Unexpected grammaticalizations

From a typological perspective, the evolution of a verb meaning ‘to go’ as a future tense marker is a common grammaticalization chain. The evolution of an allative verb as a past tense is much less expected, though documented. In modern Spanish, for instance, it exists a past marker formed by a coordinating structure: ir ‘to go’ + y ‘and’ + finite verbal group.

The aim of this paper is to explore the motivations behind the grammaticalization process experienced by the Spanish structure ir ‘to go’ + y ‘and’ + finite verbal group as a past marker and as a quotative marker. We follow a usage-based approach to language change, combined with Grammaticalization and Diachronic Construction Grammar. The examples in which we base our study are obtained from corpora databases (corde, crea, admyte, corpus biblia medieval). In analyzing the emergence of ir + y + verbal finite group, we will consider morphosyntactic, textual and pragmatic factors involved in the invited inferences that motivate the rise of this verbal construction. We will also consider the discursive context in which the structure is documented, since the discourse traditions have been shown to be central in the consolidation of verbal constructions whose etymon contains a verb meaning ‘go’. This analysis will show that discourse-pragmatic forces become central in the emergence of the construction ir + y + finite verbal group.