Grammaticalization in the present – The changes of modern Swedish typ

In modern Swedish, the word typ has several functions and meanings. Until about 1930 however, typ had only a nominal function – the other uses of typ have developed during the 20th century. In this article we track the changes of typ, from a noun to a preposition, and then to an adverb and to a discourse particle, by utilizing electronic corpora. The grammaticalization of typ can be followed in great detail, and we argue that this type of language change depends on interaction between syntactic reanalyses and semantic reinterpretations, as suggested by Rosenkvist (2005). It is also demonstrated that typ is a member of a class of taxonomic lexemes particularly prone to grammaticalization, as attested in English, French, Russian and Italian.