Animacy, anaphora and language change in Swedish
This paper considers the role of animacy in the overt marking of indirect anaphors, i.e., noun phrases (NP), which introduce new discourse referents, that are grounded in the preceding discourse by means of a grounding element, an anchor. The indirect anaphors are considered in a diachronic persp...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2021
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18119/1/45456-164849-1-PB.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18119/ https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1417 |
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| Summary: | This paper considers the role of animacy in the overt marking of indirect anaphors, i.e., noun
phrases (NP), which introduce new discourse referents, that are grounded in the preceding
discourse by means of a grounding element, an anchor. The indirect anaphors are considered
in a diachronic perspective with reference to the emergent definite article and the variation
between the article and other marking elements, in particular possessive pronouns. The study
is based on an annotated corpus of Swedish prosaic texts from 1200–1550, which is a period
of time when the definite article undergoes the process of grammaticalization in this language.
The material was sorted according to the different combinations of the animacy of the anchor
and the anaphor. The indirect anaphors which are anchored by means of expressions referring
to animate entities show more variation of expression than those expressions referring to
inanimate entities at the onset of definite article grammaticalization, but as the
grammaticalization progresses, all indirect anaphors are by default expressed by the definite
article. This is connected with the ongoing grammaticalization of the definite article and its
extended use in new contexts. |
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