The diachrony of complex predicates in Dutch: a case study in grammaticalization

Abstract

This paper investigates the grammaticalization of words into prefixes, via the intermediate stage of separable particles. Particle-verb combinations are analysed as constructional idioms, whereas prefixed verbs are analysed as words. We hypothesize that semantic change triggers the structural change of particles becoming inseparable prefixes. In this way, syntax reflects semantics: the loss of independent semantic content, accompanied by other specific semantic developments, triggers the loss of syntactic independence. Data from Middle and Modern Dutch are discussed to illustrate the validity of the hypothesis and to show that semantic changes indeed precede syntactic changes in the development of particles into prefixes.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 44 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.