A comparative typological study of “convergent” grammaticalization pathways between
Japanese and Korean: With English as a neutral bystander
Kaoru Horie
Nagoya University
Grammaticalization, in which grammatical forms/constructions evolve from lexical
items through repeated use, has received focused attention from both functionally andformally oriented linguists (e.g. Heine et al. 1991, Bybee et al. 1994, Hopper andTraugott 2003, Roberts and Roussou 2003, Horie 2008, Narrog and Heine 2010). This
has led to the proposal of various principles governing and constraining the pathway ofgrammaticalization (e.g. the “unidirectional” change from lexical to grammatical forms,
from less to more grammatical items, from “objective” to “subjective” to“intersubjective” meaning) and the form-meaning relationship observed during its
process (e.g. “persistence”, where the original lexical meaning of a grammatical form
continues to constrain its grammatical behavior). However, relatively little has yet been
uncovered about whether languages of similar typological profiles, such as Japanese andKorean, manifest grammaticalization in a like manner.
Inspired by the synchronic comparative typological studies of English and Germanby Hawkins (1986) and informed by recent typological and sociolinguistic typologicalworks (e.g. Evans 2007, Trudgill 2012), I report on two instances of grammaticalization
phenomena that do not follow norms predicted by previous works, primarily based on
the findings from two of my prior joint works, particularly Wako, Sato, and Horie(2003) and Horie and Kim (2011).
In the grammatiacalization phenomena presented here, Korean apparently undergoes
pathways similar to Japanese, with some interesting cross-linguistic differences. Inorder to highlight the nature of the cross-linguistic contrasts, the grammaticalization
phenomena under consideration will be compared with English when directly relevant.
The first instance of grammaticalization I will touch on is the development of the‘perfect’ aspectual meaning of the Korean periphrastic construction –ko issta, which
consists of the conjunctive (medial) linker –ko and the existential verb –issta. The –ko
issta construction encodes ‘progressive’ aspect (1) as its core meaning.
(1) Minswu-ka cikum talli-ko iss-ta.
Minswu-NOM now run-PROG-DECL’Minswu is runnning now.’
It parallels the Japanese –te iru construction compositionally, though the latter isfunctionally more versatile and can encode a range of aspectual meanings including“progressive”, “resultative”, as well as “perfect” (2).
(2) Taroo-wa hon-o3-satukai-te iru.
Taro-TOP book-ACC 3-volumes write-PERF‘Taro has already written three books.’
However, the “resultative” meaning is typically encoded by another periphrastic
construction –e issta (3), while the “perfect” meaning is typically marked by the
non-periphrastic past tense form –ess/ass- (4).
(3) Minswu-ka uyca-ey anc-a iss-ta.
Minswu-NOM chair-on sit-RESUT-DECL‘Minswu is seated on a chair.’(4) Minswu-nun sosel-ul
sey kwen ssu-ess-ta.
Minswu-TOP novel-ACC 3 volumes write-PAST-DECL‘Mnswu has written three books.’
In English, the ‘perfect’ aspectual meaning is primarily encoded by the periphrastic
have + past participle construction (5), which evolved from the transitive have + NP +participle construction (6). Alternatively, the aspectual meaning can be encoded byanother periphrastic construction be + past participle construction, though the latter isrestricted to a limited number of verbs such as come and go (7).
(5) The train has just arrived.
(6) I have some money saved.
(7) He’s gone.
Interestingly, the “progressive” form –ko issta has started to take on ‘perfect’aspectual meaning when it co-occurs with verbs that encode “reporting” and “attaining”(8) in written discourse.
(8) Khollin Phawel kwukmwucangkwan-un
pimanglok-eyse ku-ey tayha-nColin Powel
State Secretary-TOP
memoir-in
him-towardchesinsang-ul
ilehkey cek-ko iss-ta.
first impression-ACC like this write-PROG-DECL‘State Secretary Colin Powel has written his first impression about him like this in hismemoir.’Apparently, -ko issta has started to follow a grammaticalization pathway similar toits counterpart –te iru. Why is such “convergence” observed? I will discuss possible
motivating factors for such convergent phenomena, and offer some predictions as tohow far it will proceed in Korean.
In the remainder of this presentation, I will also discuss another instance of‘convergent’ grammaticalization phenomena in Japanese and Korean. I will end my talkby synthesizing the findings from two case studies and presenting their theoretical
implications for the cross-linguistic/typological studies of grammaticalization andlanguage change.
Selected References
Bybee, Joan, et al. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar. Chicago UP.
Hopper, Paul, and Elizabeth C. Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization Cambridge UP.
Hawkins, John A. 1986. A Compartive Typology of English and German. Croom Helm.
Horie, Kaoru. 2008. “Grammaticalization of Nominalizers in Japanese and its
Theoretical Implications: A Contrastive Study with Korean.” In: Seoane, Elena andMaria Jose Lopez-Couso. (eds.), Rethinking Grammaticalization: New Perspective
for the Twenty-first Century. John Benjamins, 169-187.
Roberts, Ian G., and Anna Roussou. 2003. Syntactic Change. A Minimalist Approach toGrammaticalization. Oxford UP.
Trudgill, Peter. 2011. Sociolinguistic Typology. Oxford UP.
Wako, Masakazu, Shigeru Sato, and Kaoru Horie. 2003. “From Progressive to Perfect:
A Corpus-based Study of the “Perfect” Meaning of the Korean Progressive Form -ko
iss-.” In: McClure, William (ed.), Japanese /Korean Linguistics 12. CSLIPublications, 64-74.