Lexicalization and grammaticalization: modal modifier constructions with "no question"

In this article we reconstruct the paths that led to the two modal modifier constructions with no question in Present-day English: the adverbial and parenthetical there is no question. The grammaticalized clausal structures are shown to be the result of multiple reanalyses at microconstructional level. The first reanalyses, starting in Middle English, led to lexicalized composite predicates and clauses with the meanings of ‘be (un)challengeable’ and ‘(not) be at issue’. These shifted to grammaticalized modal uses in Late Modern English, an emphatic positive and a negative one, which were prefashioned both structurally and semantically by the lexicalized uses. In Present-day English, these two types have expanded into a full-fledged system of positive and negative modal markers which can modify both epistemic and dynamic-deontic statements. The emergence of the adverbial no question is argued to be the result of schematic analogy with the mesoconstructional paradigm of adverbials with negative quantifier (no, without any, out of all) + a noun such as doubt and way, which were already entrenched in Early Modern English. This case study forms the occasion of theoretical reflection on the difference between lexicalization and grammaticalization. Grammaticalization is argued to differ from lexicalization in terms of semantic schematicity, secondariness (Boye & Harder 2007) and systemicness.

Publication year:2012

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BOF-publication weight:0.5

CSS-citation score:1

Authors from:Higher Education

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