The grammaticalization of constructions with taxonomic nouns in Polish and Russian: Between prepositional phrase and genitive

The project examines the paths of change of constructions with taxonomic nouns (TNs) in two Slavic languages, Polish and Russian, in diachronic and synchronic corpora. We propose that their grammaticalization, and the resulting synchronic layering, involve a prepositional (Pol.' w rodzaju', Rus. 'po tipu') and a case-driven (Pol. 'pokroju', Rus. 'tipa') path. By introducing into the ongoing debates about TN-constructions two languages structurally different from the extensively studied Germanic and Romance languages, we reveal new evidence for identifying grammaticalization as gradual structural and collocational process. Non-representational uses, e.g. Pol. hesitation marker 'typu' or Rus. hedge 'svoego roda' are of particular interest as they appear at the stage when the grammaticalization path becomes the most divergent between the languages.

Keywords:grammaticalization, genitive, prepositional phrase, particle

Disciplines:Russian language