Grammaticalization, Reanalysis, and CP Layering

Abstract

Abstract This chapter shows that grammaticalization phenomena can function as the trigger of a process of reanalysis leading to a change in a given derivational path. The relevant empirical evidence is provided by the development of the distributional properties of the two wh-items che and cossa in some northern Veneto dialects, insofar as it is detectable diachronically from the 16th century up to the 20th century. The wh-item cossa, which had initially an exclusively nominal use, has gradually taken up, in the course of the last centuries, the function of interrogative operator; this process is strictly connected to the change in the distributional properties of the wh-item che: while in the first stages che occupied the initial position of a main wh-question, it appears in sentence internal position in modern dialects. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 2.2 summarizes the diachronic development of the two wh-items che and cossa; Section 2.3 discusses some issues concerning the wh-items parché and parcossa; and finally, Section 2.4 contains a few concluding remarks.

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