A generative approach to lexicalization: speech-act frankly in the history of English

Abstract

This paper is a case study of frankly, an example of the category of speech-act adverb, one of the types of sentence adverb frequently found in modern English. It examines frankly from synchronic and diachronic perspectives. Although previous studies have characterized sentence adverbs as resulting from grammaticalization processes, this paper analyzes the rise of sentence-adverb frankly as an example of lexicalization instead. In addition, the paper follows the tradition of using generative grammar as a way to understand diachronic linguistics. Rather than modeling lexicalization from the viewpoint of generative minimalism, however, linguistic cartography is utilized as a structure from which to study adverbial change in language. This study makes use of data from diachronic and synchronic English corpora to show the recent shift and the semantic association of frankly with verbs of speech.

Keywords:

• generative grammar
• historical linguistics
• lexicalization
• grammaticalization
• adverbs
• syntactic cartography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

James Berry http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7010-6992

Notes

1. Note that I read the verb in this instance as opine, as this is a possible spelling. The verb, however, may be open, in which case its verb of speech status is less clear.