Grammaticalization reconciled: functionalist and minimalist insights into the development of purpose subordinators in English

•Trace the development of two English prepositional subordinators of purpose.•Demonstrate that the development proceeds in a cycle.•Interpret the development using the functionalist and minimalist models of grammaticalization.•Argue that the two models of grammaticalization can be reconciled.

Two approaches to grammaticalization have emerged over the years, namely functionalist and generativist, and usually a given grammaticalization study usually reflects only one of these points of view. In this paper the development of two English prepositional subordinators of purpose is looked into using both perspectives, first functionalist then minimalist, resulting in a more variegated interpretation of the data. A subsequent juxtaposition of the two concepts of grammaticalization reveals that they complement each other to a large extent, the primary area of overlap being the notions of cyclicity and reanalysis. While the two concepts differ in, for example, the answer to the crucial question why grammaticalization takes place, a proposal is made that each model has potential for accommodating the insights from the other.