Grammaticalization

This textbook introduces and explains the fundamental issues, major research questions, and current approaches in the study of grammaticalization - the development of new grammatical forms from lexical items, and of further grammatical functions from existing grammatical forms. Grammaticalization has been a vibrant research field in recent years, and has proven effective in explaining a wide range of phenomena; it has even been claimed that the only true language universals are diachronic, and are related to cross-linguistic processes of grammaticalization.
The chapters provide a detailed account of the major issues in the field: foundational questions such as directionality, criteria and parameters of grammaticalization, and phases and cycles; the much-debated issue of the motivations behind grammaticalization, including the role of language contact and typological influences; the advantages and disadvantages of different theoretical approaches; and the relationship between grammaticalization and process such as lexicalization, exaptation, and the development of discourse markers. Each chapter offers guidance on further reading, and concludes with study questions to encourage further discussion; there is also a glossary of key terminology in the field. Thanks to its comprehensive approach, the volume will serve as both a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students and a valuable reference work for researchers in the field.

Heiko Narrog is Professor at the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Tohoku University. He received a PhD in Japanese Studies from the Ruhr University Bochum in 1997, and a PhD in Language Studies from Tokyo University in 2002. His publications include Modality in Japanese and the Layered Structure of the Clause (Benjamins, 2009), and Modality, Subjectivity, and Semantic Change: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective (OUP, 2012) as well as numerous articles in linguistic typology, semantics and language change, and Japanese linguistics.
Bernd Heine is Emeritus Professor at the Institute of African Studies and Egyptology, University of Cologne. He has held visiting professorships at universities across the world, and in 2009 received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Evolutionary Linguistics Association. His many publications include African Languages: An Introduction (CUP, 2000), A Linguistic Geography of Africa (CUP, 2008), and the OUP volumes The Changing Languages of Europe (2006) and The Genesis of Grammar: A Reconstruction (2007), both with Tania Kuteva.
Heiko Narrog and Bernd Heine are co-editors of the OUP volumes The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis (2010; second edition 2015), The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization (2010; paperback 2021), and Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective (2018).