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Article published In: Functions of Language
Vol. 32:3 (2025) ► pp.285–313

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The many things that thing can become

A story of discourse and grammar in Sà’án Sàvǐ ñà Ñuù Xnúvíkó (Mixtepec Mixtec)

ORCiD logo with link | University of Oregon
 | University of Oregon | Mixtec Community Linguist
Published online: 3 February 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.24082.bel
Abstract
Grammaticalization is often conceived of as a change from less to more grammatical, with loss of semantic content and the acquisition of a more grammatical status. However, the roles of discourse and prosody in grammaticalization processes are not often taken into consideration. This paper describes seven syntactic and two discourse functions of forms historically related to the noun meaning ‘thing’ in Sà’án Sàvǐ ñà Ñuù Xnúvíkó (Mixtepec Mixtec, Otomanguean). At the level of discourse, these forms, pervasive in unplanned speech, may function as hesitation markers and floor-keeping devices. The floor-keeping function, in turn, serves as a clause-combining device in discourse. The spoken nature of the corpus analyzed here allows us to see how information is distributed over Intonation Units (IU) and their combinations. This paper offers structural and prosodic evidence that some syntactic functions of these forms developed from discourse structures.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language and Language Community
  • 3.Data and conventions
  • 4.Syntactic functions
    • 4.1Noun
    • 4.2Classifier
    • 4.3Linker
    • 4.4Demonstrative pronoun
    • 4.5Dependent pronouns
    • 4.6Relativizer
    • 4.7Complementizer
    • 4.8Adverbial subordinator
  • 5.Discourse functions
    • 5.1Hesitation marker
    • 5.2Floor-keeping device
      • 5.2.1Packaging information
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusions: ‘New’ grammaticalization pathways
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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