The Role of Pragmatics in Cyclic Language Change
Lead Research Organisation:
The University of Manchester
Department Name: Arts Languages and Cultures
Abstract
The proposed network brings together 23 international experts from 11 countries, with a view to investigating cyclic developments in the history of a range of languages from different families. Linguistic cycles are recurrent patterns of language change taking place in a structured manner. They have inherent direction, typically involving the renewal of a particular linguistic item/element of a linguistic construction by an incoming form, but also in some instances changes internal to a given item or construction.
Probably the most widely known example of a cyclic development is the so-called Jespersen Cycle (Jespersen 1917), which has been observed in many different languages at different periods. Here, an item functioning as a marker of standard negation in a given language (e.g. Old French preverbal ne) is first optionally accompanied by an additional marker in certain contexts (e.g. postverbal pas/mie in OF). Eventually, the newer marker becomes obligatory, and the older one starts to drop out, and may disappear completely. The newer marker may then move into the slot that used to be occupied by the older marker in some or all contexts (thus, pas is now preverbal in infinitival clauses). Schematically:
(i) ne Verb > ne V (pas) > ne V pas > (ne) V pas > V pas > pas V
In other cases, the original negative marker merges with the newer one (e.g. Old Latin ne + oenum 'not one' > non). Several cycles may be completed within the same language or across mother-daughter languages, as has happened across Latin and French.
While it has been known since the early 20th c. that cyclic developments can be found at the level of (morpho)syntactic change (i.e. grammar), recent research (Ghezzi/Molinelli eds 2014, Hansen 2018, fc, Hansen ed fc) has revealed that cycles also occur in the domain of semantics and pragmatics (i.e. meaning), at hitherto unsuspected levels of granularity. Thus, for instance, both the by now obsolete Old French adverb/conjunction ainz and the Modern French adverb plutôt have successively undergone change from expressing temporal anteriority ('earlier'/'sooner') to expressing subjective preference ('rather'), and from there to expressing correction (Hansen fc).
Network members will study a number of specific cases of cyclicity from across a wide range of languages, in order to obtain a better understanding of the nature of different types of cycles and their place within a broader theory of language change. In particular, we will investigate how and to what extent cycles belonging to different levels of linguistic description may interrelate. Our working hypothesis is that cycles are pragmatically driven by default. We will develop this line of thought within a usage-based approach to language, which is particularly well suited to accounting for pragmatic influences at the level of both grammar and lexicon.
As cross-linguistic patterns, cyclical forms of change can provide a window on basic building blocks of human cognition and/or interpersonal behavior. What are the cognitive domains from which the source elements are recruited? What is the nature of the forces that keep the cycle moving? By exploring these questions, the proposed network will seek to uncover possible linguistic and/or cognitive (quasi-)universals in the process.
Members will present findings in the context of two small-scale team workshops and one international open-call, refereed conference. In addition, findings will be shared in the form of an edited volume/special issue published in a high-profile outlet. The international open-call conference will serve to raise interest in cyclic language change within the scholarly community and help pave the way for future international collaborations on this topic. We will also set up a website featuring, among other things, an evolving bibliography of relevant research. Finally, we will engage non-academic audiences through a popular-science paper.
Probably the most widely known example of a cyclic development is the so-called Jespersen Cycle (Jespersen 1917), which has been observed in many different languages at different periods. Here, an item functioning as a marker of standard negation in a given language (e.g. Old French preverbal ne) is first optionally accompanied by an additional marker in certain contexts (e.g. postverbal pas/mie in OF). Eventually, the newer marker becomes obligatory, and the older one starts to drop out, and may disappear completely. The newer marker may then move into the slot that used to be occupied by the older marker in some or all contexts (thus, pas is now preverbal in infinitival clauses). Schematically:
(i) ne Verb > ne V (pas) > ne V pas > (ne) V pas > V pas > pas V
In other cases, the original negative marker merges with the newer one (e.g. Old Latin ne + oenum 'not one' > non). Several cycles may be completed within the same language or across mother-daughter languages, as has happened across Latin and French.
While it has been known since the early 20th c. that cyclic developments can be found at the level of (morpho)syntactic change (i.e. grammar), recent research (Ghezzi/Molinelli eds 2014, Hansen 2018, fc, Hansen ed fc) has revealed that cycles also occur in the domain of semantics and pragmatics (i.e. meaning), at hitherto unsuspected levels of granularity. Thus, for instance, both the by now obsolete Old French adverb/conjunction ainz and the Modern French adverb plutôt have successively undergone change from expressing temporal anteriority ('earlier'/'sooner') to expressing subjective preference ('rather'), and from there to expressing correction (Hansen fc).
Network members will study a number of specific cases of cyclicity from across a wide range of languages, in order to obtain a better understanding of the nature of different types of cycles and their place within a broader theory of language change. In particular, we will investigate how and to what extent cycles belonging to different levels of linguistic description may interrelate. Our working hypothesis is that cycles are pragmatically driven by default. We will develop this line of thought within a usage-based approach to language, which is particularly well suited to accounting for pragmatic influences at the level of both grammar and lexicon.
As cross-linguistic patterns, cyclical forms of change can provide a window on basic building blocks of human cognition and/or interpersonal behavior. What are the cognitive domains from which the source elements are recruited? What is the nature of the forces that keep the cycle moving? By exploring these questions, the proposed network will seek to uncover possible linguistic and/or cognitive (quasi-)universals in the process.
Members will present findings in the context of two small-scale team workshops and one international open-call, refereed conference. In addition, findings will be shared in the form of an edited volume/special issue published in a high-profile outlet. The international open-call conference will serve to raise interest in cyclic language change within the scholarly community and help pave the way for future international collaborations on this topic. We will also set up a website featuring, among other things, an evolving bibliography of relevant research. Finally, we will engage non-academic audiences through a popular-science paper.
Publications
Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard
(2025)
Cyclic Change in Grammar and Discourse
Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard
(2025)
Cyclic Change in Grammar and Discourse
N/A
(2025)
Cyclic Change in Grammar and Discourse
| Description | The network organized two workshops for members, and couple of online reading group meetings and a closing open-call international conference. The PI and Co-I are currently editing a collective volume with 18 chapters (c. 200,000 words), under contract with Oxford University Press. Through these activities, we have achieved the following: Theoretically, we have arrived at clearer and more fine-grained understandings of what cyclic changes are and how they relate to other related types of change (paper by Hansen); how cyclic changes at the level of grammar vs discourse may relate to one another (paper by Hansen); how to distinguish between different subtypes of cyclic change (papers by Scivoletto, Kuo; talk by Pardo-Llibrer); and what principles of communication may trigger cyclic change (papers by Bardenstein, Erb/Ariel, in particular, but discussed to a greater or lesser extent in practically all contributions). With respect to such underlying principles of communication, we have enhanced our understanding of the links between cyclic changes within a single language (or from a mother to a daughter language) and changes that seem to recur across a number of related languages, but which are not cyclic within any one of those languages (talks by Rhee et al.). We have consistently compared form-driven vs function-driven cyclical change, concluding - on both conceptual and empirical grounds - that the latter is more frequent. Work has also confirmed our impression that some notional fields (e.g. negation, temporality) seem to be more prone to exhibit cyclicity than others, and some talks/papers have investigated chain shifts. Finally, we have achieved a better understanding of how to distinguish actual cyclic change from changes that may superficially look cyclic, but which turn out not to be upon closer inspection (talks by Tagliamonte/Rupp). Empirically, our work has attested cyclic changes in a number of notional domains which had not previously been considered, at the levels of both grammar (papers by Veselinova/Panova, La Roi, Kuo, Long/Wang, Van der Auwera/Van Olmen; talks by Waltereit, Hansen, Gibert-Sotelo/Pujol Payet, Asztalos/Szabo, Du et al., Syed/Sahar) and discourse (papers by Ariel/Mauri, Ferrari, Paoli, Ghezzi, Llopis Cardona, Pardo-Llibrer, Bardenstein, Hansen, Scivoletto), and it has documented cyclic patterns of change within already known notional areas but in languages where this had not previously been studied (papers by Fedriani/Molinelli, Vindenes). We have expanded the informal network of researchers interested in different aspects of cyclicity and related forms of change. Thus, the forthcoming collection of papers that the PI and Co-I are currently in the process of editing, includes work by nine scholars who were not named in the original funding application. |
| Exploitation Route | In the short term, work will continue in the form of smaller-scale collaborations between individual members of the network. Thus, there is an ongoing collaboration between Hansen/Van der Auwera/Van Olmen, and planned collaborations between Hansen/Pons, and Hansen/Long. All of these also involve further researchers who have not been associated with the activities of the AHRC network, thus further attesting to the network's power to recruit new interested parties. |
| Sectors | Education |