The present paper aims at showing that the subjunctive mood in Romance Languages loses domains within the fields of syntax, semantics and pragmatics from early to modern stages of these languages. Two complementary approaches shall be presented in order to enlighten previous and recent changes in the status of the subjunctive in the verb system. These approaches shall be considered as two different, but to some extent parallel processes of grammaticalization in the sense of ‘reorganization of the grammatical system'. One covers both French and Spanish from a primarily semantic/pragmatic dimension, cf. (1) below, the other deals with the grammaticalization of French only from a syntactic/temporal dimension, cf. (2) below.

Our approach is essentially functional and based on the broadly defined assumption that grammaticalization is a change of relations between form and meaning (Heltoft et al. 2004: 19).

We refer furthermore to the concepts proposed by Hopper & Traugott (1993), Traugott (2003), and Andersen (1989, 2001). These approaches all consider grammaticalization processes as motivated by a semantic-pragmatic change.

The method used to test our hypotheses is based on corpus linguistics, combining a data-driven with a theory-driven approach. Both data from early and modern electronic text corpora are considered and treated from a combined qualitative and quantitative point of view in order to test the relationship between the above-mentioned theories of grammaticalization and mood in subordinate clauses in French and Spanish.

 

1 The grammaticalization of mood and assertion in French and Spanish

The first half of our joint paper focuses on the grammaticalization of the subjunctive from a semantic and a pragmatic angle. The aim of this part is to test the so-called ‘theory of assertion' on a diachronic corpus of Early French and a synchronic corpus of Modern French and Spanish. According to the theory of assertion, which combines a semantic and a pragmatic, i.e. expressive, point of view, the indicative in Romance Languages is considered to be the assertive mood, while the subjunctive is regarded as the non-assertive mood (conveying either a presupposition or irrealis modality) (Hooper 1975, Korzen 2003, Lindschouw (forthcoming)).

                      This part of the paper will focus on the evolution of mood in concessive clauses according to the assertion and grammaticalization criteria. There are two reasons for this choice. Firstly, this type of sentence seems to confirm the main hypothesis that Modern Spanish reflects a stage found in Early French (Boysen 1966, Delattre 1966, Lamiroy 1993, 1994, 1999, 2001). Secondly, we find obvious examples of ongoing grammaticalization processes in both French and Spanish in concessive clauses: (1) The grammaticalization of the subjunctive mood as a marker of subordination; (2) The grammaticalization of the semantic/pragmatic category ‘non-assertion', which has spread from the subjunctive to the indicative, partly as a result of the loss of domain of the subjunctive mood due to the former grammaticalization process. 

2 The superseding of the imperfect subjunctive by the present subjunctive in Modern French

The second half of this joint paper states a grammaticalization process of the present subjunctive in Modern French from a syntactic and temporal angle. The purpose is to describe how and to what extent the present subjunctive form invades the use of the past subjunctive form. The past subjunctive is no longer employed in spoken French and it appears that remnants of the form in spoken register are found no later than the beginning of the 20^th century. However, the past subjunctive still exists in written French, although it is constantly threatened by the present subjunctive. This part of the paper aims to give a clear picture of the status of the imperfect subjunctive in the French verb system and to clarify the development that has taken place in the course of the 20^th century. We focus on the remnants of the verb form in adverbial and complement clauses in past-tense contexts.

The phenomenon is seen as a variant of a process of degrammaticalization in Andersen's sense of the term whereby the past subjunctive loses its original grammatical, i.e. temporal, value to the extent that the function of the past subjunctive is now only an indication of style, i.e. a sort of expressive pragmatic value, rather than a marker of tense. Simultaneously, the present subjunctive acquires grammatical value in past tense contexts. From a functionalist's point of view the expression of past-tense in the subordinate clauses become pleonastic, it appears that tense expressed in the matrix-verb is sufficient.

 

References

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Andersen, H. (ms) "Linguistic change and the theory of markedness" Unpublished paper given at the Thirteenth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Düsseldorf, August 1997.

 

Andersen, H. (1989) "Understanding Linguistic Innovations" in Breivik, L.E. & E. H. Jahr Trends,                       Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 43, Language Change, Contributions to the Study of Its Causes, Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter.

 

Boysen, G. (1966) "L'emploi du subjonctif dans l'histoire des langues romanes" in Bulletin des jeunes romanistes 13, pp. 19-33.

 

Delattre, P. (1966) "Stages of old French phonetic changes observed in modern Spanish" in Studies in French and comparative phonetics. Selected papers in French and English,         London/The Hague/Paris, Mouton & Co., pp. 175-205.

 

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Hooper, J.B. (1975) "On Assertive Predicates" in Kimball, J.P. (ed.) Syntax and Semantics 4, New York, Academic Press, pp. 91-124.

 

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Korzen, H. (2003) "Subjonctif, indicatif et assertion ou : Comment expliquer le mode dans les subordonnées complétives ?" in Birkelund, M., G. Boysen & P.S. Kjærsgaard (eds) Aspects de la modalité, Tübingen, Max Niemeyer Verlag, pp. 113-129.

 

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Lamiroy, B. (1994) "Les syntagmes nominaux et la question de l'auxiliarité"  in Giry-Schneider, J.                 (ed.) Sélection et sémantique classes d'objets, compléments appropriés, compléments analysables, Special issue of Langages 115, pp. 64-75.

 

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