Unity and diversity in grammaticalization scenarios

Walter Bisang is Professor of General and Comparative Linguistics at the University of Mainz. He works on grammaticalization, linguistic contact and linguistic complexity. The combination of this research together with his findings on East and mainland Southeast Asian languages led him to the claim that grammaticalization is subject to cross-linguistic variation in terms of its properties as well as in terms of at least some pathways. His papers cover a wide range of phenomena, among them classifiers and classification, serial verb constructions, clause combining, finiteness, parts of speech, radical pro-drop and morphological paradigms. Some of his more recent ideas on grammaticalization are addressed in "Problems with primary vs. secondary grammaticalization -- the case of East and mainland Southeast Asian languages" (Language Sciences 47, 2015). A survey of his ideas on complexity is found in "Hidden complexity-the neglected side of complexity and its consequences". Linguistics Vanguard 1.1, 2015).

The volume contains a selection of papers originally presented at the symposium on u201CAreal patterns of grammaticalization and cross-linguistic variation in grammaticalization scenariosu201D held on 12-14 March 2015 at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. The papers, written by leading scholars combining expertise in historical linguistics and grammaticalization research, study variation in grammaticalization scenarios in a variety of language families (Slavic, Indo-Aryan, Tibeto-Burman, Bantu, Mande, "Khoisan", Siouan, and Mayan). The volume stands out in the vast literature on grammaticalization by focusing on variation in grammaticalization scenarios and areal patterns in grammaticalization. Apart from documenting new grammaticalization paths, the volume makes a methodological contribution as it addresses an important question of how to reconcile universal outcomes of grammaticalization processes with the fact that the input to these processes is language-specific and construction-specific.

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