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Grammaticalization
Second Edition

Thi s is a general introduction to grammatical ization, the change whereby lexical

terms and constructions come in certain l i nguistic contexts to serve grammatical
functions, and, once grammatical i zed, continue to develop new gra m matical fu nc­
tions. Thus nouns and verbs may change over time i nto gra mmatical elements
such as case markers, sentence connectives, and auxi l iaries. The authors synthe­
size work from several areas of l i nguistics, i ncluding h istorical l i nguistics. dis­
course analysis, and pragmatics. Data are drawn from many languages i ncluding
Ewe, Finnish, French, Hindi, H ittite, Japanese, Malay, and especially Engl ish.
This second edi tion has been thoroughly revised with substantial u pdates on
theoretical and methodological i ssues that have arisen in the decade si nce the
fi rst edition, and includes a signi ficantly expanded pibliography. Particular at­
tention is paid to recent debates over directionality in change and the role of
gra mmatical ization in creolization.
Grammaticalization will be a valuable and stimu lati ng textbook for all l inguists
i nterested i n the development of grammatical forms. Readers in anthropology
and psychology will also appreciate the insights it offers i nto the i n teraction of
language and structure and use.

PAUL J. HOPPER is Pau l M ellon Di stingui shed Professor of H umanities at

Carnegie Mellon University. His publications incl ude Gralllmaticalization (co­
authored with Eli zabeth Closs Traugott, Cambridge, 1 993), A Short Course
in Grammar ( 1 999), The Limits of Gra/llmaticalization (co-edi ted with Anna
Giacalone-Ramat, 1998), and Freqllency alld the Emergence of Linguistic
Structure (co-edited with Joan Bybee, 200 1 ).

ELIZABETH CLOSS TRAUGOTT is Professor of Linguistics and Engl ish at

Stanford University. Her publications i ncl udeA History of English SYlltax ( 1 972),
Linguistics for Students of Literature (co-authored with Mary L. Pratt, 1 980),
Grammaticalization (co-authored with Paul J. Hopper, Cambridge, 1 993), and
Regularity in Semantic Change (co-authored with Richard B. Dasher, Cambridge,
2001).
CA M B R I DG E T EXT B O OKS I N L I NGU I S T I CS

Gel/eral editors: p. AUSTIN, J. BRESNAN, B. COMRIE.

W.DRESSLER.C.J. EWIlN. R. LASS, D.LIGHTFOOT.

I. ROBERTS. S. ROMAINE. N. V. SMITH

II/ this series

1'.1'1. MATTHEWS MO/l"IIJIIIgy Second edition

B.C O MRIII Aspect
R. M. KIlMI'SON Selllal/tic Tlreory
T IIYNON HistoriClJI Lil/Kuistics
J.ALLWOOD.I..-G.ANDERSON and O. DAHL Logic iI/ Lil/guistics
D. B. FR Y l1,e Plry. :s IIfSpeeclr
R.A.HUDSON Sociolinguistics Second ed it ion
A. J. ELLIOTT Child Lal/guage
p. II. MATTII
·

A.RADFORD Tra11.ttil1'11/atiol/al SYI/tax

L. I I AU ER EI/Klislr Word-Forlllatiol/
s.c. LEVINSON PI'CIglllatics

G. DROWN and G. YULE Discourse AI/alysis

R.IIUDDLESTON IlItmductiol/ til tire Gl'Clllllllar 1!f'EIIglislr
R. LASS Plrlll/oIOKY
B.COMRIE Tel/se
w. KLEIN Secol/d Lallguage Acquisitiol/

A. J. WOODS. p.FLETCHER and A.H UG�I ES Statistics iI/ Lallguage Studies

D. A. CR USE Lexical Sellla/llics

A.RADFOR 0 Tral/.ttil1'1l1atiol/al Grullllllar

M. G 1\ RM 1\ N PsydllJlil/Kuisties
G.G.CORBETT Gellder
II. J.GI EGERICII EIIglisllPlrol/ology

R. C 1\ NN Fllrlllal Sellla/llies
J. LA V ER Pril/ciples 1!f'Plul/letie.l·
F.R.I'A LM ER Grallllllatical Roles and Relatiol/s
M. A. JON ES Fllul/datiolls 1!f'Frel/d, Sy/ll/lX
A.RADFORD SYl//tJctic Tlreory alld tire St1'llclllre 1!f'EIIKlislr: a Millilllalist Appmaclr
R. D. VAN VALIN, JR. and R. J.LI\ pOLLA Sy/llax: Struclllrl'. Meallillg alld FUllctiol/
A. DURANTI LillgllislicAI/tlrmpoloKY
A.CRlITTIlNDIlN I/IIOllaliol/ Sec on d ed ition
J. K.n l AM BERS and I'.TRlIDGll.L DialeclllloKY Second edit i o n
C .LYONS Det
. illilel/e.f.I'
R. KAGIlR Oplimalily Tlreory
J. 1\ . �I 0 L M All I/Ilmductioll 10 Phlgills alld Creole.f

C. G. CORDETT NUlllber

c. J. IlWEN and H.VAN DER HlI LST TirePlrol/ological St1'llclllre I!f' Words
F.R.I'A LM ER Mood alld Modalil)' Second ed ition
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M. YII'1;lIIe

w. CROFT T.11",llIgy alld Ulliversals Second edition

F .COULMAS W rilillg Systellls: WI illtmduClion111 Ilreir IiIlKUislic allaly.
L. W HITE Secolld umKuaKeAcquisitioll a"d Ulliversal Grullllllar
I'. J. HOI'PER and E. C. TRAUGOTT Grallllllaticalimtioll Second ed it i on
Grammaticalization
Second Edition

PAUL J. HOPPER
Paul Melloll Distillgllis/led P mfessor of Humallities,
Carnegie MellcJII Ulliversity

ELIZABETH CLOSS TRAUGOTT

Professor of Lillguistics alld Ellglish,
Stallford Ulliversity

",:':"", CAMBRIDGE
::: UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRI DGE U N I V E RS I TY PRE S S
Cambridge. New York. Melbourne. Madrid. Cape Town. S i ngapore. Sao Paulo. Delhi

Cambridge Uni versity Press

The Edi nburgh B u i lding. Cambridge. C B 2 8RU. UK

Published in the Un i ted States of A merica by Cambridge Un i versity Press. New York

www.can lbridge.org
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© Paul 1. Hopper. Elizabeth Closs Traugoll 1 993. 2003

This publ ication is in copyright. Subject to stat utory except ion

and to the prov isions of relevant col lective l icensing agreements.
no reprod uction of any part may take place without
the writlen permission of Cambridge Un iversity Press.

First publi shed 1 993

Second edition 2003
Fourth prillling 2008

Printed in the Un i ted K i ngdom at t he Un iversity Press. Cambri dge

A cata/olille record./ill" 'his /Jllblicatioll is tlI'ai/ab/e fhnn the British LibrCII)'

Librw:v (!f" COI/IIIl!,u Caw/olluillg ill Publicatioll daw al'l'lied./ill"

ISBN 978-0-5 2 1 -00948-5 hardback

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Cambridge Uni versity Press has no responsibi lity for t he persistence or accu racy
of URLs for external or t hi rd - party internet websi tes referred to i n this publ ication.
and does not guarantee that any cOlllent on such websites is. or w i l l remain.
accurllle or appropriate.
In memory of
Dwight Bolinger
1907-1992
 Contents

List offigures page x i i i

List of tables xiv
Preface and acknowledgments xv
List of abbreviations xvIII

1 Some preliminaries 1
1.1 Introduction I
1 .2 What is a grammatical i zed form? 4
1 .2 . 1 A prel i m i nary classi fi cation of grammatical forms 4
1 .2.2 Clines 6
1 .2.3 Periphrasis versus affixation 7
1 .3 Some further examples of gram maticalization 9
1 .3 . 1 Lets 10
1 .3 .2A West A frican complementizer 13
1 .3 . 3
Agreement markers 15
1 .4 Grammaticalization and language structure 16
1 .5 Grammatical ization and the directionality of language change 16
1 .6 Concl usion 17

2 The history of grammati.calization 19

2. 1 Introduction 19
2.2 Earl ier research on grammatical i zation 19
2.3 Research on grammaticalization from the I 960s to
the 1 990s 25
2.4 Recent trends in research on grammatical i zation 30

3 Mechanisms: reanalysis and analogy 39

3. 1 Introduction 39
3.2 Some background assumptions about change 40
3.2. 1 Induction, deduction , abduction 41
3 .2.2 Who i s the language learner? 43
3.2.3 The question of genetic endowment 45
3 .2.4 Innovation versus spread 46
x Contents

3.3 Reanalysis 50
:'1.3 . 1 The French i n flectional future 52
3.3.2 The Engl ish modal au x i l i aries 55
3.4 The i ndependence of reanalysis and gram matica l i zation 58
3.4. 1 Word-order change 59
3.5 Analogy/rule genera l i zation 63
3.6 The di fferential effects of reanalysis and analogy 68
3.7 Conclusion 69

4 Pragmatic factors 71
4. 1 Introduction 71
4.2 Inferenci ng and meaning change 74
4.2. 1 Semantics and pragmatics 76
4.2.2 Relati onshi ps between senses of a form: homonymy
and polysemy 77
4.2.3 Conversational and conventional i n ferencing 78
4.3 The role of pragmatic i n ferenci ng in gra mmaticalization 81
4. 3. 1 Metaphorical processes 84
4.3.2 Metonymic processes 87
4.4 Metaphor and metony my as problem sol ving 92
4.5 Pragmatic enrichment versus "bleachi ng" 94
4.6 Conclusion 98

5 The hypothesis of unidirectionality 99

5. 1 Introduction 99
5.2 Generalization 1 00
5.2. 1 Genera l i zation of meaning 101
5.2.2 Genera l i zation of gra mmatical fu nction 1 04
5.3 Decategori al ization 1 06
5 . 3 . 1 A noun-to-affix c l i ne 1 10
5.3.2 A verb-to-affi x cline III
5.3.3 Multiple paths 1 14
5.4 Some processes participating i n unidirecti onal i ty 1 15
5.4. 1 Special i zation 1 16
5.4.2 Divergence 1 18
5.4.3 Renewal 1 22
5.5 A synchron ic resu l t of unidirectional i ty : layeri ng 1 24
5.6 Frequency 1 26
5.6. 1 Frequency effects 1 27
5.6.2 Synchronic studies of frequency 1 28
5.6.3 Diachron ic studies of frequency 1 29
5.7 Cou nterexamples to unidirecti onal ity 1 30
5.8 The uses of unidirecti onal i ty i n reconstruction 1 38
5.9 Conclusion 1 39
 Contellts XI

6 Clause-internal morphological changes 140

6. 1 I n troduction 1 40
6.2 Morphologization 1 40
6.2 . 1 Some characteri stics of clitics 1 42
6.2.2 Positions of cli tics 1 43
6.2.3 Semantic "relevance" as a factor i n fusi on and morpheme
order 151
6.2.4 Phonological concom i tants of morphologi zation 1 54
6.3 The development of paradigms 1 59
6.4 Argu ment-structure marking: fu nctional-seman t i c hiera rchies
and morphological generalization 1 65
6.4. 1 Object mark i ng in Persian 1 65
6.4.2 Ergative case marki ng: a statistical perspective 1 68
6.5 Loss 1 72
6.6 Conclusion 1 74

7 Grammaticalization across clauses 175

7. 1 I ntroduction 1 75
7.2 A cl i ne of clause-comhining consuuctions 1 76
7.2. 1 Paratax i s 1 79
7.2.2 Hypotaxis 181
7.2.3 Subordi nation 1 83
7.3 The gra mmatical i zation of cl ause l i nkers 1 84
7.4 Examples of the development of complex sentence
constructions 1 90
7.4. 1 ThaI-complementation i n Engl ish 1 90
7.4.2 Quotative say-constluctions i n Akkadian 1 94
7 .4.3 Rel ative clauses i n Engl ish and H i ttite 1 96
7.5 From complex to si mple clauses 204
7.5. 1 From cl ause chai n i ng to verb i ntlecti on in Lhasa 204
7.5.2 Two conjoi ned cl�uses reanalyzed as a si ngle
clause 206
7.5.3 From main cl ause construction to sententi a l
adverb i n contemporary English 207
7.6 Some counterexamples to unidirectionality in clause
combi ning 209
7.7 Conclusion 21 1

8 Grammaticalization in situations of extreme language

contact 212
8. 1 I ntroduction 212
8.2 B a s i c characteri stics o f pidgins and creoles 213
8.2. 1 Some characteristics of pidgins 214
8.2.2 Some characteristics of creoles 216
XII Contents

8.3 Implications of pidgins and creoles for language change 219

8.3. 1 Child versus adul t language acqu isition 219
8.3.2 Simpl i fi cation and elaboration 222
8.4 Specific implications of pidgi ns and creoles for
grammatical ization 224

9 Summary and suggestions for further work 231

Notes 234
References 237
Index of names 265
Index of languages 270
General index 272
 Figures

3. 1 A model of language change page 4 1

3.2 Schema o f the development of auxil iary be going to 69
4. 1 Revised schema of the development of auxiliary
be going to 93
7 . 1 Properties relevant to the c l i ne of clause combining 1 79
 Tables

::1.1 Grammatical ization of VO word order in English between

AD 1 000 and AD 1 500 page 67
5. 1 Approx imate proportion of compound verbs i n Indo-Aryan
languages 113
5.2 Ratio of compound verbs i n Marathi and H i ndi-Urdu
accord i ng to semantic class of main verb 114
6. 1 Buryat Mongolian pronouns and verb endi ngs 141
6.2 Pol ish tonic and cl i tic forms of the copula 146
6.3 Bonding of cl itic copu la to verb stem in Pol ish, AD 1500
to the present 146
6.4 Ditl"eren tial un iverbation of preterit verb and person-number
suffix in Pol ish dialects 147
6.5 Affixal aspect-tense-mood forms 1 54
6.6 Old Icelandic presen t indicative retlexive verb forms 160
6.7 Pre-Sanskrit noun intlection 1 62
6.8 Sanskrit and pre-Pal i forms of the copu la 1 63
6.9 Pre-Pali and Pal i forms of the copu la 1 63
6. 1 0 Differential intlection of the aorist in B u lgarian d ialects 1 64
6. 1 1 Differential i n l'lection of past participles i n Bulgarian
dialects 164
6. 1 2 Old English strong adjective singu lar i n fleclion 1 72
7. 1 Occurrence of that with think and guess versus al l other
verbs 209
 Preface to the second edition and
acknowledgments

When we wrote the first ed ition of this book i n the early 1 990s, our aim was
to present an overview of gram matical i zation for the benefi t of those students o f
li ngu istics t o whom this was a new o r o n l y vaguely fam i l iar framework for u n ­
derstanding l i nguistic phenomena. We defi ned gram matical i zation a s the process
whereby lexical i tems and constructions come in certain l i nguistic contexts to
serve grammatical fu nctions, and, once grammatical ized, con t i nue to develop new
grammatical fu nctions. We also characterized it as the process w hereby the proper­
ties that distinguish sentences from vocabulary come into bei n g diac h ronica l l y or
are organ i zed synchronically. In the last ten years gram matica l i zation has become
a maj or field of study, and work on the topic has flourished in both "fu nctional"
and "formal" frameworks, that is, on the one hand frameworks that privilege the
interplay of language structure and use and consider language as both a cog n i ti ve
and a commun icative force, and on the other frameworks that privilege language
struc ture and consider language pri marily from the perspective of i ntern a l i zed
systems. As work has progressed , it has become clear that the defi n i tion of gralll­
malical i zation as a "process" has been m isleading. To some i t has suggested that
gram matical i zation i s conceived as a force w i th an impetus of i ts own independent
of language learners and language tlsers . Th is was never i ntended . Only people
can change language. The chal lenge presen ted by the kinds of d ata of central con­
cern to those who work on grammatical ization is that morphosyntactic changes
are repl icable across languages and across times; furthermore, they h ave a very
slrong tendency 10 go in the same direction, e.g. lexical verb to auxi l i ary, nom inal
adpositions to case marker, not vice versa. To avoid further term inolog ical confu ­
sion, w e now define gram matical ization a s t h e change whereby lexical i tems and
constructions come i n certai n l i nguistic contexts to serve grammatical functi ons
and, once grammatica l i zed, continue to develop new gram m atical fu nctions.
In Ihis second ed ition we h ave mai n tai ned the basic structure and content o f the
original book, but because grammatical ization has come to be s o widely studi ed i n
Ihe last decade we have added substantial discussion of recen t i ssues where they
seemed germane. Lingu istic theory has also undergone some rad ical changes s i nce
Ihe book was original l y writte n ; for example, within generative theory ru le-based
xvi Preface and acknowledgments

grammars have been challenged by constraints-based grammars (see developments

in Optimal i ty Theory sparked by A . Prince and Smolensky 1 997); and issues of
the relationship between structure and use have come to be of central concern
to most theoretical perspectives on l i nguistics. We have not attempted to address
the variety of issues that form the current theoretical dialog. That would require
not only revision, but reconceptual ization, of the original book. Instead, we have
main tained the mai n outlines of the original work, deleted some obviously outdated
analyses and suggested poi n ters where relevan t to newer o nes.
Many terms in l i nguistics serve two functions, one to describe properties of
language (e.g., syntax, morphology, phonology), the other to name the study and
theory of that property. The term grammatical ization is no exception. It refers not
only to changes observable across time, but also to an approach to language study,
one that highlights the interaction of use with structure, and the non-discreteness
of many properties of language. In this book we do not advance any particular
theory of language, although the framework can be characterized as "integrative
functional ist" (Croft 1 995) i n that we consider l ingu istic phenomena to be system­
atic and partly arbitrary, but so closely tied to cogn itive and social factors as not to
be self-contained. We focus on observations that lead to claims about what sorts of
concepts an adequate theory must accou nt for. We discuss the kinds of i nterpreta­
tion of data that flow from the approach of gram maticali zation, as wel l as the ki nds
of data that one would look for in studying some aspect of a language from this
perspective. The study of grammaticalization touches on many of the topics that
have been central to work in l i nguistics, whether synchronic or diachronic, most
particularly the domains of morphosyn tax and morphology. No attempt is m ade in
this book to cover every topic in an encyclopedic way, n or could it be. Some basic
knowledge of l inguistics is needed. We assume that readers have at least worked
through one of the standard i n troductory textbooks, and have ei ther had a course
i n h istorical l inguistics or have carefully read a recent textbook i n this field.
Our deepest thanks to the numerous people who contributed directly or i ndi­
rectly to either the first or the second edi tion ofthis book, or both . Among them Luc
Baron ian, Joan Bybee, Brady Clark, Will iam Croft, Andrew Garrett, A. G i anto,
T. G ivon, the late Joseph Greenberg, Claude Hagege, Bernd Heine, Suzanne
Kemmer, Pau l Kiparsky, Christian Lehman n , Douglas Lightfoot, Therese
Lindstrom, John McWhorter, Fri tz Newmeyer, John Rickford, S arah Roberts,
Devyani Sharma, Scott Schwenter, Eve Sweetser, Sandra Thompson, and Max
Wheeler deserve special mention . Olga Fischer and her students, especially Marije
Bogers, Anthony Glass, and Brad Philpot, drew our attention to many poi nts in
the first edition that deserved clarification, as did Claire Cowie. We have been
especially i ndebted to the l ate Suzanne Fleischman and to Nigel Vincent, who
commented on drafts of the first edition, and to Roger Lass and Arnold Zwicky,
 Preface a nd acknowledgments XVI I

who made detail ed comments on the publ i shed version . Thei r carefu l and insightfu l
comments were of i nestimable value. Than ks too to t h e many students and fac u l ty
who attended our sem i nar at the Linguistic Society of America's Li ngu istic I n­
stitute at Stanford University i n 1 987, where many of the ideas for the writing or
this book were developed, and in subsequent courses that we have taught i n our
respective i nstitu tions and at summer sessions around the worl d . Julia Hard i n g
and John McWhorter provided i nvaluable h e l p with editorial matters for the fi rst
edition, Kay McKechnie, Rob Podesva, and Elyse Nakaj i ma for the second . We
would also l i ke to thank Penny Carter and Judith Ayl i ng for their help in getting the
first edi tion to press, and Andrew Winnard for his support of the second ed i tion .
We acknowledge the opportunities provided by G uggenheim Fel lowships
(Hopper i n 1 985 , Traugott i n 1 983) for the study of many of the aspects of gram m at­
icalization d iscussed here. Elizabeth Traugott further acknowledges a Fel lowsh i p
a t the Center for Advanced S tudy of the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford ( 1 983).
In writing this book we debated many points with respect for each other's
different views. No two authors covering as wide a range of issues currently open
to theoretical and methodological debate as are touched on in this book cou l d
expect to agree w i th every concept p u t forward, and w e are n o exception . We have
welcomed the inspiration that our differing perspectives have provided , and we
hope that this book w i l l encourage further debate i n the l i nguistic community.
Abbreviations

Linguistic terms

ABL ablative
ABS absolutive
ACC accusative
A OV adverb
AGR agreement marker
AGT agent
AOR aorist
ASP aspect
AUX auxil iary
BEN benefactive
CAUS causative
CL noun classifier
COMP complementizer
COMPL com pletive
CON] conj unction
CONTIN continuative
COP copula
OAT dative
OEF defi n ite marker
OEM demonstrative
OET determ i ner
OUR durative
EM PH emphatic
ERG ergative
FEM fem inine
FUT future
GEN gen itive
GER gerundive
 Abbreviatiolls XIX

ILL i l lative
IM P imperativt'
I M PF imperfect
INCL i nclusive
INDEF i nde fi n i te
INF i n fi n i tive
INSTR i nstru mental
lOB] i ndirect object
LOC locative
M modal
MASC mascu l i ne
M ED medial
NEG negative
NEUT neu ter
NF non-final marker
NOM nom i native
NP noun phrase
NPrel anaphoric NP i n a rel ative clause
OB] object
OM object marker
OV o�iect-verb word order
P particle
PART participle
PA RTIT parti tive
PERF perfect
PL pl ural
PM pred icate marker
PN personal name
POSS possessive
POST postposition
PREP preposi t i on
PRES presen t
PRO pronoun
PROG progress ive
PURP purposive
QUOT quotative marker
R ECIP reciprocal
REFL reflex ive
R EL relative
SG si ngular
xx Abbreviations

Srel relative clause

SUB subordi nator
SUBJ subject
SUBJUNCT subjunctive
SW switch-reference marker
TNS tense
TOP topic
TRANS transitive
V verb
VO verb-object word order
VP verb phrase
1 firs t person
2 second person
3 third person

Sym bols

> becomes/is replaced by/spl its i n to

< derives from
morpheme boundary
portmanteau morpheme boundary
alternates with

Stages of English

OE Old English (c. 600(1 1 25 )

ME Middle English (c. 1 1 25 - 1 500)
EMdE Early Modern Engl ish (c. 1 500-- 1 750)
MdE Modern Engl ish (c. 1 750-- 1 950)
PDE Present-Day Engl ish (c. 1 950-- )

By convention, vowel length signs have been omitted in Latin and Old English
forms.
 1

Some preliminaries

1.1 I ntrodu ctio n

(I) Bill is going t o g o t o college after a l l .

What is t h e relationship between t h e two i nstances o f g o i n this sentence? T h e first

go is usually analyzed as an auxiliary, the second as a main verb. Are they differe n t
morphemes t h a t just happen t o l ook a n d sou nd al ike, that i s , are they homonyms?
Are they variants of the same morpheme in different contexts, that is, are they
polysemous? Is the auxi l i ary h istorical ly derived from the main verb, and , if so, is
this kind of derivation cross-linguistically attested?
What permi ts the pair i n (2) but not the (b) sentence in (3)?

(2) a. Bill is going to go to col lege after a l l .

b. B i l l 's gonna go t o college after a l l .
(3) a. Bill's going to college after all.
b. ' B i I I ' s gonna col lege after all.

These questions and many others are characteristic of the study of gramm atical ­
ization. As a first approximation, the answer is that the aux i l i ary which expresses
immediate futurity derives h istorical ly from the motion verb go in a highly spe­
cific context, and that the two coexistent forms used to be polysemous. S uch
meaning-form correlations are found in a wide number of langu ages arou nd the
world.
The term "grammaticalization" has two mean i ngs, one to do w i th a research
framework within which to account for language phenomena, the other w i t h the
phenomena themselves. In this respect the term "grammatical i zation" resembles
not only other terms in l i nguistics such as "grammar," "syntax," and "phonology,"
but the terminology of all h igher-level concepts in scholarly d i scipl i nes. As a term
referring to a research framework, "grammaticali zation" refers to that part of the
study of language c hange that is concerned w i th such questions as how lexical i tems
and constructions come in certain l inguistic contexts to serve grammatical func­
tions or how gramm atical i tems develop new grammatical fu nctions. This research
framework is also concerned with characterizing the subset of cross- l i nguistically
2 I Some preliminaries

recurri ng correlations across time among semantic-pragmatic, morphosy ntactic,

and (someti mes) phonological changes. It highl ights the tension between the fi xed
and the less li xed in language, between relatively unconstrai ned lex ical (seman­
tic) structure and more constrained sy ntactic, morphosyn tactic, and morphological
structure. It provides the conceptual context for a pri nci pled account of the relative
i ndeterm i nacy in language and of the basic non-di screteness o f categories. As a
term referri ng to actual phenomena of language, "grammatical i zation" refers most
especially to the steps whereby particular items become more gram matical through
ti me. Grammatical ization i n this sense is part of the wider l i nguistic phenomenon
of structuration, through which combi nations of forms may in time come to be
lixed in certai n fu nctions.
Si nce Saussure, many l i nguists have approached language from one of two
perspect ives: that o r i ts structure at a single poi nt i n time ("synchron ic") and
that of change between two or more points in time (h istorical or "d i achron ic").
The sy nchronic dimension of a language is said to be its system of grammatical
u n i ts, rules, and lexical items (together with their meani ngs), that is, its grammar.
It is usual ly concei ved as essentially stable and homogeneous. The d iac hronic
dimension, on the other hand, i s understood as the set of changes l i n king a sy n­
chron ic state of a language to successive states of the same language. The d i s­
creteness of categories and rules, and the rigid i ty of the distinction between the
synchronic and d iachronic d i mensions have been cal led i n to question by work
on the structured vari ation to be found in vari ous soc ial contexts, and analysis or
di scourse and language in use. They are also cal led i n to question by the study of
grammatical i zation .
Grammatical i zation l i kewise has been stud ied from these two perspectives. The
chief perspective is h istorical , i nvestigating the sources of grammatical forms and
the typical steps of change they u ndergo. From this perspective, gram matical izat ion
is usually thought of as that su bset of l i ngu i stic changes whereby a lexical i tem
or construction i n certai n uses takes on gram matical characteri stics, or through
which a grammatical item becomes more grammatica l . The other perspective is
more synchronic, seeing gram matical i zation as pri mari ly a syntactic, d i scou rse
pragmatic phenomenon, to be studied from the poi nt of view or l1 uid pallerns of
language use. In this book we w i l l combi ne these two poi n ts of view, but with
greater emphasis on the hi storical di mension .
Our example of be going to/be gonna i l l ustrates several fac tors typical or gram­
matical i zation viewed form the historical perspective:
(a) The change occurs on ly i n a very local con text, that of purposive d i rectional
constructions with non- fi n i te complements, such as I a/ll going to marry Bill ( i .e.,
I a m leaving/traveling ill order to marry Bill). It does not occur in the con tex t of
 1.1 Introduction 3

direc tionals i n which the locative ad verb is present, such as 1 am going to Londoll
or even 1 am going to LOlldon to man)' Bill.
(b) The change is made poss ible by the fact that there is an i n ference of fllluri ty
from purpos ives: if I am travel i ng i n order to marry. the marri age w i l l be i n the
fu ture. In the absence of an overt directional phrase. fu turi ty can become salien t .
(c) The s h i ft from purposive b e going (to . . ) t o aux i l i ary b e goillg to i nvolvl!s
.

reanalysis not only of the be going to phrase but of the verb fol lowing i t . Thus
[ I am goi ng [ to marry B i l l) ) is rebracketed as [I [am going to] marry BiIl J . It also
i nvolves a change from progressive aspect to "im medi ate fu ture.")
(d) The reanalys is is d iscoverable. that i s. is man i fest, o n l y when the verb fol ­
lowing b e going t o is i ncompatible w i t h a purposive mean i n g , o r at least u n l i kel y
in that context, for example, I am going to like Bill, I alii going to go to wndoll.
In other words, the reanalysis is discoverable only because the con texts i n w h i c h
b e going t o c a n occur have been genera l i zed, o r analog i sed, t o con tex ts lhat were
unava i l able before.
(e) Once the reanalysis has occurred, be going to can undergo changes typical of
au x i l iaries, such as phonological reduction. The reduction of the three morphemes
go-ing to i n to one (gonl1a) is possible only because there is no longer a phrasal
bou ndary between -ing and to.
(t) The vari ous stages of grammatical i zation of be going (to . ) coexist i n Mod­
. .

ern Engl ish, although the change origi n ates in the fi fteenth century or perhaps even
earlier.
(g) The origi nal purpos ive mean i ng continues to constra i n the use of the a u x i l ­
iary : b e gonna is t h e fu ture of i ntention, p l a n , o r schedu le. As a n ori ginal aspectual ,
it can occur in constructions where a fu ture formed with will can not:

(4) a. If i n terest rates are going to c l i mb, we' l l have to change our plans.
b. *11' i n terest rales w i l l c l i mb. wC: 1 I have to change ollr p l a ns.

Th i s property o f persistence of meani ng presumably deri ves in part from the fac t
that the older be goillg (to . . ) for a long time was polysemou s w i th and coexisted
.

with the newer use, and hence all owed reinforcemen t of older mean i ngs.
(h) The main verb go is rel atively general in mean i ng, that is, it ex presses any
kind of motion away from the speaker, i ncluding wal k i ng. meanderi ng, ru n n i ng.
ridi ng, etc .
( i ) As gram matica l i zation has taken place, some of the orig i nal relatively con­
crete meaning o f go has been lost, spec i fical ly motion and direc tiona l i ty. However,
some new mea n i ngs have also been added ; these are more abstract and speaker­
based mean i ngs, spec i fically temporal mean i ngs based in speaker time. The h i s tori ­
cal development o f t h e construct ion w i l l b e discussed more fu l ly i n Chapter 4.
4 J Some preliminaries

1.2 What is a gra m matical ized form?

As is usual ly the case with words rich in implications, there are a number
of di fferent conceptions of grammaticalization. Yet there are central, prototypical
instances of grammatical ization which most l i nguists would recogn ise, and we
start with some of them .
For example, i t is usual ly accepted that some kind of disti nction can be
made in all languages between "content" words (also called "lexical i tems," or
"contentives"), and "fu nction" words (also cal led "grammatical" words). The
words example, accept, and green (i.e., nouns, verbs, and adjectives) are examples
of lexical i tems. Such words are used to report or describe thi ngs, actions, and qual­
ities. The words o f, and, or, it, this, that is, prepositions, connectives, pronouns,
and demonstratives, are function words. They serve to i ndicate relationships of
nominals to each other (prepositions), to link parts of a discourse (connectives), to
indicate whether entities and participants in a d iscourse are already identified or
not (pronouns and articles), and to show whether they are close to the speaker or
hearer (demonstratives). Frequently it can be shown that function words have their
origins in content words. When a content word assumes the grammatical charac­
teristics of a function word, the form is said to be "grammaticali zed." Qui te often
what is grammaticalized is not a si ngle content word but an entire construction
that i ncludes that word, as for example Old English pa hwile pe ' that time that' >
hwile 'while' (a temporal connective).

1.2. 1 A preliminary classification of grammatical forms

Not all gram matical forms are i ndependent words. In most languages, at
least some grammatical forms are bound as an affix or other category. A lthough
there is no ful l agreement on defi nitions of gram matical forms, in general it is possi­
ble to speak of a continuum of bonding between forms that has a looser relationship
between forms (i.e., independent words) at one end and a tighter relationship (i .e.,
grammatical affixes attached to stems) at the other. On this contin u u m there are
various "cluster" or "focal areas" of the following nature (cf. Halliday 1 96 1 : 249;
Bybee 1 985 ; Hammond and Noonan 1 988):
(a) Grammatical words with relative phonological and syntactic i ndependence.
For example, Engl ish prepositions can be fou nd at the end of a clause w i thout a
noun phrase, as in This is where we 're at and This bed has been slept in. In this
position they have ful l segmental structure (unreduced vowels and consonants,
e.g. , [ret] , not [at)) and ful l prosodic structure (they can take stress).
(b) Derivational forms. Con tent words themselves often contain meaning­
ful parts, known as derivational forms, that are neither i nflections nor cli tics
 1.2 What is a grammaticalizedjorm ? 5

(see below). Many derivational forms add a meaning component without affecting
the category i n q uestion. The un- of unhappy adds to the adjective happy the mean­
ing ' not, ' but does not change the adjectival status of the word. Similarly the -ling
of duckling adds to the noun duck the new meaning 'young and smal l , ' but does not
change the nominal status of the word. Such derivational m orphemes are part of
the lexicon and can be cal led "lexical derivational morphemes." Other derivational
forms do change the category of the word . For example, i n the word happi ly, the
suffix -Iy derives an adverb from an adjective; i n swimm er, the suffix -er derives a
nou n from the verb swim . Likewise, in the word reclusive, the suffix -ive derives
an adjective from a noun . B ecause they not only add mea n i n g but also serve to
indicate grammatical categories, such "grammatical derivational morphemes" can
be considered to serve a role between content and grammatical forms. Derivational
morphemes are added to roots or stems, and the derived stems may be hosts for
c1i tics and i nflections.
(c) Cli tics. These are forms that are not affixes, bu t are constrained to occu rring
next to an autonomous word, known as the host (for important treatments, see
Klavans 1 985 ; Zwicky 1 985a; Halpern 1 995). The diachro n i c process whereby a
lexical form becomes a c1itic is cal led "cl i ticization" (the corresponding verb i s
"c1 i ticize"). The word c 1 i tic is a cover term for two varieties . A c l i tic that precedes
the host is called a "proc l i tic," e.g., in colloquial English, 's i n's me ' i t's me.' A
c1itic that fol lows i ts host is an "enc l i tic." G ood examples of c l itics i n English are
the 'm in I 'm, the 're in you 're, the auxil i aries 'll, 've in we 'll, we 've, etc . ; and
discourse particles in many languages, e.g., in Latin, -qu e ' a nd ' :

(5) Conticuere omnes, intentique ora tenebant.

fel l-silent all, intent-que gazes they-held
'All fell silent and intently held thei r gaze.' (c. 30- 1 9 BC, Virgil, Aeneid II, 1 )2

Cli tics may be thought of as forms that are half-way between autonomous
words and affi xes (Jeffers and Zwicky 1 980). They m ay share properties of both,
although it i s hard to make general izations about which features w i l l occur in a
given i nstance. For example, c1itics may resemble affixes in forming an accentual
unit with the host. In Indonesian, where stress tends to occur on the next-to-Iast
syllable of the word, the enclitic pronoun n ya ' i ts ' i n wa ma- n ya ' i ts colour' affects
the stress i n the host stem (contrast wama 'colour'). On the other hand, c1itics may
behave more l ike independent words in havi ng no etl'ect on accent, as in Spanish
hablam e 'speak [sg.] to me ! , ' where the accent of the host habla is u nchanged by
the extra syl l able of the enc l i tic me .
(d) Inflections. These are always dependent and bound; that i s to say, inflections
by definition are always part of another word. Inflections reflect categories and
properties of words such as gender, case, number, tense, aspect, and syntactic
6 J Some preliminaries

relationsh ips. In many languages, i n flections are used to show agreement

("concord") in these properties or categories with some other word , e.g., English
this shoe versus these shoes, where the forms of the demonstrative this/these reflect
the si ngular/plural contrast i n shoe/shoes.

1 .2.2 Clines

Basic to work on grammatical i zation i s the concept of a "c l i ne" (see

Hal l iday 1 96 1 for an early use of this term). From the poi n t of view of change,
forms do not shift abruptly from one category to another, but go through a series of
small transitions, transitions that tend to be s i m i lar in type across languages . For
example, a lexical noun l i ke back that expresses a body part comes to stand for a
spatial relationship i n inlat the back of, and is susceptible to becom i ng an adverb,
and perhaps eventual ly a preposition and even a case a ffi x . Forms comparable
to back of (the house) i n English recur all over the world in d i fferent languages .
The potential for change from lex ical noun, to rel ational phrase, to ad verb and
preposi t i on, and perhaps even to a case affix, is an example of what we mean by a
c l i ne.
The term "cl i ne" i s a metaphor for the empirical observation that cross­
l i nguistical ly forms tend to undergo the same k i nds of changes or have s i m i lar
sets of relationships, i n s i m i lar orders. "Cl i ne" has both h i s torical and synchronic
implications. From a historical perspective, a c l i ne is conceptual i zed as a natural
"pathway" along wh ich forms evol ve, a schema which models the development
of forms (see Andersen 200 1 ). Synchron ical ly a c l i ne can be thought of as a
"conti nuum": an arrangement of forms along an i magi n ary l i ne at one end of
which is a ful ler form of some kind, perhaps "lexical," and at the oppos i te end a
compacted and reduced form , perhaps "grammatical ." Heine and h i s col leagues
have suggested that the particular paths along which i nd i vidual forms or groups of
forms develop be cal led "grammatical ization channels" (see Lehman 1 995 [ 1 982])
and the i n ternal structure or relati onal patterns w i t h i n these channels be called
"grammatical i zation chai ns" (Heine, Claudi, and Hiinnemeyer 1 99 1 a: 222; Heine
1 992) . The metaphors "cl i ne," "conti nuum," "pathway," "channel," and "chain"
are to be u nderstood as hav i ng certai n focal poi nts where phenomena may cluster.
Most importan tly, they are metaphors for label ing gram matical phenomena, not
putati ve neurological or other elements of the language capaci ty.
The precise cluster poi n ts on the c l i ne (i .e., the l abels preposition, affi x, etc . )
are t o a certai n extent arbitrary. Li ngu ists may not agree on w h a t poi nts t o p u t on a
cline, nor on how to define the c l i n e i n a given instance. They also may not agree
on whether a particular form is to be placed in the lexical area or the grammatical
area of the c l i ne. But the relative pos i ti ons on a c l i ne are less subject to d ispute.
 1.2 What is a grammaticalizedjorm? 7

For example, most l i nguists wou ld agree that there i s a "c l i ne of grammatica l i ty"
of the fol lowing type :

content item> grammatical word> clitic> inflectional affix

Each item to the right is more clearly grammatical and less lexical than its partner
to the left. Presented with such a c l i ne, l i nguists wou ld tend to agree that, i n so far
as they schematical ly reflect cross- l i ngu istic general i zations, the poi n ts (labels) on
the cl ine could not be arranged i n a differen t order, although i ndividual i tems m ay
violate the order language-spec i fical ly (Andersen 200 1 ). A n u m ber of such cl i nes
have been proposed, based on the many difl"erent d i mensions of form and mean i n g
that are found i n language. General ly, they i nvol ve a u n i d i rectional progress i o n
in bonded ness. that i s , i n t h e degree of cohesion of adjacen t forms that goes from
loosest ("periphrasis") to tightest ("morphology").
It is often difficu l t to establish firm bou ndaries betwee n the categories repre­
sen ted on c l i nes. and i ndeed the study of grammatical i zati on has emerged in part
out of a recognition of the general fl u i d i ty of so-cal led categories. It has also
emerged out of recognition that a given form typically moves from a poi n t o n
the left of the c l i ne t o a poi nt further o n the right, i n other words. that there i s
a strong tendency toward unidirectionality i n the h i s tory o f i ndividual forms. We
will discuss u n idirectional i ty and ways of conceptual izing the c l i ne i n some deta i l
in Chapter 5 .

1.2.3 Periphrasis versus affixation

O ften the same categories can be expressed by forms at d i fferent places i n

the c l i nes. Thus i n English w e have expressions that are "phrasal" o r "peri phrastic"
( l iterally "occurri ng in a rou ndabout fash i on") such as (6):

(6) a. have waited (perfect tense-aspect)

b. the household of the queen (possessive)
c. more interesting (comparative)

It is also possi ble to ex press tense-aspect, possession, and the comparative through
aflixes or changes i n ternal to the stem word. In this case the c a tegories are bound
to a host and are said to be expressed "morphological ly" or "affixally"as in (7):

( 7) a. waited (past tense affixed -ed); sang (past tense signaled by intemal change:
contrast sillg)
b. the receptionist's smile (possessive affix -s)
c. longer (comparative -er)

The d i sti nction between the peri phrastic and morpholog i c a l expression of a
category is i m portant for the study of gramm atica l i z at ion bec a u se of two diachronic
8 I Some p relimin aries

tendencies. One is for periphrastic constructions to coalesce over time and become
morphological ones. While this and other tendencies are discussed i n more detail
later, especially in Chapter 6, a couple of examples follow:
(a) Defin i te nouns are marked i n many European and other languages with an
article that i s separate from the noun, for example, Engl ish the newsp aper, French
la rue ' the street,' German die Stadt ' the city, ' etc. In such languages defi n i teness is
marked periphrastically (cf. English the five yellow newsp apers, where the article
is at some d istance from the noun). But i n some languages this sign of definiteness
is an affix, which can usual ly be shown to derive from an earl ier definite article
or demonstrative. Thus in Istro-Romanian 3 the Latin demonstrative ille ' that' now
appears as a suffix on nouns marking both defi niteness and case, as i n :

(8) gospodar-i-Ior
boss-PL-DEF:GEN
'of the bosses'

Here -i marks plural and -lor is the definite geni tive plural suffix deriving from Latin
illorum, the masculine genitive plural of ille. S i m i larly i n Danish, -en i n dreng-en
' the boy' and -et in hus-e t ' the house' are defi nite s i ngular markers for common
gender and neuter nouns respectively, and have their origin in earl ier postposed
demonstratives (cf. Old Norse ulfr-inn ' wolf- the' from ·ulfr hinn 'wolf-that' ). In
the modern l anguages they cannot be separated from the preceding stem .
(b) Various tenses and aspects of verbs are formed either w i th aux i l iary
verbs (i.e., periphrastic tense-aspect) or with verbal suffixes (Le., morphologi­
cal tense-aspect). Thus i n H i ndi the present tense is formed periphrastically by a
verb stem plus the verb to be:

(9) miii kursii par baithaa hiiii.

1 chair on sit: MASCSG be: I SG
'I sit on a chair. '

In Swahil i , o n the other hand, basic tenses such a s the future are formed morpho­
logically, w i th prefi xes on the verb:

( 1 0) Wa-ta-ni-uliza.
they-FUT-me-ask
'They will ask me. '

Morphological tense-aspect formations can often be shown to have developed

out of earl ier periphrastic ones. The Romance l anguages supply n umerous ex­
amples of this, such as the Italian future c antaremo ' we w i l l sing' or the
French future (1I0US) ch an terons from Latin c an t are h abemus, l i terally ' we have
to sing.' We discuss this kind of development in the Romance l anguages in
Section 3.3. 1 .
 J.3 Some furthe r examples of g rammaticalizatiol1 9

The second diachronic tendency that makes the periphrasis/bondedncss distinc­

tion important is an example of what is known as "renewal" - the tendency for
periphrastic forms to replace morphological ones over time. Where a long histor­
ical record is available, the process of renewal can be seen to occur repeatedly.
The French future form just mentioned, for example, i s the i nflectional form (1I0IlS)
chaflterolls ' we w i l l sing . ' B u t its Latin source, cafltare habemus, was a periphrastic
future that eventually replaced an older morphological future, cantabimus, after
competing with it for several centuries. Th is form in turn evidently contai ns the verb
*b" IIInos ' we are, ' inherited from Indo-European, and can be reconstructed as an
earlier periphrastic construction 'kama bh umos. French IlOUS chanterons is itsel f
being replaced by nous allons chanter, l i teral ly ' we are going to sing.' S omething
like the following sequence of changes can therefore be esta b l ished:
(I I) Pre-Latin Latin French
.?
' kanta bh umos > cantabi mus
cantare habemus > chanterons allons chanter> ?

At each attested stage two (or more) constructions compete (typically separated
from one another by some nuance of mean ing such as ' we w i l l ' versus 'we are
about to' ), and eventual l y the periphrastic one wins out, undergoes coalescence of
the two elements that comprise it, and may in turn be replaced by a new periphrastic
form (Hodge 1 970 provides examples of the renewal by periphrasis from several
language fami l ies) .
The terms "renewal" and "replacement" are somewhat problematic because
they may suggest functional identity over time, and even gaps to be filled. In fact,
however, i t is not on l y the forms cantabimus and cantare habemus that d ille r;
their exact semantic fu nctions and syntactic distributions ditler too, in so far as the
overall set of tense options is necessari l y' different once the two forms coexist (other
changes were also occurri ng elsewhere in the system, further reducing any potential
identity). Unfortunately our available l i nguistic vocabulary or "metalanguage" for
expressing the relationship between earlier and l ater l i nguistic phenomena is poor.
We will not attempt to change it here, but w i l l fol l ow custom and use terms such as
"replacemen t" and "renewal," on the understand ing that there is no exact identity
over time (and, as w i l l be discussed in Section 5.4.3, there are no gaps to be
filled).

1.3 S o m e fu rth e r exa m p l es of gra m m atical ization

We turn now to some rel atively detailed examples of g rammaticali zation

to i l lustrate several of its characteristics, and some of the problems of defining
instances of it u niquely.
 10 J Some preliminaries

1 . 3. 1 Lets

An i nitial example w i l l be chosen from contemporary standard Engl ish

also known as Present-Day Engl ish (or PDE for short). We beg i n with this ex­
ample because it i l l ustrates vividly that grammatica l i zation i s an everyday fact of
language. It results in not only the very fam i l iar constructions of language such
as be going to, but also many of the highly structured, sem i-autonomous "formal
idioms" of a language that m ake it un ique, but are often regarded as peri pheral
(Fi ll more, Kay, and O' Connor 1 988).
In PDE there i s a construction i nvolving a second-person imperative with the
verb let:
( 1 2) a. Let us go. (i.e .. release us)
b. Let yourself down on the rope.
c. Let B i l l go. (i.e release B i l l )
.•

The understood subject of let is you. The objects of let i n (a), (b), and (c) are all
ditl"erent: us, yourself, Bill, and may be passivized, e.g . :
( 1 2) d. We were let go.

Alongside the ordinary imperative construction with let in ( 1 2a-c) there is a con­
struction sometimes called an "adhortative" ( i nvol v i ng urg i n g or encouragi ng),
as i n :

( 1 3) Let's go to the circus ton ight.

Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech , and Svartvik ( 1 985 : 829) refer to this construction
as a "first-person imperative." Here the subject of let is u nderstood as T as in
somethi ng l i ke 'I suggest that you and I . . ' Us is also the subject of the dependent
.

verb rather than the object of let, and can therefore not be passivized : ( 1 2d) i s the
passive of ( 1 2a), not of the first part of ( 1 3).
Qu irk et al. note the spread of let 's in very col loq u i al English to the s i ngular of
the first person :
( 1 4) Lets give you a hand. (i.e .. let me give you a hand)

(We will represent the form as lets when the subject i s other than the fi rst-person
plura\.) Quirk et al. describe the lets here as "no more than an i n trod uctory particle"
( 1 985 : 830). In some varieties of Engl ish, the first-person-plural i nclusive subject
itS of lets has been rei n forced by you and J as i n :

( 1 5) Let's you and I take 'em on for a set.

( 1 929. Faul kner. Sartor;s 1 1 1 . 1 86: OED let 1 4.a)

It has even been extended beyond first-person subjects of the dependent verb. The
fol lowing examples are ti'om Midwestern American speakers :
 1. 3 Some Jttrther examples of g rammaticalizatioll I I

( 1 6) a. Lets you and him fight.

h. Lets you go first , then if we have any money le ft I' l l go.

W h i le ( 1 6a) was perhaps jocular (a third party eggi n g on two others), the contex t
of ( 1 6b) was quite neutral . In other i nstances there is no second- or third-person
subject pronoun, and lets simply conveys the speaker's condescendi ng encourage­
ment, e.g., in address ing a c h i l d or a trucu lent person :

( 1 7) a. Lets wash your hands. (Co le 1 97 5 : 268 )

h. Lets eat our liver now, Betty.

The devel opment of the lets construction i l l ustrates a n u m ber of characteristics o f

grammatical ization. Among these are:
(a) ( 1 2) shows that a fu l l verb let 'al l ow, permi t ' has al tered i ts semantic range
in some way. We w i l l suggest that grammatical i zation i n its early stages often.
perhaps always, i nvol ves a shift i n mean ing (Chapter 4 ; see also Traugott 1 98 9 :
Heine, Claud i , a n d Hlin nemeyer 1 99 1 a ) . Furthermore, as mentioned in con nection
with b e goillg to , th i s k i nd o f s h i ft occurs only i n a highly spec i fic context, i n
th is case o f the imperative Let /IS . . • A first approx i mation would be to say that
the earl ier idea o f perm ission or al lowing has become extended in one part of i ts
parad igm to incl ude a further one of suggesting or encourag i ng someone to do
someth i ng. The sense o f let has become less spec i fi c and more genera l ; at the
same time it has become more centered in the speaker's atti tude to the s i tuat i o n .
Th i s new construction h a s been available si nce t h e fourteenth century (Traugott
1 (95).
(b) ( 1 6) shows that the range of possible subjects of the verb dependent on lets
is bei ng extended from first-person plural to other person s . Th i s was presumabl y
made possible b y the fact that we/us i n Engl ish may b e i n terpreted a s i nclusive o f
the addressee ( , I and you ' ) o r exclusive o f the addressee ( ' I a n d another o r others ' ) .
So long a s the di stribution of let 's i s consistent with first-person-plural su�jects i n
the dependent verb (e.g . , ' let's indulge oursel ves' ), i t may s t i l l b e usefu l t o analyze
it as let + / I S . But th i s d i stri bution has now spread to other persons, as suggested
by example ( 1 4 ), Lets give you a hand (said by one i nd i v i d ual to another), where
lets is s i ngular. As men ti oned in connection with be going to, earl ier mean i ngs
and fu nctions typical l y persist. Thus ( 1 3- 1 7) coexist with ( 1 2). Furthermore, the
semantic changes proceed by small steps (perm ission to suggestion, fi rst to second
to third person). 4
(c) A Ilrst-person-pl ural pronoun us became c l i ticized (let 's) , and from the
word-pl us-c l i t i c complex a s i ngle word was formed, lets. A s s uggested above,
so long as the di stri bution of this form is consistent w i t h the fi rst-person-pl ural
subjects of the dependent verb, i t may sti l l be usefu l to a n a lyze i t as a c l i ticized
12 J Some preliminaries

form of us. But when this distribution spreads to non-first-person-plural subjects,

we are not synchronicall y j ustified in conti nuing to do so. The final s of lets,
then, is losing i ts status as a separate morpheme, and is i n the process of becom­
i ng a simple phonemic constituent of a (monomorphem ic) word . The historical
trajectory:

(let) us > (Iet)'s > (Iet)s

illustrates a more general shift of

word > affix > phoneme (cf. Givan 1 979: 208-9; Hopper 1 994)

(d) Once the monomorphemic stage has been reached, then the form becomes
subject to further reduction. S ince [ts] is often reduced in rapid speech to the
sibilant, it is not surprising that lets [lets] often becomes lets [ \cs] . It even goes
further and in very colloquial speech is c1iticized and attached to the fol lowing
verb: sgo, sfight.
(e) Like other emergent constructions, lets in some sense fi xes, or routi nizes,
a meaning or discourse function which was formerly freer (see Hopper 1 987). It
singles out one comb ination (in this case, let + us) from what was once a more
extensive paradigm of equivalent forms, as i n ( 1 8), and specializes it i n a newly
emerging function, the adhortative:

( 1 8) Let h i m speak now or forever hold his peace.

This new function is provisional and relative rather than permanent and absolute;
lets may not survive. However, for now a disti nctive new grammatical resource
has entered the language and is available to speakers for the building of interactive
discourse.
(f) A fi nal comment about the development of lets is that, although the stages
are clearly very local and appear somewhat marginal, nevertheless they are part of
a typological change affecting Engl ish. This is a shift which has been in progress
for over two thousand years from an essential ly "object-verb" system (as in her
saw) with case and verb i nflections, in other words, affixal constructions, to an

essentially "verb-object" system (as in saw her) with prepositions and phrasal verb
constructions, i n other words, periphrastic constructions. We will discuss word­
order shifts i n more detail in Section 3.4. 1 . Here it must suffice to mention that in
Old Engl ish, as in some other older Indo-European languages, the adhortative was
expressed by the subj unctive, as shown in ( 1 9) (though a phrasal form with utan
also existed).

( 1 9) C i l d binnan O ritegum nihta sie gefu lwad.

child within thirty nights be: SUBJ UNCT baptized
'Let a child be baptised within thirty nights.' (c. 690, Law Ine 1 . 1 )5
 /.3 Some further examples of grammaticalizatioll 13

The developmen t of lets, then, is to be seen as among the class of innovations that
are leading to a phrasal expression of the modalities of the verb, replacing an earl ier
inflectional expression. It is part of the very general change from a morphological
way of expressing a function to periphrasis discussed in Section 1 .2.3. The ri se
of the numerous aux i l i ary and auxil iary-like verbs and expressions of Modern
Spoken English (such as may, be going to, keep V-ing, and others) is symptomatic
of the same trend, which has been ongoing in English for many centuries (see Krug
2(0 1 ).

1 .3.2 A West African complementizer

Our examples so far have for the most part i l l ustrated the development of
verbs i nto grammatical markers of the kind usual ly associated with verbs, specif.
ically tense, aspect, and mood . We turn now to a wel l-known example of a verb
being grammaticali zed i nto a connective, in this case a complementizer that i ntro­
duces a fi n i te complement c l ause. A fi n i te complement clause is equivalent to an
English that-clause in such constructions as :

(20) I know that her h usband is in jai l .

The verb which h a s the position o f know in such sentences i s cal led the "matri x
verb," and the clause introduced by the complementizer that is the "complement
clause."
Lord presents data from a number of African and Asian languages in which a
locutionary verb meaning 'say ' has come to function as a complemen tizer. Exotic
as it may seem, such a construction is by no means unknown in English, cf. :

(2 1 ) If/Say the deal falls through, what alternative do you have?

We will c i te examples from Lord's work on languages of Wes t Afi'ica, all of them
related members of the Kwa group of Niger-Congo spoken i n Togo and Ghana,
especially from Ewe (the examples that fol l ow are from Lord 1 976: 1 79-82).
The process leading to the grammatical ization of a 'say ' verb i nto a complemen­
tizer evidently begins when a general verb meaning 'to say ' i s u sed to rei nforce a
variety of verbs of saying i n the matri x clause. In Ewe, for example, if the matri x
verb is the general verb be 'say, ' no further complementizer is n eeded :

(22) Me-be me-w:>-e.

I-say I-do-i t
' I said, " I did it."!1 s a i d that I did i t . '

However, if some verb of saying other than b e is the matrix verb, be must be used
as a complementizer:
14 I Some preLimina ries

(23) Me-gbb be me- w o -e.

I say say I-do-it
'I said that I did it.

(where gbb is a different verb meaning 'to say ' ).

The next stage is one in which be comes to be used as a complemen tizer after a
whole range of matrix verbs, i ncluding, for example:

gbb 'say '

tt b ' write'
15 eje edzi 'agree' ( l it. 'accept reach top' )
x;)se 'bel ieve'
nya ' know'
bU ' think'
v 5 ' lear, be afraid '
kp 5 'see'
ttb ' forget'
se ' hear, perceive'
na ' make sure'

The verbs included are verbs o f speaking, cognition, and perception. S i nce these
are verbs which in most languages can have objects that are propos itions ( i .e.,
clauses), there is an obvious sy ntactic and semantic relationship between them
and 'say. ' Even so, the mean i ng and morphology of the 'say ' verb is essenti ally
lost in the process of grammatical ization as a complementizer. For example, in (24)
we see that be may no longer take verbal affixes such as person markers (compare
lIIe-df 'I-want' ), nor may it productively take tense-aspect markers.

( 24) Me-df be map-Ie awua Qew6.

I-want say I - S U B J UNCT-buy dress some
' I want to buy some dresses. '

Furthermore the original mean ing of 'say ' i n s u c h sentences is n o t easy t o recover.
Al though some of i ts origi nal context is maintai ned ( i t remains a form that in tro­
duces a noun clause), it has become avai lable to many more contexts. From being
a verb that introduces something said, it has become generalized to in troducing
other kinds of clauses, such as reports of things seen or though t.
As with Engl ish be going t o and lets, the Ewe exam ple shows not only a se­
mantic but also a structural adjustment. Not only does the verb 'say' extend and
perhaps even lose its original mean ing of say i ng, but a construction originally
consisting of two i ndependent clauses is reanalyzed as a matrix verb plus a com ­
plement c lause in troduced b y a complementizer. For example, (25 ) is reanalyzed
as (26):
 1. 3 Some further examples of g rammaticalizatioll 15

(25) Megbb be [mew:>e] .

I -say say I-do-it
'1 said I did it . '
(26) Megbl::l [be mew:>e ] .
I-say [say I-do-it]
'I said that I did it . '

We w i l l return later to fu l ler d i scussion o f reanalysis i n Chapter 3 . For the present,

it is important to recognize that both semantic and structural reanalysis are m<\jor
mechani sms i n grammaticalization. We return i n Chapter 7 to further consideration
of the role of gram matica l i zation i n cl ause combi n i ng.

1.3.3 Agreement markers

Our two examples have i l l ustrated gram matical i zation as the change
whereby lexical i tems or ph rasal constructions can come i n certa in con texts
to serve grammatical fu nctions. We now turn brietly to an example of the
way i n which al ready gram matical items can be used with more gram matical
fu nctions.
A frequently occurri ng change is the developmen t of personal pronouns i n to
agreement markers . In Lati n there was a demonstrative stem il/- ( i n tlected for
case, number, and gender) poi nting to location near third persons. in other words.
it was a distal deictic. In French the forms of this demons trat ive have devel ­
oped along two l i nes. The fu lly stressed form became the pronoun iI. The u n ­
stressed form became the article Ie. A s a pronoun , if signals n u m ber (singu lar)
and gender (non - fem i n i ne). It contrasts with elle, wh ich is s i ngular but fem i ­
nine. In standard French i f a n d elle serve personal pronoun fu nctions only. Thus
we li nd :

(27) Le garrron est venu hier soir. II est danseur.

the boy is co me yesterday evening. he is dancer
'The boy came yesterday evening. He is a dancer. '
(28) La jeune fille est venue hier soir. Elle est danseuse.
the girl is come yesterday evening. she is dancer
'The girl came yesterday evening. She is a dancer. '

But in non-standard French it has come to be an agreement marker. It does not fi l l

a N P slot; i nstead i t i s bou nd t o the verb a n d does n o t signal gender, a s i n :

(29) Ma femme iI est venu.

my : FEM wife AG R has come
' M y wife has come . ' ( L a m b recht 1 98 1 : 40)
16 1 Some preliminaries

1 .4 G ra m m atica l i zati o n a nd la nguage structu re

The examples we have sketched share such characteristics as the

fol lowing:
(a) earl ier forms may coexist with later ones (e.g., English let, Ewe be');
(b) earl ier meani ngs may constrain later meanings and/or structural character­
istics (be in Ewe occurs after verbs of perception, cognition, and saying). Such
examples emphasize that language development i s an ongoing process, and one
that often reveals i tself as change that is only i ncompletely achieved at any given
stage of a language.
Ulti mately, too, examples such as these suggest more general consequences for
l i nguistic theory and even for our perspective on language i tself. Examples such
as Ewe be chal lenge some standard descriptive and theoretical l i nguistic notions.
One is that of categories. Is Ewe be a verb or a complementizer, and what criteria
do we apply i n determining this? Are sentences such as (22)-(23) examples of
direct speech or of reported speech? Is the c lause fol l owing be strictly speaking
subord inated (embedded) as i n PDE, or is it more loosely attached to the precedi ng
clause? Do we need in our analyses to "stop the fi l m" and fi x the grammar of a
language as we i nvestigate i ts structure, or do we need to v iew "grammar" as
a provisional way-station i n our search for the more general characteristics of
language as a process for organizing cognitive and com municative content?

1.5 G ra m m atical izati o n a n d the d i rectio n a l ity of

la nguage change

The theory of grammaticalization as we have presented it i n this pre­

liminary chapter raises a number of important issues that cannot be discussed
in detail here. One of . these issues that has l oomed l arge in recent debates over
grammatical ization i nvol ves the robustness of the claim that there is directional­
ity in grammaticalization. Examples like the reanalysis of a verb of motion as a
future tense auxil iary (found i n a number of languages), as i n 1 am going to need
a sweater, suggest a general principle at work. The principle that has come to be
known as unidirectional i ty is an assertion about the change

less grammatical > more grammatical

that is fundamental to gram matical ization. Unidirectional i ty is a strong hypo­

thesis that is based on observations about c hange, observations that lead to the
concl usion that grammatical forms do not in general move "uphill" to become
lexical , whereas the reverse c hange, whereby grammatical forms are seen to have
their origins in lexical forms, is widespread and well documented.
 1 . 6 ConcLusioll 17

Unidirectional i ty is a generalization derived from observations about language

change in the same way that u n iversals are derived from observations about lan­
guage systems. Unidirectional i ty is in fact a widely attested characteristic of
change. Potentials for change such as stop > affricate > fricative, the nasal ization
of vowel s before nasal consonants, the word-fi nal devoicing of obstruents, and
many other phonetic changes are so commonly observed that they h ave the status
of universals. Such changes can even be q u i te specific; if we fi nd that one dialect
of a language has [h) i n posi tions coO"esponding to the velar fricative [x] in another
dialect, most l i nguists would unhesitatingly assume a change [x] > [h) rather than
the reverse, and would base their study of the relationship ofthe two dialects on this
assumption until i ncontrovertible ev idence forced them to amend it. Occasional
counterexamples may exist, but they do not lead to the inference that [h) > [x] and
[x] > [h) are events of equal probabil i ty, sti l l less to the conclusion that change
is random and that the study of change is noncumulative. The ex istence of coun­
terexamples alerts l i nguists to the need for caution, and serves as a rem inder that,
like language systems, l anguage change is not subject to exception less physical
laws, and that diachron ic universals, l i ke synchronic ones, are observed tenden­
cies rather than theoretical absolutes (see e.g. Greenberg, Ferguson, and Moravcsik
1 978; Croft 1 990). The typical paths of grammaticalization can gu ide the study
of change in morphosyntactic structure i n the same way that the identification of
natural phonetic processes guides the study of phonological c hange, and can allow
us to ascertain the more promising of al ternative hypotheses about the origins of a
given grammatical form and perhaps to track the stages in its emergence. As with
any theoretical postulate, the frequent d iscovery of counterexamples and a fai l u re
to accommodate them within reasonable extensions of the theory could eventually
invalidate it.
Like the study of universals, then, u n id irectional ity is an empirical as well as a
theoretical matter. It is subject to question through the discovery of counterexam­
ples, and to debate about i ts status i n the theories surroundi n g language change.
What kinds of coun terexamples are there, and what do opponents and defenders
of grammaticalization say about them? We return to discussion of these debates
in Chapter 5 .

1 .6 Conclusion

The concepts of grammatical ization have now become part of the standard
vocabulary of many l i nguists working i n both synchronic and h istorical fields, and
it is assumed as a useful and robust perspective in numerous d escriptive studies o r
individual languages and language fami l ies. However, a s in a n y branch o f l i nguis­
tics, not all those who work on grammatical ization conceptua l i ze i t i n exactly the
18 I Some preliminaries

same way. For us it is a two-pronged branch o f l i ngu istics: ( i ) a researc h framework

for study ing the relationsh i ps between lexical, constructional, and grammatical ma­
terial i n language, diachron ically and synchronical ly, both in particular languages
and cross- l i nguistical ly, and ( i i ) a term referri ng to the c hange whereby lex ical
items and constructions come i n certai n l i nguistic contexts to serve gram mat i­
cal functions and, once grammatical i zed, continue to develop new grammatical
functions.
The bibliography of monographs, edi ted col lections, and journal artic les that
adopt some aspect of grammatical ization as a given is now so extensive as to
preclude anyth i ng l i ke an ex haustive accou nt of it. I n the next chapter we w i l l
present an outl i ne of t h e h istory o f grammatical i zation a n d a survey of some
recen t work, espec ially as it pertai n s to the rest o f this book.
 2

Th e h i sto ry of g ra m m atica l i zati o n

2. 1 Introduction

Gram matical i zation is the study of grammatical forms, however defined,

viewed not as static objects but as enti ties undergoi ng change. It has had many
practitioners, has been characterized i n many differen t ways. and has occupicd
at various ti mes both central and marginal posi tions in l i ng u i stics. In this chap­
ter we w i l l survey briefly the thought of some of the m,�jor figures i n the earl y
study of gram mat ical i zation, men tion some of the contem porary l i nguists who
are i n terested i n the subdisc i p l i ne, and briefly summarize some o f the more
recent developments. Other surveys of the h istory of gra m matical i zation can
he found in C. Leh mann ( 1 995 [ 1 982]) and Hei ne, Claud i . and Hun nemeyer
( 1 99 I a).

2.2 Earlier resea rch on g ra mmaticalization

The term "gram matical i zation" i tsel f was apparently coi ned by the French
li ngu ist A n toine Mei l let, an Indo-Europeanist who at one time h ad been a student
o f Saussure. In a wel l- known defi n i tion; Mei l let wri tes o f "the attri bu tion of gram­
matical character to an erstw h i le autonomous word" I ("I ' attri bution du caractere
gram matical a un mot jad i s autonome"; Meil let 1 9 1 2 : 1 3 1 ) . Yet Meil let's ideas
o n the origins of gram matical forms have predecessors i n earl ier speculations that
were often rooted i n assumptions abou t the evolutionary devel opment of human
speech .
Perhaps t h e most soph isticated o f these speculations about the orig i n s o f gram­
mar was that proposed by the German ph i l osopher and h u m a n i s t W i l helm von
Humboldt ( 1 767- 1 835). In a publ i shed lecture entitled "On the genes i s of gram­
matical forms and their i n tl uence on the evolution of ideas" ( " U ber dar> Entstehen
tier gram mati kal ischen Formen und i h ren EinftuB aufdie Ideencntwic k l u ng") given
i n 1 822 he suggested that the grammatical structure of human l anguages was pre­
ceded by an evol utionary stage of language in which only concrete ideas cou ld

t t)
20 2 The history of grammaticalization

be expressed . Grammar, he suggested, evol ved through distinct stages out of the
col location of concrete ideas (Humboldt 1 825 ).
At the first stage, only thi ngs were denoted, concrete objects whose rel ationships
were not made expl icit in utterances but had to be inferred by the l i s tener. In modern
terms, we might designate this stage as a "pragmatic" or "discourse-based" stage
(Giv6n 1 979: 223). Eventually certain of the orders in wh ich the objects were
presented became hab i tual, and this fixing of word order i n troduced a second stage
(we might nowadays cal l i t "syntactic"). At this stage, some words began to waver
between "material" ( i .e., concrete) and "formal" (i.e., structural or grammatical)
mean ings, and some of them would become specialized for functioning i n more
relational ways in u tterances. In the third stage, these functional words became
loosely affi xed to the material words; in modern terminology this might perhaps
be called a stage of "cl i ticization ." In this way "agglutinative" pairs arose, dyads
consisting of a material word and a relational word. In the fourth stage these
aggluti native pairs became fused into synthetic, single-word complexes. There
were now stem and (inflectional) affixes that contai ned s i m u l taneously material
and grammatical meani ngs; we might think of this as a "morphological" stage. At
this fourth stage, too, some of the function words would continue their l ives as
purely formal indicators of grammatical relationships. The functional l i fe of words
was reflected in their forms and meanings; during long usage mean i ngs became
lost and sounds were worn down.
It is no coincidence that Humboldt's four stages correspond q u i te closely to a ty­
pology of languages that was in the air during the first decades of the n ineteenth cen­
tury. According to this typology, there were three basic types of l anguage: Isolating
(Humboldt's stage II), Agglutinative (stage III), and Inflectional or Synthetic
(stage IV). Humboldt's proposal can be thought of as an account of these types in
evolutionary terms, supplemented by an assumed pre-stage (Humboldt's stage I).
He eventual ly developed this idea i n to a series of further speculations about lan­
guage typology and the relationship between language and cultural evolution.
(A usefu l account of Humboldt's later ideas on language can be found i n Humboldt
1 988 [ 1 836] , and R. Harris and Taylor 1 997 [ 1 989] : 1 7 1 -84.)
By the end of the ni neteenth century a clear tradition in the study of gram­
matical ization had been establ ished, lacking only the name i tself. A picturesque
account of the origi ns of grammatical forms and their evolution is to be found in
the survey of l i nguistics by the German neogrammarian Georg von der Gabelentz
( 1 89 1 ). Gabelentz ( \ 89 1 : 24 1 ) invites his readers to visual ize l i nguistic forms
as employees of the state, who are hired, promoted, put on hal f-pay, and fi­
nally retired, while outside new appl icants queue up for jobs ! Forms "fade,
or grow pale" ("verblassen"); their colors "bleach" ("verbleichen"), and must
be covered over w i th fresh paint. More gri mly, forms may die and become
 2.2 Earlier research on grammaticalization 21

"mummified" ("mummifiziert"), l i ngering on without l i fe as preserved corpses

( 1 89 1 : 242).
Gabelentz articulated many of the insights basic to work on grammaticali zation.
He suggests that grammaticalization i s a result of two competing tendencies, one
tendency toward ease of articulation, the other toward disti nctness. As relaxed
pronunciations bring about sound changes that "wear down" words, disti nctions
become blurred. So new forms must step in and take over the approximate function
of the old ones. For example, the Lati n first-person-singular future tense of a verb
such as video 'I see, ' videbo, is formed with a suffix -bo which was once * b"
wo, a first-person-singular form of the verb ' to be' used as an auxi l i ary. An old
periphrastic construction, that is, a complex of a mai n verb and an auxiliary verb
(vide + b" wo), was col lapsed i n to a single inflectional form . But l ater this form
too "wears down" and is replaced by new periphrastic forms such as videre "abeo
'I have to see.' Somewhat later, this idea was to be articulated again by Mei l let
under the rubric of "renewal" ("renouvellement").
A second i nsight developed by Gabelentz is that this is not a l inear process, but
rather a cycl ical one. Whereas for Humboldt's generation synthetic (inflectional)
languages l i ke the classical Indo-European languages represented an evolutionary
endpoint, Gabelentz noted that the process of recreation of grammatical forms i s
recurrent, and that the conditions for t h e cycle are always presen t i n l anguages.
Moreover, even the idea of a cycle is an oversimpl ification . Gabelentz speaks
instead of a spiral, in which changes do not exactly replicate themsel ves but parallel
earlier changes i n an approximate manner.
Gabelentz's work, unlike Humboldt's, is informed by the awareness of geolog­
ical timespans, which made it psychologically possible to thi n k of m u ltiple cycles
of l inguistic change. It also reflects an expanded knowledge of the variety of human
languages and of h istorical texts, especially i n the Indo-European l anguages that
the neogrammarians and their predecessors had studied so e nergetically, now for
two or three ful l generations. Yet Gabelentz's discussion of the origins of gram­
matical forms and thei r transformations covers only a couple of pages i n his entire
book. Although the germs of l ater work on grammatical ization are contained here,
it was Antoine Meil let who first recognized the importance of grammaticali zation
as a central area of the theory of language change. Meil let was also the first to
use the word "grammaticali zation," and the first linguist to d evote a special work
to it.
Meillet's use of the term "gram matical i zation" to designate the development o f
grammatical morphemes out of earl ier lexical formatives is clearly descended from
Humboldt's and Gabelentz's insights. It was also anchored i n a m ore positivistic
view of language, which stressed regularity in l i ngu istic change and systematic­
ity in synchronic description. As Meillet hi mself noted, the first generation of
22 2 The history of grammaticalizatioll

lndo-European ists had speculated i n tensely about the origi ns of gram matical
forms. But their results had been random and u nrel iable. Moreover, they had
i nsisted on placing these results in a "glottogonic" context, that is, the context of a
su pposed evolutionary l i ne that would lead back to the actual origins o f language.
But this l i ne of i nvestigation had now fal len i n to disrepute. Mei llet showed that
what was at issue was not the origins of gram matical forms but their transforma­
tions. He was thus able to present the notion of the creation of gram matical forms
as a legiti mate, indeed a cen tral, object of study for l i nguistics.
In his article "L' evolution des formes gram maticales" ( 1 9 1 2), Meil let descri bes
how new grammatical forms emerge through two processes. One is the wel l­
known fact of analogy, whereby new paradigms come i n to being through formal
resemblance to already established parad igms. (An example of analogy i n recent
English would be the replacement of the plural shoen by shoes through analogy
to such established plurals as stones. ) The second way in which new grammatical
forms come into being, Meil let suggested, is through grammatical ization, "the
passage of an autonomous word to the role of grammatical element" ( 1 9 1 2 : 1 3 1 ).
Meil let il lustrates the synchronic result of this process with the French verb
erre 'to be, ' which ranges in mean ing from a fu l l exi stential ontological sense, as
in je suis celui qui suis 'I am the one who is [ l i t. am] , ' to a somewhat less fu l l
locative sense in je suis chez moi 'I a m a t home,' t o a n almost redundant sense i n
je suis malade 'I a m i l l , ' je suis maudit 'I am cursed,' and t o a purely grammatical
function as a tense-aspect auxil iary in je suis parti 'I l eft, ' je me suis prol1lelle
'I went for a walk . '
The most significant, a n d remarkable, part of t h i s fu ndamental article is Mei l lel's
confident assertion : "These two processes, analogical innovation and the attri bu tion
of grammatical character to a previously autonomous word. are the only ones by
which new grammatical forms are constituted . The details may be complex in any
individual case; but the pri nciples are always the same" ( 1 9 1 2 : 1 3 1 ) . Later in the
same article, Meil let goes even further. Analogy can only operate when a nucleus
of forms has already emerged to which new forms can be ass i m i lated . So anal ogy
is ru led out as a pri mary source of new gram matical forms. Therefore, "the only
process left is the progressive attribution of a grammatical role to autonomous
words or to ways of grouping words" ( 1 9 1 2: 1 32). In every case where certainty
is possible, Mei llet contends, this is the origin of gram matical forms. Noth ing
stands i n the way of assum i ng that when allowance has been made for analogical
extension the same kind of source can ultimately be attributed to forms o f unknown
or uncertain origin also.
Considering that during the neogrammarian period all i nvestigations of gram­
matical morphology had been essentially investigations of analogy, Mei l let's state­
ment was sweeping and rad ical . Wri ting of the transformation of autonomous
 2 . 2 Earlier research 011 grammatiealizatioll 23

words i n to grammatical roles, he says: "The importance [of this] is in fact deci ­
sive. Whereas analogy may renew forms i n detai l , usual l y leav i ng the overal l plan
o f the system untouched, the 'grammatical i zation' of certai n words creates new
forms and i ntroduces categories which had no l i nguistic expression. It changes the
system as a whole" ( 1 9 1 2 : 1 33). "Grammatical ization," then , is seen as a change
which affects individual words. B ut it is evidently also meant to be extended to
phrases. Indeed , the combi n i ng o f words into set phrases and their eventual amal ­
gamation is presented i n the first part of the article as a defi n i ng feature o f the
evt!nl. In the French fu ture represen ted by je vais jaire ' I w i l l do,' l i terally 'I am
going to do,' vais no longer contains any perceptible sense o f 'going. ' In je jerai
'I wi l l do,' the fu sion has gone even further, with no analytic trace remai n i n g of
tht! original Latin phrase jaeere habeo 'I have to do. ' It is a l oss, Mei l let suggests,
o f express ivi ty. A novel way of putti ng words together becomes commonplace
("banal"). In the t!xtrt!me case, tht! phrase even ceases to be analyzable as con­
tai n i ng mort! than ont! word , but i ts members are fused together ("soude") as one.
Th i s phrasal col l ocation is itse l f usually a replacement for an a l ready ex i stent form
which has become commonplace. Consequently, gram maticalization tends to be
a proct!ss of replac i ng older grammatical categories w i th n ewer ones having tht!
same approxi mate val ue: i n flected futures (ama-bo ' I shal l love ' ) are rt!placed by
pt!ri phrastic futures (amare habeo ' I have to l ove' > 'I shal l love ' ) , which in turn
are fust!d (Fr. aimerai 'I shal l l ove' ), and so on.
At the end of the article he opens up the possibi l i ty that the domain of gram­
matica l i zation m ight be extended to the word order of sentences ( 1 9 1 2 : 1 47-8).
In Lati n , he notes, the role o f word order was "expressive," not grammatical . (By
"expressive," Mei l let means someth ing l i ke "semantic" or "pragmatic.") The sen­
tence 'Peter slays Pau l ' cou ld be rendered Petrus PaulullZ caedif, Paulum Petrus
caedit, eaedit Paulum Petrus, and so on. In modern French and English, which
lack case morphemes, word order has primarily a grammatical val ue. The change
has two of the hal l marks of gram matical ization: (i) it involves change from ex­
pressive to gram matical mean i ng; ( i i ) it creates new grammatical tools for the
language, rather than merely mod i fy i ng already ex istent ones. The grammatical
fi xing of word order, then, is a phenomenon "of the same order" as the gram­
matica l i zation of individual words: "The expressive value of word order which
we see i n Lat i n was replaced by a grammatical value. The phenomenon i s of the
same order as the 'grammatical ization ' of th is or that word ; i nstead of a single
word, used with others in a group and taking on the charac ter of a 'morpheme'
by the effect of usage, we have rather a way of group i ng words" ( 1 9 1 2: 1 48 ) . We
st!t!, then, that i n this i n itial study o f grammaticalization, Meil let already points
to appl ications o f the term that go far beyond the simple change from lexical to
gram matical mt!an ing of si ngle words. Indeed, if we pursue his argument to its
24 2 The history of grammaticalization

logical conclusion, it is difficu l t to see where the boundaries of gram matical iza­
tion could convinci ngly be drawn. If the fixing of word-order types is an example
of grammaticalization through constant usage, could not al l constructions which
have been called "grammatical" constructions be said to have their ulti mate ori­
gins in such habitual collocations? Evidently, how far we shal l be prepared to
extend the notion of "grammatical ization" will be determi ned by the l i m i ts of our
understanding of what it means for a construction to be "grammatical" or have a
grammatical fu nction. We will suggest i n Chapter 3 that, at least at this stage in our
understanding of grammatical ization, word-order changes are not to be included,
although they are deeply i nterconnected with it.
Meillet also anticipated other themes i n the study of grammatical ization which
are still at i ssue. One of these is how grammatical ization comes about. He attributes
grammaticalization to a l oss of expressivi ty in frequently used collocations, whose
functions may then be rejuvenated through new collocations fi l l i ng more or less
the same role. Yet often a "loss of expressivity" seems i n su fficient to capture what
happens i n grammatical ization. Some of his own i l lustrations challenge such a
motivation. For example ( 1 9 1 2: 1 38-9), the Modern German word heute ' today '
can be traced back to a presumed Old High German phrase hiu tagu, the i nstru­
mental of two words meani ng ' this day ' (compare Gothic himma daga and Old
High German hill jaru ' this year [ instr.] " Modern German heuer). It is, first of
all , a l i ttle startling to find a change of this kind discussed under the rubric of
grammaticalization, since heute might be more appropriately thought of as i l lus­
trating the emergence of a new lexical i tem rather than of a grammatical formative.
The change in Old High German from *hiu tagu to hiutu is a change only from
an adverbial phrase to an adverb, and i t is questionable whether the later form
is less meaningful ("expressive") than the earl ier. Yet there i s surely a difference
in Modern German between heute and an diesem Tage 'on this day ' that needs
to be characterized in some way. Evidently some different way of talking about
meani n g change is needed . We return to these issues and a better understanding of
the relationship between grammatical ization and lexicalization i n Section 5 .6.
Accompanyi ng this loss of expressivity is a supposed weakening ("affaiblisse­
ment") of phonological form and of concrete mean ing ( 1 9 1 2 : 1 39). Meil let's ex­
ample is the development of the Modern Greek future tense morpheme tha, whose
origi n i s in an older construction thelO ilia 'I wish that' (with ina from a still earlier
Mila). The change included the fol lowing stages ( 1 9 1 2: 1 45):

thell> ina > thell> na > then a > tha

and the semantic development is from ' wish, desire' to ' future tense. ' It is not
difficult to see "weakening" in the phonological process, since there is undeniably
a shortening and hence a loss of phonological substance. B u t it is not so obvious
 2.3 Research /rom the 1 960s to the 1 990s 25

that the concomitant semantic change should also be seen in the same way. Like
all the writing on grammaticalization at his time, and much si nce then, Meil let's
account of grammatical ization i n general i s couched in terms which stress deficits
of various kinds : l oss, weakening, attrition. Such metaphors suggest that for al l
his l i nguistic sophi stication there is still a slight residue of the "classical" atti­
tude toward language in Meillet's thought, the attitude that equates change with
deterioration.
Still, this first full-length paper on grammaticalization, i n which the term itself
is proposed, is astonishingly rich in its insights and the range of phenomena which
are analyzed. Subsequent work on grammaticalization has modi fied, sometimes
quite rad ically, Meillet's views, and many more substantive examples have been
described, but time and agai n the germs of modern ideas on grammatical ization
are to be found, implicitly and often expl icitly, in this initial paper.

2.3 Resea rch o n gra m matica l ization fro m the 19605

to the 19905

After the work of Meil let in the fi rst two decades of the century, the topic
of grammatical ization was taken up mainly by Indo-Europeanists. Many other
scholars who saw themselves as historical linguists, but not necessarily Indo­
Europeanists, did not concern themselves with grammaticalization as a subdisci­
pline or even as a topic i n its own right. The term is consistently overlooked i n the
textbooks of synchron ic and historical linguistics of the period. Indeed the tradi­
tion of what C . Lehmann has called "amnesia" about grammatical ization extends
up to the presen t, for the word does not appear in the i ndex of Hock's Principles
of Historical Linguistics ( 1 99 1 [ 1 986]), even though some of i ts principles do,
nor does it figure in recent textbooks' of l i nguistics such as Fi negan and Besnier
( 1 989). Only very recently do we find the leading h istorical textbooks, such as
McMahon ( 1 994), Trask ( 1 996) and Campbell ( 1 999) devoting significant space
to grammaticalization.
In the mid twentieth century "mai nstream" l inguistics was strongly synchronic
in its approaches and assumptions, which meant that historical factors, i ncluding
grammatical ization, were of secondary interest. Language change came to be seen
as sets of rule adjustments, beginning with one stage and ending with another,
but there was l i ttle i nterest in the gradual steps that must have been i nvolved in
between : "the treatment of change as the change i n rules between synchronic
stages isolates the description of change from the change itself' (Ebert 1 976:
viii-ix). The only significant studies of grammaticalization during this period were
done by Indo-Europeanists such as Kurytowicz (especially 1 964, 1 976 [ 1 965])
26 2 The histOlY of grammatica lizat ion

and Watki n s ( 1 964) who worked outside the domi nant theoretical parad igm. B u t
their work, unfortunately, was read al most exclusively b y other Indo-Europeanists.
Significantly, Mei l l et's student B enven iste, i n an article "Mutations of l i nguistic
categories" written i n 1 968, found i t necessary to repeat m uch of what Mei l let had
said in 1 9 1 2 concern ing the grammatical ization of au x i l i ary verbs out of lex ical
verbs such as 'have, hold. ' B enveniste coi ned a new word, "au x i l i ation," to re fer
to this process. Even though he used several of the very same examples which had
been proposed by Meil let (e.g., the Modern Greek tha future fr.o m an earl ier tile/a
ina), at no point in the paper did he expl icitly refer to Mei l let's work or use the
term "grammatic(al)ization" or its equ i valent.
That such an infl uential l i nguist as Benveniste could appear to be starting afresh
in the study of the origins of grammatical categories indicates the extent to which
Mei l Iet's i nsights had become submerged by twentieth-century structuralism. We
have seen that grammaticali zation presents a chal lenge to approaches to language
which assume di screte categories embedded in fi xed, stable systems. It is therefore
not surpris i ng that grammatical ization again appears as a major theme of general
(as opposed to specifically Indo-European) l i nguistics in the contex t of the ques­
tion ing of autonomous syntactic theory which occurred i n the I 970s. Duri ng this
decade the growing interest i n pragmatics and typology focused attention on the
predictable changes i n language types. Li ngu ists thereby (largely unconsciously)
revived the same l i ne of i nvestigation that had been dropped earlier i n the century,
a l ine which went back at least to Humboldt. An early paper by G i van perhaps be­
gan th is revival (Hopper 1 996: 220-2). Entitled "Historical syntax and synchronic
morphology : an archeologist's field tri p," it announced the slogan "Today's mor­
phology is yesterday's syntax" (G ivan 1 97 1 : 4 1 3), and showed with evidence
from a number of African languages how verb forms that are now stems with
affixes could be traced back to earl ier col locations of pronouns and i ndependent
verbs.
If one of the main tenets of twentieth-century structuralism, especially as de­
veloped in the United States, was homogenei ty, another was the arbi trari ness of
language, that is, its alleged i ndependence fi·om external factors such as the nature
of th ings i n the world (the referents of language). Saussure had drawn attention to
the arbi trari ness of the sign, for example, to the total independence of a word such
as dog of the an imal it names. B u t he also stressed the fact that arbitrari ness is l i m­
ited by associations and "relative motivations." These include word compou nd ing
as i n twenty-five, derivational affixation as in French pommier 'apple- tree' (pol1ll1le
'apple' + -ier), cerisier 'cherry-tree' (cerise 'cherry ' + -ier), and i n flectional para­
digms such as Latin dominus, domini, domino 'master-NOM, master-GEN, master­
DAT. ' I ndeed, he regarded grammar, the set of structural rules, as setting l i m i ts on
the arbi trari ness and the chaotic nature of language ( 1 986 [ 1 922] : 1 30).
 2.3 Research /rom the J 960s to the J 990s 27

One name given to the pri nciple that ensures non-arbi trari ness is "iconicity."
Iconicity is the property of simi larity between one item and another. The philoso­
pher Peirce made a useful disti nction between imagic and diagrammatic icon icity. 2
Imagic icon icity is a systematic resem blance between an item and its referent with
respect to some characteristic (a photograph or a scu lpture of a person are i magic
icons). Diagrammatic icons are systematic arrangements of signs. None of the
signs necessari ly resembles its referen t in any way, bu t, cruc ial ly, the relationsh ip
among the signs m irrors the relationship among the icon 's referents: "those [ icons]
which represent the relations . . . of the parts of one th i ng by analogous relations
to their own parts are diagrams" ( 1 93 1 : Vol . 2, Part 277). For example, the model
of language change in Chapter 3 is an iconic diagram of the relationsh ip between
grammars of di fferent generations of speakers . It is diagrammatic iconicity which
is of chief i mportance in l i nguistics, and which has suggested signi ficant i nsights
in to the organization of language and i n to grammatical ization in particular. A very
wel l-known example of diagram matic icon ici ty i n language is the tendency for
narrative order to match the order of events described ; if the order is not matched,
then some special marker or "diacritic" (usual ly a grammatical form) must be
used . Thus Caesar's famous Velli, vidi, vici 'I came, 1 saw, 1 conquered' is a much­
ci ted example of the way in which order of mention mirrors order of action de­
scribed (see, e.g., lakobson 1 964 [ 1 960) ); any other order would require complex
structures such as ' Before 1 conquered, I came and 1 saw. ' Another wel l-known
example of diagrammatic iconicity in language is the way i n which pol iteness
(soc ial d istance) is typically reflected in language by complex morphology and
formal vocabu lary (often itself complex in structure), as exempl i fied by Good
//laming (versus Hi!), Would you please pass the butter (versus Can J have the
blltter?IPass the butter!) .
Al though icon icity was a major topic i n much European l i nguistics, especially
in the approach known as "semiotics'? or "semiology," i t was largely ignored as a
principle i n American l i nguistics in the first three quarters of the twentieth century,
when i n terest was focused on the arbi trari ness of language. Attention to icon icity
was, however, renewed by several l i nguists working with issues germane to gram­
matica l i zat ion, most notably lakobson ( 1 966), Haiman ( 1 980, 1 983, I 985a), and
Giv6n ( 1 985), who laid the foundations for much recent thinking on the subject.
The value of the pri nciple of iconicity is most apparent in the context of cross­
linguistic work, and it is not coincidental that the period when iconicity came to
be recognized aga i n was also a period of i nterest in typology of languages.
Th is was a period, too, of i n tense i n terest in language universals, and some l i n­
guists began applying the idea of grammatical i zation to general problems of syn­
chronic descri ption that had arisen i n the course of the search for these universals.
The work o f Li and Thompson was especially infl uential among those working
Other documents randomly have
different content
at honorable ransom, and even treating them while prisoners on
parole as guests on terms of equality, entertaining them at their
boards, and holding sacred to them all the rights of hospitality.
In no respect, however, had a wider change occurred in the
habits of the nation than in the treatment of their women, who,
although not certainly admitted to the full liberty of Christian ladies,
were by no means immured, as in their native land, in the precincts
of the Harem, “to blush unseen, and waste their sweetness on the
desert air,” but were permitted, still under the guardianship of
duennas, and with their trains of Indian eunuchs, and further
protected by their veils from the contamination of unholy glances, to
be present at festivals, at tournaments, nay! even at banquets,
when none but the members of the family or guests of high
consideration were expected to be present.
It is not, by the way, a little singular that almost in exact
proportion as the Moors enlarged the liberty of their women, by the
example of the Spaniards, did the Spaniards contract that of their
own bright-eyed ladies, by the example of the Moors; and for many
years the rigor of the Spanish duenna was scarcely inferior to that of
the Raid of a Moorish harem, or the ladies under charge of the one
much more obvious to the gaze of the profane, than the beautiful
slaves of the latter.
Did not, therefore, the beautiful Leila Ayesha rejoice and exult in
the comparative freedom which she enjoyed among the liberal
Moors of Spain, which as fitted to enjoy as the favorite child of a
wise father, enlightened far beyond the prejudices of his nation or
his time? In his own younger days he had been a traveler, had
visited Venice and even Madrid, in both of which cities he had been
a sojourner in the character of ambassador, and had thus, like the
wily Ulysses, “seen the cities of many nations and learned their
understandings.” Their languages he spoke fluently: he even read
their works, and, although a sincere and faithful Mussulman, he had
learned to prize many of the customs, to appreciate the principles,
and in some instances to adopt in his heart at least the practices of
the Christians.
 Too wise openly to offend the prejudices of his people—and
nothing would have done so, more decidedly or more dangerously
than any infringement of the sanctity of the harem—he had not
dared, absolute as he was, to grant to his daughter that full liberty
founded upon the fullness of trust which he had learned to admire in
Venice. Still he had done all that he could do without offending
prejudices or awakening angry opposition. He had made Ayesha,
from her earliest years, the companion of his leisure hours; he had
educated her in all that he himself knew, he had consulted her as a
friend, he had confided in her as a human soul, not treated her as
the mere pet and plaything of an hour.
And now as she grew up from an engaging child to a fair
marriageable maiden, accomplished, intellectual, thoughtful, not an
irresponsible being, but a responsible human creature, with the
beauty, the impulsive nature, the passionate heart of the Moorish
girl, but with the reason, the intellect, the soul of the Spanish lady—
Muley Abderrahman, who was waxing into years, began to doubt
whether he had done wisely in training up the child of Mequiñez, the
offspring of the desert, to the arts, the accomplishments, the hopes,
and the aspirations of the free Venetian dama—began to look
around him anxiously to see where he might bestow the hand of her
whom he had learned to cherish and esteem even above his people
or his power. He saw none, on that side of the Mediterranean, with
whom she could be other than a slave—the first and mistress of the
slaves, indeed, but still one of them—a beautiful toy to be prized for
beauty, while that beauty should yet endure; if faded, to be cast
aside into the sad solitude of neglect for a newer plaything, perhaps
to be imprisoned—as a discrowned and discontented queen, and
therefore dangerous—in some distant and dim seraglio on the verge
of the great burning desert.
And was this a fate for the bright, the beloved, the beautiful, the
sage Ayesha?
Thence was born the idea of the embassy to Boabdil. He knew
the kings of Granada civilized and cultivated far before those of
Tetuan or Tafilet, or even Mequiñez or Mecca—he knew that they
had adopted, in many respects, the usages of the Christian cavaliers,
and not least among these, their chivalrous courtesy and graceful
respect for the fair sex—he knew them powerful and wealthy, and
possessed of a land the fairest on the face of the earth, the glorious
kingdom of Granada. At this time, although the war had commenced
between Ferdinand and the Moorish princes, which was to terminate
at no very distant day in the total overthrow of the Saracenic empire
in Spain, it as yet lagged indecisively along, with no preponderance
of this or the other force; nor could there be any doubt that a
declaration on the part of the Sultan of Mequiñez, backed by the
reinforcement of a Moorish and Berber, and an active naval warfare
along the coasts of Spain, would not only secure Granada from any
risk of dismemberment, but even wrest a permanent
acknowledgment and durable peace from the Christian kings of the
Spanish provinces.
Boabdil was at this time formally unwedded, although, like every
other prince or magnate of his people, he had his wives, his
concubines, his slaves innumerable. He was notoriously a leaner to
the soft side of the heart, a fervent admirer of beauty, and was,
moreover, a kind-hearted, gracious and accomplished prince. That
he would be captivated by the charms of the incomparable Ayesha,
even apart from the advantages which her union would bring to
himself and to his people, could not be doubted; and should such an
union be accomplished Muley Abderrahman felt well assured that he
should have obtained for the darling of his heart all that he desired,
freedom of life, a suitable partner, and security for her enjoyment of
all her cherished tastes and respected privileges.
Still Muley Abderrahman, wiser than any Moslem father of that
age, wiser than most Christian parents of any age, was not inclined
to set down his own idea of what should be her good, with his
absolute yea! as being her very good. He had, strange thing for a
Moor! an idea that a woman has a soul—strange and unorthodox
thing for a father! an idea that his daughter had a heart; and that it
might not be such a bad thing after all for her ultimate happiness
that her heart should be in some degree consulted.
 She went, therefore, fancy free and untrammeled even by the
knowledge of her father’s wishes, on a visit to her kinsfolk of
Granada, entirely unsuspicious that any secret of state policy was
connected with the visit to that land of romance and glory, of beauty
and adventure, which was to her one long holyday. Of all her train,
indeed, there was but one who was privy to the Sultan’s secret
wishes old Hadj Abdallah Ibn Ali, the eldest of the sovereign’s
councillors, like some, himself a traveler, and like himself, imbued
with notions far more liberal than those of his time or country. To
him it was entrusted, therefore, while seemingly inattentive to all
that was passing, to observe strictly every shadow which might
indicate whence the wind was about to blow—to take especial note
of Boabdil’s conduct and wishes, and, above all, to omit no
opportunity of discovering how the fair Ayesha might stand affected
toward her royal cousin.
Gaily and happily had passed the days, the weeks, the months—
it was still truce with the Spaniard, and days and nights were
consumed in tilts, in tournaments, in hawking-parties on the
beautiful green meadows of the Vega, beside the bright and brimful
streams, adjuncts so necessary to that royal pastime, that it was
known of old as the “Mystery of Rivers”—hunting-parties in the wild
gorges of the Alpuxawa mountains, banquets at high noon, and
festivals beneath the glimmering twilight, beneath the full-orbed
moon, that life was, indeed, one long and joyous holyday. Boabdil
was, in truth, of a man a right fair and goodly specimen—tall, finely
formed, eminently handsome, graceful and affable in manners,
kindly in heart and disposition, not untinctured with arts and letters,
nor deficient in any essential which should become a gentle cavalier
—as a monarch, when surrounded by his court, and seated in his
place of state in the Hall of Lyons, of a truth he was a right royal
king—as a warrior, in the tilt-yard his skill, his horsemanship, his
management of all weapons, were the admiration of all beholders.
In the field his gallantry and valor were incontestable. What, then,
was wanting that Boabdil was not a perfect man, a real cavalier, a
very king? Purpose, energy, will—will that must have its way, and
cannot be denied, much less defeated.
A prince of a quiet realm, in tranquil times he had lived honored
and happy, he had been gathered to his fathers among the tears of
his people, he had lived in the memory of men as a good man, an
admirable king, the father of his people.
Fallen upon evil times, thrust into an eminence for which he not
only was, but felt himself to be unfit, unequally matched against
such an enemy as Ferdinand, the one weak point outweighed all the
fine qualities and noble virtues; and he lived, alas! to be that most
miserable, most abject of all human things, a dethroned, exiled,
despised king!
And did Ayesha, from beneath the screen of girlish levity, while
seemingly steeped to the lips in the rapturous enjoyment of the
liberty, the life of the present moment, did Ayesha see and foresee
all this? At least, when Hadj Abdallah Ibn Ali wrote to his friend and
patron the Sultan, and that but shortly after their arrival, that
Boabdil was so evidently and obviously enamored of his mother’s
lovely guest, that he would not only too eagerly court the alliance,
backed as it was by advantages so kingly, but that he verily believed
he would woo her to his throne, were she the merest peasant’s
child. He wrote nothing of Ayesha!
Again he wrote that he could not doubt she had perceived her
royal cousin’s love, and that her manner toward him was so frank, so
free, so unrestrainedly joyous and confiding, that he was well
assured that all went well, and that she returned the affection of
Boabdil, and rejoiced in his love.
But Muley Abderrahman, shook his head and knit his brow, as he
read the letter, and muttered through his thick moustache, “Ay! he is
a good man—a good man is the Hadj Abdallah, and a wise one, but
he knows nothing of a woman’s heart—how should he?”
When he sent the next dispatches to his old friend and
counsellor, there was a brief private note attached. “Is the Leila
Ayesha,” he asked, “never grave, never abstracted, never shy, and
almost sad—does she never flee from the gayety of the festival, the
tumult of the chase, into privacy and solitude—does she never fail to
hear when addressed, to see when encountered—does she never
weep nor sigh when alone—in a word, is she in nowise changed
from what she was at Mequiñez?”
And the reply came, “Never. Wherefore should she? Is she not
the apple of all eyes, the idol of all hearts? Her laugh is as the music
of the soul, her eye-glance the sunbeam that enkindles every heart.
She is the star of the Alhambra, the loadstone of the king’s soul.
Wherefore should she weep or sigh? I have questioned her
handmaids—never! Yes—the Leila Ayesha is changed. In Mequiñez,
she was as a sunbeam thrown on still waters. Here in Granada, she
is the sunbeam thrown on the dancing fountain, reflecting happy
light on all around her. In Mequiñez, she was as a sweet song-bird,
feeding her soul on her own harmonies in silence. Here in Granada
she is as the sweet song-bird, enrapturing all within her sphere by
the blithe outpourings of her joyous melodies. Yes—the Leila Ayesha
is changed. My Lord Boabdil loves the Leila Ayesha; the Leila Ayesha
knows it, and is glad.”
Then Muley Abderrahman shook his head, and pondered for a
while, and muttered—
“She loves him not—She loves him not. The Hadj Abdallah is
good and wise with the wisdom of men—but of the hearts of
women, he knows nothing—how should he? for he never saw a
woman.”
And the old king, far distant, saw more of what was passing in
the fair girl’s heart than the wise councillor who was present—but he
judged it best to tarry and abide the event—and he tarried, but not
long.
Had he been present on that sultry summer’s evening, and
looked upon his lovely child as she sat gazing out in such serenity of
deep abstraction over the sunny Vega—over the fragrant orange
groves and glowing vineyards, toward the glistening hill-tops of the
Spaniards—his question would have answered itself, and at the first
glance he would have seen that she loved.
The child had discovered that it had a heart—the creature had
divined that it had an immortal soul—the child had become a woman
—a very woman.

With all a woman’s smiles and tears,

And fearful hopes and hopeful fears,
And doubts and prayers for future years.

Leila Ayesha loved—but whom? At least not Boabdil! Happily, not

Boabdil.
Even as she gazed, the orb of the gorgeous sun sank behind the
distant hills, and at once—clear, shrill, and most melodious—up went
the voice of the Muezzins, from every minaret throughout the
gorgeous city, “To prayer, to prayer. There is no God but God, and
Mahomet is his prophet. Faithful, to prayer, to prayer!”
And instant at the cry every sound ceased through the royal
residence—every sound through the splendid city—every sound
through the wide Vega. Every turbaned head was bowed in prayer,
and a sabbath stillness seemed to consecrate the bridal of the earth
and sky.
Ayesha rose from her divan, and while her lips murmured the
words of devotion, and her fingers ran rapidly over the beads of her
Comboloic or Moorish rosary, a strange, faltering flush ran over her
fair brow. Her orisons ended, she caught some of the spray of the
fountain in the palm of one of her fairy hands, and scattered it thrice
over her long, dark tresses, on which it glistened in the soft
moonbeams; for the moon now alone occupied the heavens, on the
fragrant hills of the black hyacinth.
Again she resumed her attitude on the divan, but not her
occupation; for the mood of her mind was altered, and for a while
she hummed the burthen of an old, melancholy Moorish ballad—an
old Moorish love-song, the words of which corresponded in no small
degree to our own, “Oh! willow, willow”—since the proverb still holds
good of burned Morocco or bright Spain, as of green, merry England
—

“For aught that I did ever hear—

Did ever read in tale or history,
The course of true love never did run true.”

Ere long from the city gates far distant was heard the din of
martial music—first, the deep clang of the kettle-drums and atabals
alone, and the clear flourish of the silver trumpets which announced
the presence of the king, and these only at intervals above or
between the trampling of hoofs, the clash of armor, and the cheering
of an excited multitude. Anon nearer and nearer came the sounds,
with the clash of cymbals and the soft symphonies of lutes, and the
clear, high notes of flutes and clarionets among the clangor of the
trumpets, and the brazen rattling of the drums.
Nearer and nearer yet—and it is now at the Alhambra gates.
She started to her feet, and leaned far out of the embrasure
commanding all the city, but her eye marked one object only, the
royal train filing into the palace gates, from the royal sports on the
Vega ended—and in that train, on but one person.
It was no turbaned head or caftaned form on which that ardent
eye was fixed, now kindled into all a Moresca’s ecstacy of passion; it
was on a tall Spanish crest and lofty plume. And, as if by a secret
instinct, as her gaze was bent downward to the horse-shoe arch of
the Alhambra gate, his glance soared upward to the airy turret’s top,
and readily detected what would have escaped a less observant
watcher, the dark eyes of his fair Ayesha gleaming through the palm-
leaves and passion-flowers; their passionate fire half quenched by
the tears of tenderness and hope.
His Ayesha—his—the Conde of Alarcos, proudest grandee of
Spain—the favorite child of the Spaniard’s deadliest foe, the Sultan
of Morocco.
The Hadj Abdallah Ibn Ali’s next dispatch contained much
important tidings concerning a twenty years’ truce to be concluded
between the King Boabdil, of Granada, and the King Ferdinand, of
Spain—and much graver gossip of the noble Conde of Alarcos,
Ferdinand’s ambassador; of his high feats of arms, and gentle feats
of courtesy—of how all the court admired him, and how the Lady
Ayesha shunned him, and how she was less frequent at the falconry,
less frequent at the chase, less frequent at the festival, less frequent
at the royal banquets—and how her hand-maidens reported that
their mistress sighed all the time and often wept, and sat long hours
gazing upon nothing, and played no more upon her lute, nor sung
the songs of Islam—and how she was—he feared—ill at ease, and
pining for her native land.
And when Muley Abderrahman read the letter he shook his head,
and muttered—
“Ay, she loves now, but it is the wrong one—a Nazarene, a dog,”
and he tore his beard and wept. That night a royal courier rode hard
from Mequiñez to Saleè, and the next day a fleet galley scoured the
way across the narrow seas to the fair shores of Granada.
The embassy should return at once to Mequiñez. Now hour of
delay—too late.
The embassy had returned the preceding day, but it was the
Spanish embassy: and it had returned, not to Mequiñez, but to
Cordova. And ere his master’s mandate had stricken terror to the
soul of the Hadj Abdallah, the Spanish bells were chiming for the
wedding of a Moorish maiden, now a Christian bride; and the Leila
Ayesha, of Mequiñez, was the wife of the noble Conde De Alarcos:
nor have I ever heard that she rued either of the changes.
Again Muley Abderrahman tore his beard, and this time from the
very roots. But his wonted philosophy still consoled him, and after a
little while he muttered—
“Allah, assist me, that I thought myself so wise—yet know not
the heart of a woman! How should I?”
 WRITE THOU UPON LIFE’S PAGE.
———
BY GRENVILLE GREY.
———

Leave thou some light behind thee,

Some mark upon thine age;
Let not a false fate bind thee—
Write thou upon life’s page,

Some word of earnest meaning,

Some thought, or else some deed,
On which thy brother leaning,
Unto better may succeed.

For none may tell what beauty,

What endless good there lies,
In some little nameless duty,
Whose remembrance never dies.

Leave thou some light behind thee,

Some token of thy way;
Let not a false ease bind thee—
Thou art not wholly clay.

There is something noble in thee,

Let it speak and not be mute;
There is something that should win thee
From a kindred with the brute.
Thou art not, oh! my brother,
Wholly impotent for good;
Thou may’st win or warn another
From the wrongs thou hast withstood.

Leave thou some trace behind thee—

In life’s warfare, go, engage;
Let no more a false fate bind thee—
Write thou upon life’s page.
 LINES ON A VASE OF FLOWERS,
(FOUND UPON MY DESK.)

———
BY ESTELLE ANNA LEWIS.
———

I upon these simple flowers

came
As something I revere;
They grew in Love’s enchanted bowers—
And love hath placed them here.

I kiss their cheeks of virgin bloom,

I press their dewy lips,
While my wrapt soul of their perfume,
Inebriated sips.

I look into their violet eyes,

And feel my heart grow calm,
And fancy I’m in Paradise,
Inhaling Eden’s balm.

There in ecstatic dreams I rove

Among celestial bowers,
Weaving a garland for my Love,
Of beatific flowers.
 DEATH.[7]
———
BY SAMUEL HENRY DICKSON, M. D.; PROFESSOR IN THE MEDICAL
COLLEGE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
———

As the word Life is employed in a double sense to denote the

actions or phenomena by which it is developed, and the cause of
these phenomena, so the old English word Death is used familiarly
to express two or more meanings. The first of these is the transition
from the living to the lifeless or inanimate state—the act, that is, of
dying; the second, the condition of an organized body which has
ceased to live, while organization yet remains, and symmetry still
displays itself, and the admirable structure of its parts is not yet
destroyed by decomposition, or resolved into the original and
primary elements from which it was moulded,

“Before Decay’s effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.”

We occasionally speak of “dead matter” in the sense of inorganic;

but this is merely a rhetorical or metaphorical phrase. That which
has never lived cannot properly be said to be dead.
In the following essay, I shall use the word chiefly in the first of
the senses above indicated. It will often be convenient to employ it
in the second also; but in doing so, I will be careful so to designate
its bearing as to avoid any confusion. The context will always
prevent any misunderstanding on this point.
Death may be considered physiologically, pathologically, and
psychologically. We are obliged to regard it and speak of it as the
uniform correlative, and indeed the necessary consequence, or final
result of life; the act of dying as the rounding off, or termination of
the act of living. But it ought to be remarked that this conclusion is
derived, not from any understanding or comprehension of the
relevancy of the asserted connection, nor from any à priori reasoning
applicable to the inquiry, but merely à posteriori as the result of
universal experience. All that has lived has died; and, therefore, all
that lives must die.
The solid rock on which we tread, and with which we rear our
palaces and temples, what is it often when microscopically
examined, but a congeries of the fossil remains of innumerable
animal tribes! The soil from which, by tillage, we derive our
vegetable food, is scarcely any thing more than a mere mixture of
the decayed and decaying fragments of former organic being; the
shells and exuviæ, the skeletons and fibres and exsiccated juices of
extinct life.
The earth itself, in its whole habitable surface, is little else than
the mighty sepulchre of the past; and

“All that tread

The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings—yet, the dead are there;
And millions in these solitudes, since first
The flight of years begun, have laid them down
In their last sleep: the dead reign there alone.”

Four millions of Egyptians cultivate the valley of the great river

on whose banks, amidst the fertilizing dust of myriads of their
progenitors, there are calculated still to exist, in a state of
preservation, not less than from four hundred to five hundred
millions of mummies. The “City of the Tombs” is far more populous
than the neighboring streets even of crowded Constantinople; and
the cemeteries of London and the catacombs of Paris are filled to
overflowing. The trees which gave shade to our predecessors of a
few generations back lie prostrate; and the dog and horse, the
playmate and the servant of our childhood, are but dust. Death
surrounds and sustains us. We derive our nourishment from the
destruction of living organisms, and from this source alone.
And who is there among us that has reached the middle term of
existence, that may not, in the touching phrase of Carlyle, “measure
the various stages of his life-journey by the white tombs of his
beloved ones, rising in the distance like pale, mournfully receding
milestones?”
“When Wilkie was in the Escurial,” says Southey, “looking at
Titian’s famous picture of the Last Supper in the refectory there, an
old Jeronymite monk said to him, ‘I have sat daily in sight of that
picture for now nearly threescore years; during that time my
companions have dropped off one after another—all who were my
seniors, all who were my cotemporaries, and many or most of those
who were younger than myself; more than one generation has
passed away, and there the figures in the picture have remained
unchanged. I look at them, till I sometimes think that they are the
realities, and we but shadows.’ ”
I have stated that there is no reason known to us why Death
should always “round the sum of life.” Up to a certain point of their
duration, varying in each separate set of instances, and in the
comparison of extremes varying prodigiously, the vegetable and
animal organisms not only sustain themselves, but expand and
develop themselves, grow and increase, enjoying a better and better
life, advancing and progressive. Wherefore is it that at this period all
progress is completely arrested; that thenceforward they waste,
deteriorate and fail? Why should they thus decline and decay with
unerring uniformity upon their attaining their highest perfection,
their most intense activity? This ultimate law is equally mysterious
and inexorable. It is true the Sacred Writings tell us of Enoch,
“whom God took and he was not;” and of Elijah, who was
transported through the upper air in a chariot of fire; and of
Melchisedek, the most extraordinary personage whose name is
recorded, “without father, without mother, without descent: having
neither beginning of days, nor end of life.” We read the history
without conceiving the faintest hope from these exceptions to the
universal rule. Yet our fancy has always exulted in visionary evasions
of it, by forging for ourselves creations of immortal maturity, youth
and beauty, residing in Elysian fields of unfading spring, amidst the
fruition of perpetual vigor. We would drink, in imagination, of the
sparkling fountain of rejuvenescence; nay, boldly dare the terror of
Medea’s caldron. We echo, in every despairing heart, the ejaculation
of the expiring Wolcott, “Bring back my youth!”
Reflection, however, cannot fail to reconcile us to our ruthless
destiny. There is another law of our being, not less unrelenting,
whose yoke is even harsher and more intolerable, from whose
pressure Death alone can relieve us, and in comparison with which
the absolute certainty of dying becomes a glorious blessing. Of
whatever else we may remain ignorant, each of us, for himself,
comes to feel, realize and know unequivocally that all his capacities,
both of action and enjoyment, are transient and tend to pass away;
and when our thirst is satiated, we turn disgusted from the bitter
lees of the once fragrant and sparkling cup. I am aware of Parnell’s
offered analogy—

“The tree of deepest root is found

Unwilling most to leave the ground;”

and of Rush’s notion, who imputes to the aged such an augmenting

love of life that he is at a loss to account for it, and suggests,
quaintly enough, that it may depend upon custom, the great
moulder of our desires and propensities; and that the infirm and
decrepit “love to live on because they have acquired a habit of
living.” His assumption is wrong in point of fact. He loses sight of the
important principle that Old Age is a relative term, and that one man
may be more superannuated, farther advanced in natural decay at
sixty, than another at one hundred years. Parr might well rejoice at
being alive, and exult in the prospect of continuing to live, at one
hundred and thirty, being capable, as is affirmed, even of the
enjoyment of sexual life at that age; but he who has had his “three
sufficient warnings,” who is deaf, lame and blind; who, like the monk
of the Escurial, has lost all his cotemporaries, and is condemned to
hopeless solitude, and oppressed with the consciousness of
dependence and imbecility, must look on Death not as a curse, but a
refuge. Of one hundred and thirty-three suicides occurring in Geneva
from 1825 to 1834, more than half were above fifty years of age;
thirty-four, from fifty to sixty; nineteen, from sixty to seventy; nine,
from seventy to eighty; three, from eighty to ninety; in all sixty-five.
The mean term of life in that city being about thirty-five to forty, this
bears an immense proportion to the actual population above fifty,
and exhibits forcibly an opposite condition of feeling to that alleged
by Rush, a weariness of living, a desire to die, rather than an
anxiety, or even willingness to live.
I once knew an old man of about one hundred and four who
retained many of his faculties. He could read ordinary print without
glasses, walked firmly, rode well, and could even leap with some
agility. When I last parted with him, I wished him twenty years
more; upon which he grasped my hand closely, and declared he
would not let me go until I had retracted or reversed the prayer.
Strolling with my venerable and esteemed colleague, Prof.
Stephen Elliott, one afternoon, through a field on the banks of the
river Ashley, we came upon a negro basking in the sun, the most
ancient-looking personage I have ever seen. Our attempts, with his
aid, to calculate his age, were of course conjectural; but we were
satisfied that he was far above one hundred. Bald, toothless, nearly
blind, bent almost horizontally, and scarcely capable of locomotion,
he was absolutely alone in the world, living by permission upon a
place, from which the generation to which his master and fellow-
servants belonged had long since disappeared. He expressed many
an earnest wish for death, and declared, emphatically, that he “was
afraid God Almighty had forgotten him.”
We cannot wonder, then, that the ancients should believe,
“Whom the gods love, die young,” and are ready to say with
Southey, himself, subsequently, like poor Swift, a melancholy
example of the truth of his poetical exclamation,
 “They who reach
Gray hairs die piecemeal.”

Sacred history informs us that, in the infancy of the world, the

physiological tendency to death was far less urgently and early
developed than it is now. When the change took place is not stated;
if it occurred gradually, the downward progress has been long since
arrested. All records make the journey of life from the time of Job
and the early patriarchs, much the same as the pilgrim of to-day is
destined to travel. Threescore and ten was, when Cheops built his
pyramid, as it is now, a long life. Legends, antique and modern, do
indeed tell us of tribes that, like Riley’s Arabs and the serfs of Middle
Russia, and the Ashantees and other Africans, live two or three
centuries, but these are travelers’ stories, unconfirmed. The various
statistical tables that have been in modern times made up from
materials more or less authentic, and the several inquiries into the
general subject of longevity, seem to lead to the gratifying
conclusion that there is rather an increase of the average or mean
duration of civilized life. In 1806, Duvillard fixed the average
duration of life in France at twenty-eight years; in 1846, Bousquet
estimates it at thirty-three. Mallet calculated that the average life of
the Genevese had extended ten years in three generations. In Farr’s
fifth report (for 1844), the “probable duration,” the “expectation of
life” in England, is placed above forty; a great improvement within
half a century. It is curious, if it be true, that the extreme term
seems to lessen as the average thus increases. Mallet is led to this
opinion from the fact, among others, that in Geneva, coincident with
the generally favorable change above mentioned, there has not been
a single centenarian within twenty-seven years; such instances of
longevity having been formerly no rarer there than elsewhere.
Birds and fishes are said to be the longest lived of animals. For
the longevity of the latter, ascertained in fish-ponds, Bacon gives the
whimsical reason that, in the moist element which surrounds them,
they are protected from exsiccation of the vital juices, and thus
preserved. This idea corresponds very well with the stories told of
the uncalculated ages of some of the inhabitants of the bayous of
Louisiana, and of the happy ignorance of that region, where a
traveler once found a withered and antique corpse—so goes the tale
—sitting propped in an arm-chair among his posterity, who could not
comprehend why he slept so long and so soundly.
But the Hollanders and Burmese do not live especially long; and
the Arab, always lean and wiry, leads a protracted life amidst his arid
sands. Nor can we thus account for the lengthened age of the crow,
the raven, and the eagle, which are affirmed to hold out for two or
three centuries.
There is the same difference among shrubs and trees, of which
some are annual, some of still more brief existence, and some
almost eternal. The venerable oak bids defiance to the storms of a
thousand winters; and the Indian baobab is set down as a
contemporary at least of the Tower of Babel, having probably
braved, like the more transient, though long-enduring olive, the very
waters of the great deluge.
It will be delightful to know—will Science ever discover for us?—
what constitutes the difference thus impressed upon the long and
short-lived races of the organized creation. Why must the fragrant
shrub or gorgeous flower-plant die immediately after performing its
function of continuing the species, and the pretty ephemeron
languish into non-existence just as it flutters through its genial hour
of love, and grace, and enjoyment; while the banyan, and the
chestnut, the tortoise, the vulture, and the carp, formed of the same
primary material elements, and subsisting upon the very same
resources of nutrition and supply, outlast them so indefinitely?
Death from old age, from natural decay—usually spoken of as
death without disease—is most improperly termed by writers an
euthanasia. Alas! how far otherwise is the truth! Old age itself is,
with the rarest exceptions, exceptions which I have never had the
good fortune to meet with anywhere—old age itself is a protracted
and terrible disease.
 During its whole progress, Death is making gradual
encroachments upon the domain of life. Function after function
undergoes impairment, and is less and less perfectly carried on,
while organ after organ suffers atrophy and other changes, unfitting
it for the performance of offices to which it was originally designed. I
will not go over the gloomy detail of the observed modifications
occurring in every part of the frame, now a noble ruin, majestic even
in decay. The lungs admit and vivify less blood; the heart often
diminishes in size and always acts more slowly, and the arteries
frequently ossify; nutrition is impeded and assimilation deteriorated;
senile marasmus follows, “and the seventh age falls into the lean
and slippered pantaloon;” and, last and worst of all, the brain and
indeed the whole nervous tissue shrink in size and weight,
undergoing at the same time more or less change of structure and
composition. As the skull cannot contract on its contents, the
shrinking of the brain occasions a great increase of the fluid within
the subarachnoid space. Communication with the outer world, now
about to be cut off entirely, becomes limited and less intimate. The
eyes grow dim; the ear loses its aptitude for harmony, and soon
ceases to appreciate sound; odors yield no fragrance; flavors affect
not the indifferent palate; and even the touch appreciates only harsh
and coarse impressions. The locomotive power is lost; the capillaries
refuse to circulate the dark, thick blood; the extremities retain no
longer their vital warmth; the breathing slow and oppressed, more
and more difficult, at last terminates forever with a deep expiration.
This tedious process is rarely accomplished in the manner indicated
without interruption; it is usually, nay, as far as my experience has
gone, always brought to an abrupt close by the supervention of
some positive malady. In our climate, this is, in the larger proportion,
an affection of the respiratory apparatus, bronchitis, or pulmonitis. It
will, of course, vary with the original or constitutional predisposition
of the individual, and somewhat in relation to locality and season.
Many aged persons die of apoplexy and its kindred cerebral
maladies, not a few of diarrhœa; a winter epidemic of influenza is
apt to be fatal to them in large numbers everywhere.
 When we regard death pathologically, that is, as the result of
violence and destructive disease, it is evident that the phenomena
presented will vary relatively to the contingencies effective in
producing it. It is obviously out of place here to recount them,
forming as they do a vast collection of instructive facts, the basis
indeed of an almost separate science, Morbid Anatomy.
There are many of the phenomena of death, however, that are
common to all forms and modes of death, or are rarely wanting;
these are highly interesting objects of study in themselves, and
assume a still greater importance when we consider them in the
light of signs or tokens of the extinction of life. It seems strange that
it has been found difficult to agree upon any such signs short of
molecular change or putrefactive decomposition, that shall be
pronounced absolutely certain, and calculated entirely to relieve us
from the horrible chance of premature interment of a body yet
living. The flaccidity of the cornea is dwelt on by some; others trust
rather to the rigor mortis, the rigid stiffness of the limbs and trunk
supervening upon the cold relaxation which attends generally the
last moments. This rigidity is not understood or explained
satisfactorily. It is possible that, as Matteucci has proved, the
changes in all the tissues, chiefly chemical or chemico-vital, are the
source from whence is generated the “nervous force” during life; so,
after death, the similar changes, now purely chemical, may, for a
brief period, continue to generate the same or a similar force, which
is destined to expend itself simply upon the muscular fibres in
disposing them to contract. There is a vague analogy here with the
effect of galvanism upon bodies recently dead, which derives some
little force from the fact that the bodies least disposed to respond to
the stimulus of galvanism are those which form the exceptions to the
almost universal exhibition of rigidity—those, namely, which have
been killed by lightning, and by blows on the pit of the stomach.
Some poisons, too, leave the corpse quite flaccid and flexible.
The researches of Dr. Bennett Dowler, of New Orleans, have
presented us with results profoundly impressive, startling, and
instructive. He has, with almost unequalled zeal, availed himself of
opportunities of performing autopsy at a period following death of
unprecedented promptness, that is, within a few minutes after the
last struggle, and employed them with an intelligent curiosity and to
admirable purpose.
I have said that, in physiological death, the natural decay of
advancing age, there is a gradual encroachment of death upon life;
so here, in premature death from violent diseases, the contrasted
analogy is offered of life maintaining its ground far amidst the
destructive changes of death. Thus, in cholera asphyxia, the body,
for an indefinite period after all other signs of life have ceased, is
agitated by horrid spasms, and violently contorted. We learn from
Dr. Dowler that it is not only in these frightful manifestations, and in
the cold stiffness of the familiar rigor mortis, that we are to trace
this tenacious muscular contraction as the last vital sign, but that in
all, or almost all cases we shall find it lingering, not in the heart,
anciently considered in its right ventricle the ultimum moriens, nor in
any other internal fibres, but in the muscles of the limbs, the biceps
most obstinately. This muscle will contract, even after the arm with
the scapula has been torn from the trunk, upon receiving a sharp
blow, so as to raise the forearm from the table, to a right angle with
the upper arm.
We also learn from him the curious fact that the generation of
animal heat, which physiologists have chosen to point out as a
function most purely vital, does not cease upon the supervention of
obvious or apparent death. There is, he tells us, a steady
development for some time of what he terms “post-mortem
caloricity,” by which the heat is carried not only above the natural or
normal standard, but to a height rarely equalled in the most sthenic
or inflammatory forms of disease. He has seen it reach 113° of Fahr.,
higher than Hunter ever met with it, in his experiments made for the
purpose of exciting it; higher than it has been noted even in
scarlatina, 112°, I think, being the ultimate limit observed in that
disease of pungent external heat; and far beyond the natural heat of
the central parts of the healthy body, which is 97° or 98°. Nor is it
near the centre, or at the trunk, that the post-mortem warmth is
greatest, but, for some unknown reason, at the inner part of the
thigh, about the lower margin of its upper third. I scarcely know any
fact in nature more incomprehensible or inexplicable than this. We
were surprised when it was first told us that, in the Asiatic
pestilence, the body of the livid victim was often colder before than
after death; but this, I think, is easily understood. The profluvia of
cholera, and its profound capillary stagnation, concur in carrying off
all the heat generated, and in preventing or impeding the
development of animal heat. No vital actions, no changes necessary
to the production of caloric, can proceed without the minute
circulation which has been checked by the asphyxiated condition of
the subject, while the fluids leave the body through every outlet, and
evaporation chills the whole exposed and relaxed surface. Yet the
lingering influence of a scarcely perceptible vitality prevents the
purely chemical changes of putrefactive decomposition, which
commence instantly upon the extinction of this feeble resistance,
and caloric is evolved by the processes of ordinary delay.
In the admirable liturgy of the churches of England and of Rome,
there is a fervent prayer for protection against “battle, murder, and
sudden death.” From death uncontemplated, unarranged,
unprepared for, may Heaven in mercy deliver us! But if ever ready,
as we should be for the inevitable event, the most kindly mode of
infliction must surely be that which is most prompt and brief. To die
unconsciously, as in sleep, or by apoplexy, or lightning, or
overwhelming violence, as in the catastrophe of the Princeton, this is
the true Euthanasia. “Cæsar,” says Suetonius, “finem vitæ
commodissimum, repentinum inopinatumque pretulerat.” Montaigne,
who quotes this, renders it, “La moins préméditée et la plus courte.”
“Mortes repentinæ,” reasons Pliny, “hoc est summa vitæ felicitas.”
“Emori nolo,” exclaims Cicero, “sed me esse mortuum nihil estimo.”
Sufferers by various modes of execution were often, in the good
old times of our merciless ancestors, denied as long as possible the
privilege of dying, and the Indians of our continent utter a fiendish
howl of disappointment when a victim thus prematurely escapes
from their ingenious malignity. The coup de grace was a boon
unspeakably desired by the poor wretch broken on the wheel, or
stretched upon the accursed cross, and forced to linger on with
mangled and bleeding limbs, amidst all the cruel torments of thirst
and fever, through hours and even days that must have seemed
interminable.
The progress of civilization, and a more enlightened humanity
have put an end to all these atrocities, and substituted the gallows,
the garrote, and the guillotine, which inflict deaths so sudden that
many have questioned whether they necessarily imply any
consciousness of physical suffering. These are, however, by no
means the most instantaneous modes of putting an end to life and
its manifestations. In the hanged, as in the drowned, and otherwise
suffocated, there is a period of uncertainty, during which the subject
is, as we know, recoverable; we dare not pronounce him insensible.
He who has seen an ox “pithed” in the slaughter-house, or a game-
cock in all the flush and excitement of battle “gaffed” in the occiput
or back of the neck, will contrast the immediate stiffness and
relaxation of the flaccid body with the prolonged and convulsive
struggles of the decapitated bird, with a sort of curious anxiety to
know how long and in what degree sensibility may linger in the head
and in the trunk when severed by the sharp axe. The history of the
guillotine offers many incidents calculated to throw a doubt on the
subject, and the inquiries of Seguret and Sue seem to prove the
existence of post-mortem passion and emotion.
Among the promptest modes of extinguishing life is the electric
fluid. A flash of lightning will destroy the coagulability of the blood,
as well as the contractility of the muscular fibre; the dead body
remaining flexible. A blow on the epigastrium kills instantly with the
same results. Soldiers fall sometimes in battle without a wound; the
impulse of a cannon-ball passing near the pit of the stomach is here
supposed to be the cause of death. The effect in these two last
instances is ascribed by some to “a shock given to the semilunar
ganglion, and the communication of the impression to the heart;”
but this is insufficient to account either for the quickness of the
occurrence, or the peculiar changes impressed upon the solids and
fluids. Others are of opinion that the whole set of respiratory nerves
is paralyzed through the violent shock given to the phrenic, “thus
shutting up,” as one writer expresses it, “the fountain of all the
sympathetic actions of the system.” This hypothesis is liable also to
the objections urged above; and we must acknowledge the
suddenness and character of the results described to be as yet
unexplained, and in the present state of our knowledge inexplicable.
On the field of battle, it has been observed that the
countenances of those killed by gun-shot wounds are usually placid,
while those who perish by the sword, bayonet, pike, or lance, offer
visages distorted by pain, or by emotions of anger or impatience.
Poisons differ much among themselves as to the amount and kind of
suffering they occasion. We know of none which are absolutely free
from the risk of inflicting severe distress. Prussic acid gives perhaps
the briefest death which we have occasion to observe. I have seen
it, as Taylor states, kill an animal, when applied to the tongue or the
eye, almost before the hand which offered it could be removed. Yet
in the case of Tawell, tried for the murder of Sarah Hart, by this
means, there was abundant testimony that many, on taking it, had
time to utter a loud and peculiar scream of anguish: and in a
successful attempt at suicide made by a physician of New York city,
we have a history of appalling suffering and violent convulsion. So I
have seen in suicide with opium, which generally gives an easy and
soporose death resembling that of apoplexy, one or two instances in
which there were very great and long-protracted pain and sickness.
Medical writers have agreed, very generally, that “the death-
struggle,” “the agony of death,” as it has long been termed is not
what it appears, a stage of suffering. I am not satisfied—I say it
reluctantly—I am not satisfied with these consolatory views, so
ingeniously and plausibly advocated by Wilson Philip, and Symonds,
Hufeland and Hoffman. I would they were true! But all the
symptoms look like tokens or expressions of distress; we may hope
that they are not always such in reality: but how can this be proved?
Those who, having seemed to die, recovered afterward and declared
that they had undergone no pain, do not convince me of the fact
any more than the somnambulist, who upon awaking, assures me
that he has not dreamed at all, after a whole night of action, and
connected thought and effected purpose. His memory retains no
traces of the questionable past; like that of the epileptic, who forgets
the whole train of events, and is astonished after a horrible fit to find
his tongue bitten, and his face and limbs bruised and swollen.
Nay, some have proceeded to the paradoxical extreme of
suggesting that certain modes of death are attended with
pleasurable sensations, as for instance, hanging; and a late reviewer,
who regards this sombre topic with a most cheerful eye, gives us
instances which he considers in point. I have seen many men hung,
forty at least, a strangely large number. In all, there were evidences
of suffering, as far as could be judged by external appearances. It
once happened that a certain set were slowly executed, owing to a
maladroit arrangement of the scaffold upon which they stood, which
gave way only at one end. The struggles of such as were half
supported were dreadful, and those of them who could speak
earnestly begged that their agonies should be put an end to.
In former, nay, even in recent times, we are told that pirates and
robbers have resorted to half-hanging, to extort confession as to
hidden treasure. Is it possible that they can have so much mistaken
the means they employ as thus to use pleasurable appliances for the
purposes of torture?
The mistake of most reasoners on the subject, Winslow and
Hufeland more especially, consists in this, that they fix their attention
exclusively upon the final moments of dissolution. But the act of
dying may be in disease, as we know it to be in many modes of
violence, impalement, for example, or crucifixion, very variously
protracted and progressive. “Insensibly as we enter life,” says
Hufeland, “equally insensibly do we leave it. Man can have no
sensation of dying.” Here the insensibility of death completed, that
is, of the dead body, is strangely predicated of the moribund while
still living. This transitive condition, to use the graphic language of
the Southern writer whom we have already more than once quoted,
is “a terra incognita, where vitality, extinguished in some tissues,
smouldering in others, and disappearing gradually from all,
resembles the region of a volcano, whose eruptions subsiding, leave
the surface covered with cinders and ashes, concealing the rents and
lesions which have on all sides scarred and disfigured the face of
nature.”
Besides this, we have no right to assume, as Hufeland has here
done, the insensibility of the child at birth. It is subject to disease
before birth; as soon as it draws a breath, it utters loud cries and
sobs. To pronounce all its actions “mechanical, instinctive, necessary,
automatic,” in fact, is a very easy solution of the question; but I
think neither rational nor conclusive. If you prick it or burn it, you
regard its cries as proving sensibility to pain; but on the application
of air to its delicate and hitherto protected skin, and the distension
of its hitherto quiet lung, the same cry, you say, is mechanical and
inexpressive. So Leibnitz explained, to his own satisfaction, the
struggles and moans of the lower animals as automatic, being
embarrassed with metaphysical and moral difficulties on the score of
their intelligence and liability to suffering. But no one now espouses
his theory, and we must accept, whether we can explain them or
not, the facts that the lower animals are liable to pain during their
entire existence, and that the heritage of their master is, from and
during birth to the last moment of languishing vitality, a sad legacy
of wo and suffering.
Unhappily we may appeal, in this discussion, directly to the
evidence of our senses, to universal experience and observation.
Who can doubt the tortures inflicted in tetanus? to alleviate which,
indeed, I have more than once been solicited for poison. Does not
every one know the grievous inflictions of cancer, lasting through
months and years, and continuing, as I have myself seen, within a
short hour of the absolute extinction of life, in spite of every effort to
relieve it? The most painful of deaths apparently is that which closes
the frightful tragedy of hydrophobia, and patients, to hurry it, often
ask most urgently for any means of prompt destruction. But these
more intense and acute pangs are not the only form of intolerable
agony. Unquenchable thirst, a dreadfully progressive suffocation,
confusion of the senses and of thought—these are inflictions that
nature shudderingly recoils from, and these, or their manifestations,
are scarcely ever wanting on the death-bed.
If any one should ask why I thus endeavor to prove what it is
revolting to us all to believe or admit, I answer—first, that truth is
always desirable to be known both for its own sake and because it is
ever pregnant with ultimate benefit and utility. More than one
moribund has expressed to me his surprise and horror—shall I say
disappointment too? at finding the dark valley of the shadow of
death so rough and gloomy and full of terrors. Is it not better that
we should be as thoroughly and adequately prepared for the stern
reality as may be, and that we should summon up all the patience
and fortitude requisite to bear us through? When the last moment is
actually at hand, we can safely assure our friends that they will soon
reach a state of rest and unconsciousness, and that meanwhile, as
they die more and more, they will less and less feel the pain of
dying. Secondly, by appreciating properly the nature and amount of
the pangs of death, we shall be led to a due estimate of the demand
for their relief or palliation, and of the obligation incumbent on us to
institute every proper effort for that purpose with zeal and assiduity.
He who believes with Hufeland, that the moribund is insensible, is
likely to do little to solace or comfort him.
There are doubtless instances of death entirely easy. “I wish,”
said Doctor Black, “I could hold a pen; I would write how pleasant a
thing it is to die.” Dr. George Fordyce desired his youngest daughter
to read to him. When she had been reading some time, he called to
her—“Stop; go out of the room; I am going to die.” She left him, and
an attendant, entering immediately, found him dead. “Is it possible I
am dying?” exclaimed a lady patient of mine; “I feel as if going into
a sweet sleep.” “I am drowsy, had I better indulge myself?” asked
Capt. G. On my giving him an affirmative answer, he turned, and
sank into a slumber from which he awoke no more. It is indeed
pleasant to know that examples occur of this unconscious and
painless dissolution; but I fear they are comparatively rare
exceptions to a natural rule; and I regard it as the duty of the
medical profession to add to the number by the judicious
employment of every means in our power.
And this leads me to a brief consideration of the question so
often pressed upon us in one shape or another by the friends of our
patients, and sometimes by our patients themselves: If the tendency
of any medicinal or palliative agent be to shorten life, while it
assuages pain, has the physician a right to resort to it? Even in the
latter stages of some inflammatory affections, loss of blood,
especially if carried to fainting, will arrest the sharp pangs, but the
patient will probably die somewhat sooner: shall we bleed him?
Large doses of opium will tranquilize him, or render him insensible;
but he will probably sink somewhat earlier into the stupor of death.
Shall we administer it, or shall we let him linger on in pain, merely
that he may linger? Chloroform, ether, and other anæsthetics in full
dose inspired render us insensible to all forms of anguish, and make
death as easy, to use the phrase of Hufeland, as being born! Shall
we allow our agonized moribund to inhale them? Used in less
amount, a degree of relief and palliation is procured, but at the risk
of exhausting or prostrating more promptly the failing energies of
the system. Shall we avail ourselves of their anæsthetic influences,
or are they forbidden us, either absolutely or partially?
These are by some moralists considered very delicate questions
in ethics. Desgenettes has been highly applauded for the reply he
made to Bonaparte’s suggestion, that it would be better for the
miserable sick left by the French army at Jaffa to be drugged with
opium: “It is my business to save life, not to destroy it.” But, in
approving the physician, we must not harshly condemn the
commanding officer. When we reflect on the condition of the men
whom the fortune of war compelled him to abandon, and the
certainty of a horrible death to each victim from wasting disease or
Turkish cruelty, a rational philanthropist might well desire to smooth
their passage to the grave.
During the employment of torture for the purposes of tyranny in
Church and State, a physician or surgeon was at hand, whose whole
duty it was to suspend the process whenever it became probable
that nature would yield under its pressure, and the victim would
escape through the opening, glad gates of death. It was then
esteemed an act of mercy to give, or permit to be given by the
executioner, a fatal blow, hence called emphatically and justly the
coup de grace. In the terrible history of the invasion of Russia by
Napoleon, we shudder to read that, after their expulsion from
Moscow, the French soldiers, in repassing the fields of battles fought
days and even weeks previously, found many of their comrades,
there wounded and left, still dragging out a wretched and hopeless
existence, amidst the corpses of those more fortunately slain
outright, and perishing miserably and slowly of cold and hunger, and
festering and gangrenous wounds. One need not surely offer a
single argument to prove, all must feel and admit that the kindest
office of humanity, under the circumstances, would have been to put
an end to this indescribable mass of protracted wretchedness by the
promptest means that could be used to extinguish so horrible a life.
A common case presents itself from time to time to every
practitioner, in which all hope is avowedly extinct, and yet, in
consonance with uniform custom, stimulants are assiduously
prescribed to prolong existence in the midst of convulsive and
delirious throes, not to be looked on without dismay. In some such
contingencies, where the ultimate result was palpably certain, I have
seen them at last abandoned as useless and worse, in order that
nature, irritated and excited, lashed into factitious and transitory
energy, might sink into repose; and have felt a melancholy
satisfaction in witnessing the tranquillity, so soft and gentle, that
soon ensued; the stormy agitation subsiding into a calm and
peaceful decay.
Responsibility of the kind I am contemplating, often indeed more
obvious and definite, presses upon the obstetrician, and is met
unreservedly. In embryulcia, one life is sacrificed in the hope and
with the reasonable prospect of saving another more valued: this is
done too sometimes where there is an alternative presented, the
Cæsarian section, which destroys neither of absolute necessity, but
subjects the better life to very great risk.
 Patients themselves frequently prefer the prompter and more
lenient motives of death which our science refuses to inflict. In
summing up the motives of suicide in one hundred and thirty-one
cases, whose causes are supposed to be known, Prevost tells us that
thirty-four, more than one-fourth of the whole number, committed
self-murder to rid themselves of the oppressive burden of physical
disease. Winslow gives us an analysis of thirteen hundred and thirty-
three suicides from Pinel, Esquirol, Burrows, and others. Of these,
there were but two hundred and fifty that did not present obvious
appearances of bodily ailment; and although it is not stated how
many of them sought death voluntarily as a refuge from physical
suffering, it would be unreasonable to doubt that this was the
purpose with a very large proportion. I am far from advocating the
propriety of yielding to this desire or gratifying the propensity; nay, I
would, on the other hand, earnestly endeavor to remove or repress
it, as is now the admitted rule.
I hold fully, with Pascal, that, according to the principles of
Christianity, which in this entirely oppose the false notions of
paganism, a man “does not possess power over his own life.” I
acknowledge and maintain that the obligation to perform
unceasingly, and to the last and utmost of our ability, all the duties
which appertain to our condition, renders absolutely incompatible
the right supposed by some to belong to every one to dispose of
himself at his own will. But I would present the question for the
serious consideration of the profession, whether there does not, now
and then, though very rarely, occur an exceptional case, in which
they might, upon full and frank consultation, be justified before God
and man in relieving, by the efficient use of anæsthetics, at
whatever risk, the ineffable and incurable anguish of a fellow-
creature laboring under disease of organic destructiveness, or
inevitably mortal; such, for example, as we are doomed to witness in
hydrophobia, and even more clearly in some instances of cancerous
and fungoid degeneration, and in the sphacelation of organs
necessary to life, or parts so connected as to be indispensable, yet
not allowing either of removal or restoration?
 I have left myself scarcely time for a few remarks upon death,
psychologically considered. How is the mind affected by the
anticipation and actual approach of death? The answer will obviously
depend upon and be influenced by a great diversity of contingencies,
moral and physical. The love of life is an instinct implanted in us for
wise purposes; so is the fear of pain. Apart from this, I do not
believe, as many teach, that there is any instinctive fear of death.
Education, which instills into us, when young, the fear of spectres;
religious doctrines, which awake in us the terror of “something after
death;” conscience, which, when instructed, “makes cowards of us
all;” associations of a revolting character—
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