- 1. The MAGRAM database in CrossGram
- 2. Grammaticalization parameters
- 3. The contributions
- 4. History and development of the MAGRAM project
- References
- CLDF Datasets
The MAGRAM database provides information about 992 grammaticalization paths from more than a hundred different languages. MAGRAM stands for MAinz GRAMmaticalization project. See §4 below for the history of the database.
Each grammaticalization path consists of a target gram, and a corresponding source form (e.g. the English target gram will (future tense), deriving from the source form Old English willan ‘want’).
The target grams are given in the Constructions tab with the gram’s functional description as the construction name and the gram’s form (orthographic or phonological shape) in the Description column. Each target gram is illustrated by one example, which can also be viewed in the Examples tab. When clicking on an individual construction (labeled “Gram: …”), the full details of the individual grammaticalization path are displayed, including the evaluation of the grammaticalization parameters (as explained below).
The source forms are treated as parameter values of the constructions. In the C-Parameters tab, one can click on the Source form parameter to obtain a list of all 992 paths. In this list, the target form is in the Construction column, the functional description of the source form is treated as the Value, and the shape of the source form can be found in Comments. In addition to the source forms, the C-Parameters tab gives information on the Meaning type of each target gram, and on the grammaticalization parameters.
The L-Parameters tab also provides an overview of the Meaning types of the target grams with a brief explanation of the label in Description as well as the number of instances from this group in Representation. With a click on a specific Meaning type, one is provided with a map showing the geographical spread of grammaticalization paths from this group.
The eight grammaticalization parameters in MAGRAM are:
- Semantic integrity
- Phonetic reduction
- Paradigmaticity
- Bondedness
- Paradigmatic variability
- Syntagmatic variability
- Decategorization
- Allomorphy
In the database, each parameter is coded for the path (from source to target) and for the target form. For the path, the database records whether there is a change or not (yes or no). For the target form, the database records the degree of grammaticalization on a scale between 1 (least grammaticalized) and 4 (most grammaticalized). For each of the eight parameters, the scales are different, as described in the C-Parameter description field and in the Documentation.
The database was put together on the basis of the following 27 contributions (almost all of which are also represented in the two-volume edited work Bisang & Malchukov (eds.) (2020)):
- Beja (Cushitic, Afroasiatic): Martine Vanhove
- Chinese (Sinitic, Sino-Tibetan): Linlin Sun and Walter Bisang
- Creoles and Pidgins: Susanne Maria Michaelis and Martin Haspelmath
- Emai (Edoid, Niger-Congo): Ronald P. Schaefer and Francis O. Egbokhare
- German (Indo-European): Luise Kempf and Damaris Nübling
- Hoocąk (Core Siouan): Johannes Helmbrecht
- Indo-Aryan (Indo-European): Annie Montaut
- Iranian (Indo-European): Agnes Korn
- Iroquoian: Marianne Mithun
- Japhug (Rgyalrong, Sino-Tibetan): Guillaume Jacques
- Khmer (Austroasiatic): Walter Bisang
- Korean: Seongha Rhee
- Lezgic (Northeast Caucasian): Timur Maisak
- Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian) & Mori (Yareban): Nikolaus P. Himmelmann
- Manding (Mande, Niger-Congo): Denis Creissels
- Mian (Papua New Guinea): Sebastian Fedden
- Nyulnyulan (Non-Pamanyungan, Australian): William B. McGregor
- Quechua and Aymara: Willem F. H. Adelaar
- Romance (Indo-European): Michela Cennamo
- Slavic (Indo-European): Björn Wiemer
- Southern Uto-Aztecan: Zarina Estrada-Fernández
- Thai: Walter Bisang
- Tswana (Bantu, Niger-Congo): Denis Creissels
- Tungusic (Manchu-Tungusic, Transeurasian): Andrej L. Malchukov
- Uralic: Juha Janhunen
- Yeniseian: Edward Vajda
- Yucatecan (Mayan): Christian Lehmann
MAGRAM, the MAinz GRAMmaticalization project, was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG; BI 591/12-1) and conducted at the Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz under the leadership of Walter Bisang and Andrej Malchukov, from January 2016 through March 2020.
MAGRAM began with the hypothesis that grammaticalization is not necessarily cross-linguistically homogeneous (cf. Bisang 2011). The project explored areal and/or cross-phylogenetic variation based on two key hypotheses:
-
Grammaticalization paths of the type [SOURCE → TARGET] vary areally/genetically in terms of both the sources and targets associated with specific concepts.
-
There are cross-linguistic differences in the degree of covariation of meaning and form – semantic changes do not always imply form-related changes.
A major outcome of MAGRAM was the two-volume work Grammaticalization scenarios: Cross-linguistic variation and universal tendencies, which includes:
- a position paper (Bisang et al. 2020a),
- a methodology paper (Bisang et al. 2020b), and
- 25 detailed studies on grammaticalization scenarios across languages and areas.
The core team of MAGRAM consisted of
- Walter Bisang (WB) – Principal Investigator
- Andrej L. Malchukov (AM) – Principal Investigator
- Linlin Sun (LS) – annotation and evaluation
- Iris Rieder (IR) – annotation and evaluation
- Eduard Schroeder (ES) – annotation and evaluation
- Marvin Martiny (MM) – annotation and evaluation, database curation
Bisang, Walter. 2011. Grammaticalization and linguistic typology. In Heine, Bernd & Narrog, Heiko (eds.), The Oxford handbook of grammaticalization, 105–117. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bisang, Walter and Malchukov, Andrej (eds.) 2020. Grammaticalization scenarios (Vol. 1 & 2). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Bisang, Walter et al. 2020a. Position paper: Universal and areal patterns in grammaticalization. In: Bisang et al. (eds), pp. 1-88.
Bisang, Walter et al. 2020b. Measuring grammaticalization: A questionnaire. In: Bisang et al. (eds), pp. 89-104.
Hammarström, Harald et al. 2022. Glottolog (https://glottolog.org/)
Kuteva et al. 2019. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization (2nd ed.).
Lehmann, Christian. 1995 [1982]. Thoughts on grammaticalization. Munich: Lincom. (2015 LangSci edition: https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/88)
The following CLDF datasets are available in cldf: