Premium
POLAR QUESTION PARTICLES AND THEIR SOURCES: A SEMANTIC APPROACH TO GRAMMATICALISATION 1
Author(s) -
Aigro Mari
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
transactions of the philological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.333
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-968X
pISSN - 0079-1636
DOI - 10.1111/1467-968x.12188
Subject(s) - grammaticalization , interrogative , negation , polarity (international relations) , linguistics , meaning (existential) , computer science , artificial intelligence , philosophy , chemistry , epistemology , biochemistry , cell
This study investigates the semantic systematicity in the pathways through which various functional markers become polar question particles ( PQP s). This research proposes that the high degree of semantic cohesion between sources and targets suggests that a pre‐existing semantic component radically increases the likelihood of some markers becoming PQP s. It observes that all functional classes which have been noted to become PQP s in various languages share semantic similarities, meaning that they can all be analysed as markers of polarity (negation, affirmation or open polarity). It tests this pattern by means of an in‐depth corpus analysis, examining the modern and historical PQP pathways in Estonian – a language unusually rich in PQP s. The results show that the sources for all six analysed PQP s, as well as elements which they themselves have given rise to, confirm the proposed pattern of PQP s arising from polarity markers. The semantic map summarising these patterns illustrates the space of polarity between two axis – mood (interrogative and non‐interrogative) and bias (negative, affirmative, open polarity). These results highlight the importance of semantic factors in grammaticalisation.