be understood as abstract instances of ‘constructions’ and category change will be shown to be closely connected to the process of ‘constructionalization’, i.e. the creation of new form-meaning pairings (Traugott & Trousdale 2013). Since the shift to another category in general involves prominent changes at the formal level because the item has to conform to the morphological and syntactic properties (in the sense of complement types or inflectional properties, for instance) of the new word-class it belongs to, and this is logically reflected at the functional-semantic level too, it mostly results in the creation of a new construction. It will, however, also be shown that constructionalization is not involved in all types of recategorization. Furthermore, I will advance that the constructionist approach offers the advantage of accounting for the variety of input categories (ranging from morphemes to multi-word units) as well as for some problematic characteristics related to certain types of category change, such as context-sensitivity, counterdirectionality and defectiveness. References Bauer, Laurie. 2005. Conversion and the notion of lexical category. In: S. Valera & L. Bauer (Eds.), Approaches to Conversion and/or zero-derivation, 19-30. Münster: Waxmann. Brinton, Laurel J. & Elizabeth C. Traugott. 2005. Lexicalization and Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goldberg, Adele. 1995. Constructions. A Construction Grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hoffmann, Thomas & Graeme Trousdale (Eds). 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1984. The discourse basis for lexical categories in Universal Grammar. Language 60(4): 703-752. Lehmann, Christian. 1995 [1982]. Thoughts on grammaticalization. Munich: Lincom Europa. Paul, Hermann. 1891. Principles of the history of language (translated from the second edition of the original by Herbert A. Strong). London: Longmans, Green, and co. Ramat, Paolo. 1999. Linguistic categories and linguists’categorizations. Linguistics 37(1): 157-180. Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Graeme Trousdale. 2013. Constructionalization and constructional changes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.