Grammaticalization and Semantic Typology : Time-relationship Adverbs in Japanese, Korean, English and German

This paper discusses constraints on grammaticalization, a primarily diachronic process through which lexical elements take on grammatical functions. In particular, it will argue that two constraints on this process, namely Persistence and Layering, explain the different distributional patterns of time-relationship adverbs in Japanese, Korean, English and German. Furthermore, it will suggest that the distributional difference between Japanese and Korean time-relationship adverbs is not an isolated phenomenon but is a reflection of the overall semantic typological differences between the two languages in the sense of Hawkins (1986).