Grammaticalization And Lexicalization: A View Of The Entrenchment Of Symbolic Units

The objective of this paper is the similarities and the distinctions between lexicalization and grammaticalization. Lexicalization and grammaticalization are two phenomena that often occur in languages. The study of grammaticalization is fruitful after nearly a century's research. The study of predecessors has revealed the general way, main mechanism and unidirectionality of grammaticalization. Though lexicalization, often considered as the counter process of grammaticalization, does not draw as much attention as grammaticalization, the study on lexicalization by predecessors is still insightful, especially on the comparison between lexicalization and grammaticalization. However, the study on the conditions, motivation and inner mechanism of lexicalization and grammaticalization is not satisfactory at present. Langacker's Cognitive Grammar provides a chance to that study on lexicalization and grammaticalization.R.W. Langacker (1987) who is one of the founders of cognitive linguistics suggests entrenchment is indispensable for human cognition. He points out that in Cognitive Grammar"unit"is a structure that a speaker has mastered so much that he can employ it automatically without paying any constructive effort on its individual part or their arrangement. Unit status is gradually and progressively acquired by repeated use. This process is called entrenchment.Symbolic units are units conventionally composed of phonological and semantic units. Symbolic units include linguistic structures with diverse degrees of entrenchment which vary from morphemes and words to phrases and even syntactic structures. Thus the objectives of lexicalization and grammaticalization can be all considered as symbolic units. Lexicalization and grammaticalization can be considered as processes of symbolic units. The study lexicalization and grammaticalization on such a connecting point is bound to fruitful. The study of this paper is based on Cognitive Grammar. The conditions, motivation and inner mechanism of lexicalization and grammaticalization are studied in this paper. The findings of this study are:Firstly, proper frequency is necessary for both lexicalization and grammaticalization. However, the necessary needed by grammaticalization is much higher than that of lexicalization.Secondly, the motivation of both lexicalization and grammaticalization is the economy principle in language.Thirdly, the motivation of lexicalization and grammaticalization and entrenchment are responsible for the mechanism of unidirectionality on entrenchment, which is shared by lexicalization and grammaticalization, as well as strong parallels. The mechanism of unidirectionality on grammaticality that only grammaticalization has is resulted from entrenchment and reanalysis.