The grammaticalization of igual in Argentinean Spanish

ÁNGELA DI TULLIO; MERCEDES PUJALTE; PABLO ZDROJEWSKI

Formal Approaches to Languages of South America

Springer Nature

Año: 2023; p. 133 - 169

Words expressing identity, similarity, equivalence, and equality seem to be especially subject to grammaticalization processes. A very well-known case is the comparative adjective mismo [“same”]. This term has been grammaticalized into the reflexive form mí mismo [“myself”], ti mismo [“yourself”], and sí mismo [“herself/himself”]. As in the case of mismo [“same”] and semejante [“similar/alike”], the Spanish adjective igual [“equal”] has undergone several grammaticalization processes. This chapter focuses on some of them and their consequences in terms of micro-parametric variation. Particularly, in Peninsular Spanish, the grammaticalization of igual resulted in an epistemic modality marker expressing uncertainty—like “maybe/perhaps,” as in (1). In contrast, in Argentinean Spanish, the grammaticalization mainly gave rise to an operator of concession, similar to “anyway” (2):(1) Igual mañana voy a tu casa. equal tomorrow go.1SG to your home “Maybe I will go to your home tomorrow.”(2) Está lloviendo. Igual voy a ir a tu casa. is raining equal go.1SG to go.INF to your home “It is raining. But I will go to your home anyway.”Within the generative framework, it is commonly agreed that grammaticalization processes imply, in general terms, the insertion of lexical categories in functional positions. Accordingly, Roberts and Roussou (2003) and Roberts (2010), among others, consider that grammaticalization paths involve successive upward reanalysis along the functional hierarchy, and this is thus how we define grammaticalization paths (Roberts and Roussou 2003, p. 202). Following Cavirani-Pots (2020), in this chapter we explore the idea that the transition from lexical categories to purely functional categories entails intermediate stages of semi-lexicalization. In other words, it could be asserted that semi- lexicalization is not a category itself, but a property of a lexical item in the initial stages of a process, which eventually results in the complete grammaticalization of a lexical item (see Klockmann (2017) and Cavirani-Pots (2020), among others).Consistently, we could assume that roots get a semi-lexical status whenever they are inserted in the functional domain of a different root. This is what happens, precisely, with the adjective of igual, which adopts a semi-lexical status when usedas a comparative adjective or adverb. At this stage, the grammaticalization process bifurcates into several paths, which expand the aforementioned process, from its use as a degree adverb to an operator of modality and of concession.