Chapter 17
Auxiliary reduction in secondary grammaticalization
Evidence from the Spanish periphrastic past
At the center of grammaticalization studies has
been an effort to understand the interplay between form and function
throughout the development of a construction. A recent analysis by
Dehé & Stathi
(2016) has made the case that desemanticization (semantic
reduction) and erosion (phonetic reduction) occur in parallel and
that different phonetic patterns can be associated with different
degrees of grammaticalization. This paper approaches Dehé and
Stathi’s proposal by means of the periphrastic past (PP) in Spanish,
a form that shows considerable variation across dialects and has
been shown to display various degrees of grammaticalization (Howe 2013). Focusing
specifically on the PP’s use in sequenced past narratives in
Peninsular Spanish, this analysis observes the behavior of the haber
auxiliary and finds evidence for increased reduction/omission in
these innovative narrative contexts. The patterns of reduction shown
in this analysis are consistent with the claim made by Dehé and
Stathi regarding the association of specific reductive processes
with more advanced stages of grammaticalization. These data reveal a
coevolution of form and meaning with the PP not yet discussed in the
literature, one that has broader implications for the study of
periphrastic past forms in Romance.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The development of the Spanish PP
- 2.1Dialectal development in Spanish
- 2.2The Spanish PP in secondary grammaticalization
- 3.Morpho-phonological changes in the PP
- 4.Auxiliary reduction in the Spanish PP
- 4.1Neutralizing contexts for auxiliary reduction
- 4.2Beyond phonetic contexts of reduction
- 5.Auxiliary reduction in Spanish narratives
- 5.1Evidence for auxiliary reduction
- 5.2A preliminary proposal for form/function development
- 6.Conclusions
-
Abbreviations
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
-
References