K(case)Ps: ‘configurationality’ and ‘structural simplification'

Roberts and Roussou (2003) analyse grammaticalization within Minimalism, and Ledgeway (2011a, 2011b) deals with grammaticalization in Latin/Romance, also within Minimalism. Neither of them analyses the grammaticalization of KPs (case-markers) and so this is the theme of this paper. The grammaticalization of two very important Latin/Romance KPs (de marking genitive, ad marking dative) indeed conforms to both Robert & Roussou’s and Ledgeway’s hypotheses, since they originate from Latin PPs (de denoting separation, ad denoting direction), and within X’-theory complements (e.g. KPs) are ‘simpler’ than adjuncts (e.g. PPs) in that the former require fewer feature place-holders than the latter (Robert & Roussou (2003:106)), and so by Roberts & Roussou’s (2003:200-201) ‘structural simplification’ (reduction of ‘feature syncretisms’) PPs are grammaticalized as KPs. Robert & Roussou’s ‘structural simplification’ assumes configurationality and can only occur in configurational syntax, and so configurationality is a prerequisite for grammaticalization in Minimalism, which conforms to Ledgeway’s argument (2011a:405-434)) that the key syntactic change from Latin to Romance is the rise of configurationality, which gives rise to functional categories in Romance (Ledgeway (2011a:409)). Finally, as configurationality is a controversial notion, alternative scenarios are considered in the appendix where configurationality no longer has explanatory value, and ‘re-analysis’ is argued to be the key to understanding grammaticalization, since it is in itself sufficient to explain grammaticalization, with or without configurationality.