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The downward grammaticalisation of irrealis subordinators in Romanian, Salentino and southern Calabrese

2021; John Benjamins Publishing Company; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1075/cilt.355.08gro

0304-0763

Kim A. Groothuis,

Linguistics and language evolution

Romanian să, Salentino cu and southern Calabrese mu/ma/mi are irrealis subordinators, which also replace the infinitive in many of its uses. The present chapter investigates the diachrony of these elements. It is shown that they are all instances of downward grammaticalisation, deriving from high C-elements which move down to Fin0, and in the case of cu and mu, also further down to T- and v-related positions. quomodo is proposed as an etymon for both cu and mu, rather than the traditionally assumed quod and modo (ut). quomodo, originally replacing ut, follows Haspelmath's (1989) grammaticalisation path for infinitives when developing into cu and mu. The development of si into să is similar: it develops from a conditional complementiser to general irrealis subordinator.