Grammaticalization and 'lateral' grammaticalization, formalismand functionalism

Roberts and Roussou (2003) and van Gelderen (2011) analyse grammaticalization in Minimalism and argue that it involves ‘structural simplification’, which explains its cross-linguistic distribution. Simpson and Wu (2002) analyse ‘lateral’ grammaticalization, also within Minimalism. Vincent and Borjars (V & B) (2010) argue that the latter is problematic for R & R and van Gelderen’s hypotheses, since it does not display an ‘upward shift of features’, yet I argue in this paper that it actually fits into their definitions of ‘structural simplification’ since Agree relations are lost in the process. Furthermore, the lack of ‘upward shift of features’ in ‘lateral’ grammaticalization correlates with the empirical differences, namely ‘phonological weakening’, ‘univerbation’ and ‘semantic bleaching’, all of which occur in grammaticalization but not in ‘lateral’ grammaticalization. Finally, V & B (2010) argue that formalism and functionalism are not mutually exclusive, which can be verified by examining the cross-linguistic examples of both grammaticalization and ‘lateral’ grammaticalization, since while they all undergo ‘structural simplification’, their ‘cues’ are also strikingly similar.