How directive constructions emerge: Grammaticalization, constructionalization, cooptation

Directive strategies, i.e. strategies through which the speaker orders someone to do something, are very frequent in everyday speech, and are particularly subject to processes of diachronic renewal. Based on a 200-language sample, this paper provides an extensive survey of the most frequent diachronic processes of emergence of positive directive strategies (imperatives, hortatives, jussives, etc.). Three basic processes are discussed: (i) the grammaticalization of lexical material into markers of orders and commands; (ii) the cooptation of non-directive forms (used in indirect speech acts) as directive strategies; and (iii) the creation of new directive strategies through constructionalization of various types of insubordinated clauses. The stages and outcomes of these processes are reconstructed on the basis of the available diachronic and synchronic evidence. In some of these processes, the identity of the performer of the order (addressee, speaker + addressee, third party) turns out to play a crucial role in favouring the development of a non-directive strategy into a directive one. Other diachronic processes, on the contrary, are shown to be connected to the widespread tendency to express orders in an indirect way, i.e. by putting the face-threatening component of directive speech acts off-stage.

► The pathways leading to the emergence of directive constructions (imperatives, hortative, jussives) are studied in a typological sample of 200 languages.
► Three basic processes leading to directive constructions/markers are discussed: (i) the recruitment of lexical or phrasal material into directive function (grammaticalization), (ii) the recruitment of non-directive forms into directive function (cooptation), (iii) the gradual emergence of conventionalized form-meaning pairs with a directive function (constructionalization).
► The identity of the performer and the tendency to avoid face-threatening acts are proven to play a crucial role in the coding of directive situations, both in synchronic and in diachronic terms, and the analysis of the sources of directive strategies may also account for the synchronic variation attested in the coding of directive situations.