The development of manner of speaking markers in English and Chinese: Pragmaticalization, grammaticalization and lexicalization

•Evolution of English and Chinese MSMs involves Pzn-Gzn-Lzn interactions.•Pragmatic motivation is the driving force for Gzn and Lzn of MSMs.•Lzn of MSMs is but one possible result of Gzn and Pzn.•Pattern and degree of Lzn of MSMs are related to morphological features of a language.

This paper delves into the evolution of “manner-of-speaking markers” (MSMs for short) and observes the way in which grammaticalization, pragmaticalization and lexicalization interact in such evolution. It finds that the development of the markers is accompanied by changes in their syntactic behavior, semantic property and pragmatic function, and the changes are brought about by the interaction among the three processes. The study also finds that grammaticalization and lexicalization peculiar to MSMs are driven by pragmatic considerations, hence pragmatically motivated. A comparison between English and Chinese MSMs in lexicalization shows that morphological typology plays an important role in the lexicalization of MSMs.