Semogenesis, Grammaticalization And Grammatical Metaphor

The notion of grammaticalization is firstly raised by Meillet at the beginning of lastcentury. Generally speaking, the studies of grammaticalization can be traced back from twodifferent orientations, known as the generative orientation and the functional orientation.The two approaches to grammaticalization propose different views on the motivation aswell as mechanism of grammaticalization. Due to the dominant influence fromstructuralism as the mainstream linguistic school, most of the studies ongrammaticalization have been conducted from a synchronic perspective while diachronicalones haven’t gained its due attention. But in last century’s70s diachronic approaches to thestudies of grammaticalization have gradually regained its position, with researchers tryingto analyze and explain the complex grammatical phenomena that are hard to be explainedfrom a synchronic perspective.And before long, systemic functional linguist M.A.K. Halliday (1985) proposes thedifference between lexical metaphor and grammatical metaphor and firstly put forward thelinguistic notion “grammatical metaphor”. The concept of grammatical metaphor meansthat metaphor happens not only on the lexical level but also on the lexicogrammatical level.He has made great contributions in providing a new theoretical perspective to analyze andexplain a great many complex grammatical phenomena. Halliday and Matthiessen (1999:233) also think that lexical and grammatical metaphor are not two different phenomena;they are both aspects of the same general metaphorical strategy by which we expand oursemantic resources for construing experience. Grammatical metaphor can be regarded as atool of creating meaning.It is not hard to find that both of the two theories take the language change as theirresearching object, trying to find out the motivations that lead to the change of languagestructure. Thus, there must be some intrinsic theoretical relevance between the twotheories.Taking SFL as its theoretical foundation, this paper aims to discuss the motivationsthat lead to the appearances of the two grammatical phenomena, the nature and common grounds between the two from the diachronic timeframes within the notion known as“semogenesis”.After theorization, the author holds that, firstly, grammaticalization can be redefinedas lexicogrammaticalization, that is, the emergence and development of lexicogrammaticalsystem (lexicogrammar stratum) in interaction with semantic system. The metafunctionaldemands and semantic pressures on language motivate the continuous process oflexicogrammaticalization. In ontogenetical and phylogenetical time frames, the continuingprocess of lexicogrammaticalization keeps expanding the meaning potential, thus it can beseen as a semogenetic process. Secondly, grammatical metaphor, a metaphorical strategyby which we expand our semantics resources for construing experience can be seen as atool for semogenesis. It is also motivated by strong functional demands and semanticpressures on language. Both metaphorization and demetaphorization serve as the chiefmeans for language formation and language development, they co-function in promotingthe evolution of human language. In a word, after the redefining of grammaticalization aslexicogrammaticalization, it can be seen as a semogenetic process while grammaticalmetaphor can be seen as a tool for semogenesis. Both lexicogrammaticalization andgrammatical metaphor share a same theoretical premise which is the unity of grammar andlexis as a single unified stratum of lexicogrammar–the power house for meaning-making,and same motivating factors such as the functional demands and semantic pressures onlanguage. The present thesis enables us to fully recognize the language evolution processand has shed light on the nature of language, that is, language is a tri-stratal social-semioticsystem, a semogenetic process by which the meaning potential is expanded and enriched.