Grammaticalization and Semantic Typology : Time-relationship Adverbs in Japanese, Korean, English and German

Grammaticalization and Semantic Typology: Time-relationship Adverbs in Japanese, Korean, English and German Tetsuharu Moriya Kanazawa University Kakuma, Kanazawa Ishikawa 920-1192, Japan moriya33@kenroku.kanazawa-u.acjp Kaoru Horie Tohoku University Kawauchi, Aoba-ku Sendai, Miyagi 980-8576, Japan khorie@intcul.toholcu.acjp Abstract This paper discusses constraints on grammaticalization, a primarily diachronic process through which lexical elements take on grammatical functions. In particular, it will argue that two constraints on this process, namely Persistence and Layering, explain the different distributional patterns of time-relationship adverbs in Japanese, Korean, English and German. Furthermore, it will suggest that the distributional difference between Japanese and Korean time-relationship adverbs is not an isolated phenomenon but is a reflection of the overall semantic typological differences between the two languages in the sense of Hawkins (1986). 1� Introduction Grammaticalization is an important process in the framework of Cognitive Linguistics because it highlights the flexible nature of boundaries between lexical and grammatical categories, and this flexibility, in turn, reflects interdependence of structure and use. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how this process is constrained. Although some authors (e.g. Hopper 1991) point out general characteristics of this process, some of which can obviously be regarded as constraints, they fail to address the issue of how such constraints operate to yield different systems in various languages. This paper argues that time-relationship adverbs such as mada("still, (not) yet") and moo("already, (not) any longer") in Japanese or their (partial) counterparts acik or pelsse in Korean are constrained by the same principles of grammaticalization, layering and persistence, although individual languages manifest apparently different distributional patterns.' The organization of this paper is as follows. In section 2, we will look into basic distributional patterns of time-relationship adverbs in Japanese and Korean and present a preliminary semantic analysis of them. In section 3, the above-mentioned two basic principles of grammaticalization are introduced and in section 4, we will observe how these principles operate to produce different distributions between the two languages. In section 5, it will be argued that the same principles can also explain different distributions in English and German time-relationship adverbs. In section 6, we will suggest that the distributional difference between Japanese and Korean is a reflection of the overall semantic typological differences between the two languages in the sense of Hawkins (1986). Section 7 will summarize the major findings of this study and present the conclusion. 2 Time Relationship Adverbs in Japanese and Korean 2.1 Japanese In Japanese, mada and moo serve the function of relating two points of time and thus expressing the continuity or change of events or states: 1 We use the term time-relationship adverbs in the sense of time-relationship subjuncts in Quirk et al. (1985). We there fore exclude from our consideration time-relationship adjuncts such as by that time, up to that time and so on. 348 (1) a. Boku-wa ma kare-ga sukida I-Tope�stil he-Acc like I still like b. Boku-wa ma, kare-ni at-ta� koto ga nai I-Top yet him-Dat meet-Perf Comp Nom Neg C. Kare-ni wa moo at-ta I haven't met(fii7et.' he-Dat …

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