The subjectification approach
Langacker (1999b, 1999c) argues that subjectification is central to grammaticalisation. As we have already mentioned, Langacker uses the term ‘subjectification’ in a different way from Traugott and Dasher. In Langacker’s model, subjectification relates to perspective. For example, speaker and hearer are usually subjectively construed or ‘off-stage’, and only become objectively construed or ‘on-stage’ when linguistically profiled, for example by the use of pronouns such as I or you. Langacker argues that subjective construal is immanent in (subsumed by) objective construal, because whether or not the conceptualiser is on-stage (objectified), his or her perspective in terms of participation in scanning is part of the conceptualisation process. This idea is illustrated by Figure 21.6.
In Figure 21.6, the circle marked C represents the conceptualiser who is mentally scanning the interaction between trajector (TR) and landmark
(LM). This scanning process is represented by the arrows between C and TR and LM, and takes place across processing time, which is represented by the horizontal arrow marked T. The difference between the three diagrams in Figure 21.6 is the arrow that connects TR and LM, which represents the profiling of the relationship between TR and LM. In the case of objective construal, this arrow is unbroken. This represents the idea that the relationship between TR and LM is highly objectively salient. In the central diagram in Figure 21.6, this arrow is broken, which represents attenuation or weakening of the objective salience of the relationship between TR and LM. When subjectification occurs, the arrow representing the relationship between TR and LM is absent, which represents the idea that there is no longer any objective salience in the relationship between TR and LM. Although the two are still related, the relationship holds only within the conceptualiser’s construal.
The examples in (22) provide some linguistic evidence for this rather abstract idea. Langacker (1999b) compares two different senses of the expression across in order to illustrate subjectification or the attenuation of objectivity.
In example (22a), the TR Lily is in motion, and the expression across encodes her path of movement which is therefore objectively salient. In contrast, TR an off-licence in example (22b) is a static entity, and the expression across only encodes its location. Although both examples involve the same perspective point for the conceptualiser, who mentally scans the path across the street, the objective salience of this path is weaker in (22b) because of the absence of a moving TR. Furthermore, while the entire path is profiled in (22a), only the endpoint of the path is profiled in (22b). The idea behind immanence is that subjective construal is ‘there all along’, but only comes to the fore when objective construal is attenuated or weakened.
Langacker claims that subjectification or the attenuation of objectivity gives rise to grammaticalised forms over a period of time, and that in the intervening stages on the gradual path to grammaticalisation, a number of layered senses or functions of a single form may coexist. Langacker argues that attenuation is evident in four main patterns of change, which are summarised in Table 21.4.
Langacker (1999b) provides a number of examples of how the attenuation process evolves grammaticalised forms. In the remainder of this subsection, we revisit the be going to construction from the perspective of Langacker’s subjectification approach, and look at how this model accounts for the evolution of auxiliary verbs.
