The Grammaticalization of Small Size Nouns

Abstract

This article discusses the grammaticalized status of low-frequency small size nouns (henceforth SSNs), such as jot of, scrap of, and flicker of, which cannot have engaged in the spiral routinization processes with attrition, decategorialization, and grammatical reanalysis characteristic of “default” grammaticalization. The proposal to account for the grammatical status of low-frequency complex prepositions in terms of grammaticalization by analogy is partially rejected. Corpus studies on nine SSNs show that mere analogy with one highly schematic construction, a+SSN+ of, as instantiated by frequent a bit of, cannot be the sole factor involved in the grammaticalization of infrequent SSNs. Instead, more complex analogies with different quantifier models are involved which incorporate polarity sensitivity, similar to some and any, and which seem to serve as distant models in these analogies. However, in contrast to some and any, which can be used generally in quantifying contexts, the infrequent SSNs are further characterized by specific collocational and pragmatic values, and their appearance seems restricted to particular discourse contexts. More generally, the present article supports the claim that grammaticalization as such directly works on and results in (at least partially) substantive constructions, rather than schematic ones. It furthermore makes a claim for caution in describing what serves as a source for analogical extension, both in terms of describing all of the factors that come into play and deciding on the specific level of schematicity at which these need to be described.