Grammaticalization and Diachronic Construction Grammar
Date: 25-Oct-2025 - 26-Oct-2025
Location: Guangzhou, China
Contact: Alessandro Basile
Contact Email: [email protected]
Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Historical Linguistics; Linguistic
Theories; Text/Corpus Linguistics; Typology
Submission Deadline: 31-Aug-2025
In present-day, cognitive-functional linguistic research studies in
grammaticalization continue to hold a significant place, having survived the
test of time for more than 100 years since the term ‘grammaticalisation’ was
first coined by Antoine Meillet in 1912. Meillet is cited as having used the
term to refer to both analogical innovation or the ‘attribution of a
grammatical character to a formerly autonomous word’ (Meillet 1912: 131;
Heine et al 1991: 9; Hopper & Traugott 2003: 19). Meillet was not the first to
observe such transitions taking place: Heine et al (1991: 5) refer to records
of similar observations dating back to the Chinese Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)
in which writers had noted a distinction between “full” and “empty”
symbols (Harbsmeier 1979: 159ff). More recent studies such as Grossmann &
Polis (2014) reveal that grammaticalization processes were occurring nearly 5,
000 years ago in Old Egyptian. Grammaticalization as we know it today is as
old as language itself.
The study of grammaticalization increased significantly in the 20th century,
in particular the latter half of the 20th century, with new theoretical
advances proposed by Kuryowicz (1964, 1976), Benveniste (1968) and Givón (
1979) featuring amongst the earliest, ground-breaking research that was to
question the trends of current structuralist and generative linguistics of the
time. Much of this early work is summarized in Hopper & Traugott’s concise
theoretical reference (1993[2003]: 25-30). Hopper and Traugott, together with
Heine and his colleagues, were probably the main protagonists involved in
establishing the foundations of a revolution in both diachronic and
comparative investigation, which has left an indelible influence on all
aspects of linguistic research over the past four decades. Landmark
publications include, e.g., Hopper 1987, 1991; Traugott 1989; Traugott & Heine
(eds.) 1991; Heine (1993, 1997), Heine & Kuteva (2002, 2005, 2007), and
Kuteva et al (2019).
Since around the beginning of the 21st century, the relatively new field of
constructions and construction grammars has also been rapidly expanding.
Initially discussed with reference to explaining the routinized meanings
arising from colloquialized idioms in English, for example, much of the
earlier research was spurred on by studies such as Goldberg (1995) in which
the syntax of a construction could be seen to produce a holistic, schematic
semantics distinct from the meanings of its individual, lexical components.
Croft (2001) took the approach more radically, including, as did Traugott (
2014), what others would simply label an isolated, atomic morpheme under the
definition of a construction. More recent accounts (e.g. Gildea & Barðdal
2023) appear to have attempted to cross the long-established frontiers of
grammaticalization research, and proposed that many processes of
grammaticalization can be subsumed under the rubric of Diachronic Construction
Grammar (DCxG), in a one-size-fits-all theory of construction development.
The term ‘diachronic construction grammar’, attributed to Ziegeler (2004) by
Noël (2013), was first mentioned in a pre-theoretical context in which it
referred to the development of certain constructions over time and the way in
which grammaticalization takes place within constructions (see also Basile &
Ziegeler, to appear). Others, such as Bybee et al (1994: 11), Heine (2003),
Traugott (2003), Himmelmann (2004), and Noël (2006) had also noted that
grammaticalization must take place and involve the entire construction in
which the relevant lexical morpheme is found; it does not take place in a
vaccum. The term ‘constructionalization’ was first used by Bergs & Diewald (
2008) and Traugott (2008) (according to Noël & Colleman 2021). Traugott &
Trousdale (2013) first proposed the hypothesis of ‘grammatical
constructionalization’ - the development of a new (grammatical) form with a
new meaning - as a more inclusive means of studying grammaticalization within
the confines of construction-building, and illustrating their hypothesis with
such instances as be going to, and the quantifier a lot (of) in English. Since
then, others have queried attempts to reduce grammaticalization to conform
with the tenets of constructionalization, or DCxG per se, for example
Gregersen (2018) and Hilpert (2018), who question the emergence of distinct
construction types in the incremental stages of developing grammatical
morphology. Basile & Ziegeler (to appear) propose that even the more
periphrastic means of expressing grammatical functions, in the form of Event
Schemas (Heine 1993, 1997; Heine, Narrog & Long 2016), can be accounted for as
grammaticalization, as the semantics of the source construction are
continuously maintained into the target construction.
Goals:
We are at the point at which urgent questions must be raised for the purposes
of future research in both grammaticalization and DCxG: should we attempt to (
a) eliminate the need for a separate theory of grammaticalization and throw it
all into the kitchen sink of constructionalism, or (b) cautiously maintain
the two theoretical approaches as useful and distinct in their own right, or (
c), endeavor to find a compromise of integrating grammaticalization within
constructionalization, or constructionalization within a grammaticalization
trajectory? These are the principle aims of the conference, which we hope will
stimulate new grounds for careful research, discussion and debate, within an
open and scholarly fashion. Topics on such broader, theoretical points of view
would be especially welcome, which may include the following (though the
conference theme is by no means limited to them):
(a) What are the phenomena that are in the scope of DCxG but not of
grammaticalization theory, and vice versa?
(b) What should be the place of the two approaches in a theory of language
change?
(c) What is the relationship between context and meaning in grammatical change
?
(d) Is the distinction between lexical and grammatical change a robust one?
(e) How to segment linguistic discourse into relevant pieces of analysis?
We invite presenters to address one or more of these issues in a talk of the
following format:
Format: 35-minute presentation followed by 15 minutes of discussion
Language: English (both presentation and discussion)
Abstracts: Please submit an abstract (up to 500 words) to Haiping Long (
[email protected]) by August 31st.
Practical information:
Venue: School of Foreign Languages, Sun Yat-sen University, China (or online
for those unable to attend in person)
Workshop dates: October 25–26, 2025
Organizers/scientific committee: Bernd Heine (University of Köln); Debra
Ziegeler (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3); Alessandro Basile (Universit
é Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3); Eric Mélac (Université Paul Valéry -
Montpellier 3); Haiping Long (Sun Yat-sen University).
Conference fee: none.
Any questions related to the workshop can be sent to Haiping Long (lhpszpt@126
.com).