Grammaticalization and lexicalization in the history of English - Einzelansicht

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Dear students, all courses will be taught as online courses with asynchronous access until further notice. Once you have signed on in PULS and have been admitted in PULS, your instructor will email you via PULS to let you know when and how to access the online material (moodle, etc.). Testatsleistungen (course requirements) may be subject to change. Students who cannot (yet) access PULS: Please email your instructor directly. It is possible that classes can be switched to classroom teaching (Präsenzlehre) at some point during the semester. If this happens, your instructor will let you know and classes will take place at the times originally scheduled.

This course deals with particular processes of linguistic change: (1) grammaticalization, i.e., we will see how grammatical items and rules emerge, such as auxiliaries, case markers, articles, SVO. etc.), and (2) lexicalization, i.e., we will observe how new lexical items emerge from former syntactic (and sometimes even morphological) units. We will find out which semantic and syntactic processes are involved in both processes, and how they are related to each other, etc. The studies will be based on linguistic changes in English and thus cover its diachronic and synchronic dimension. We will discuss various approaches to grammaticalization and lexicalization, so the lexical item > morpheme model and the discourse > morphosyntax perspective in grammaticalization, typological possibilities, grammaticalization / lexicalization and language contact, mechanisms of language change and grammaticalization / lexicalization, conditions licensing grammaticalization and lexicalization, etc. The specific topics to be dealt with in the individual sessions will be determined in the first session based on students interests and preferences.