The impact of input and output domains: towards a function-based categorization of types of grammaticalization

• The paper deals with different types of grammaticalization.
• Evidence from various languages is discussed.
• Primary and secondary grammaticalization are characterized by different subprocesses.
• Pragmaticalization should be recognized as its own type of change.
• Both the input and the output domains of grn processes have an impact on the type of changes to be expected.

A wide variety of semantic–pragmatic processes have been linked to grammaticalization, such as pragmatic enrichment (Hopper and Traugott, 2003) and the loss of pragmatic meaning (Heine and Reh, 1984). As this example shows, not all of these subprocesses are compatible with each other. It therefore makes sense to assume that different subprocesses may be linked to different stages, different input or different output types of grammaticalization processes.In the present paper, various types of changes will be analyzed with respect to the semantic and pragmatic changes that typically accompany them, using mostly examples from English, German and the Romance languages.On this basis, a classification will be proposed, which will support the view that it is fruitful to make a distinction between primary and secondary grammaticalization (i.e. grammaticalization from lexical as opposed to from grammatical sources). Furthermore, the present approach provides further evidence that pragmaticalization should best be seen as its own type of change, rather than as a subtype of grammaticalization.