The emergence of new verbal morphology in an obsolescent language
The term grammaticalization has two meanings. In its first sense it focuses on ‘how grammatical forms and constructions arise, how they are used’ and what are the most probable paths for their development; its second sense concerns the synchronic perspective, as ‘a syntactic, discourse pragmatic phenomenon, to be studied from the point of view of fluid patterns of language use’ (Hopper and Traugott 1993:1–2). Grammaticalization — which includes the development of grammatical items out of lexical ones — must be seen within the broad context of language change. One of the important factors which motivates language change is language contact, and especially diffusional phenomena within linguistic areas.
One of the most important problems in the analysis of grammaticalization concerns the relation between source and target, or input and output (cf. Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer 1991:38). What are the factors which determine the source for the development of a particular grammatical category and how can these factors correlate with genetically inherited or a really diffused patterns? To what extent can the processes of language obsolescence affect grammaticalization? Here I will try to answer these questions.
The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, I will describe the processes of grammaticalization in serial verb constructions and in verb compounds in Tariana, a highly endangered North Arawak1 language spoken by around 100 people in the linguistic area of the Vaupés, dominated by East-Tucano languages. This linguistic area is known for its rampant multilingualism due to exogamy and the ensuing one-way diffusion of structural patterns from East-Tucano into other languages (Tariana and Makú). The processes of grammaticalization of compounded verb roots in Tariana are investigated from the point of view of their origin — genetic inheritance vs. areal diffusion. Then, I show how grammaticalization can be ‘sped up’ by intensive language contact and language obsolescence. That is, in the case of intensive areal diffusion language obsolescence goes together with ‘gain’, rather than with ‘loss’, of grammatical mechanisms — cf. discussion in Dorian (forthcoming).
Second, I consider several distinct processes of the grammaticalization of serial verb constructions and of compounded verb roots which lead to the emergence of new verbal categories in Tariana. These grammaticalization processes result in the creation of a new set of aktionsart, aspect, and switch reference clitics, on the one hand, and of auxiliary verbs and postpositions, on the other. They differ both in their sources and in their end-products.
The paper is organized as follows. The grammatical profile of Tariana is outlined in §2. The areal and genetic properties of serial verb constructions and of verb compounded structures in Tariana are discussed in §3. Three new verbal categories (Aktionsart markers, aspects, and switch-reference enclitics) which emerged in Tariana as the result of grammaticalization of compounded verb roots are looked at in §4. I also show how the same verb roots get grammaticalized in different ways in verb compounded structures, and in serial verb constructions. Conclusions concerning typologically unusual properties of the new verbal morphological markers emerging in Tariana and of their grammaticalization patterns are given in §5.
