English Adjectives of Comparison: Lexical and Grammaticalized Uses (Topics in English Linguistics)

English Adjectives of Comparison: Lexical and Grammaticalized Uses
(Topics in English Linguistics)
by Tine Breban
Hardcover: 395 pages
Published: July 15, 2010
ISBN-10: 3110205807
ISBN-13: 978-3110205800

The book is concerned with a largely unrecognized grammaticalization process: deictification, or the development from quality-attributing to deictically used adjectives in the English noun phrase. On the basis of the synchronic and diachronic corpus-study of six English adjectives of comparison, deictification is shown to involve unstudied variants of subjectification and decategorialization.

Contents

Introduction 1
1 Constructing a dynamic functional combinatory model of the English NP 11
2 Grammaticalization and subjectification in the English NP 40
3 English adjectives of general comparison 57
4 The grammaticalization hypothesis 79
5 The role of subjectivity and subjectification in the grammaticalization of prenominal adjectives of comparison 111
6 Adjectives of difference 149
7 Adjectives of identity 197
8 Adjectives of similarity 241
9 Adjectives of comparison in postnominal position 273
10 Diachronic corpus study of six adjectives of comparison 287
11 Diachronic corpus study of six adjectives of difference 321
12 Summary 351
Corpora 361
References 362
Index 393