Pragmatic, syntactic and phonological evidence in favor of the grammaticalization of Northern Catalan negative 'poc/poca'

Abstract

[eng] This paper focuses on the current synchronic interspeaker variation of the Northern Catalan negative expression 'poc' (and its allomorph 'poca') 'no, not', which is examined from a prosodic, pragmatic and syntactic standpoint. Firstly, it offers a general description of the diachronic evolution of the quantitative adverb 'poc' and its first grammaticalisation towards a negative emphatic polarity particle. Secondly, it points to the prosodic, pragmatic and syntactic behaviour of 'poc' in Modern Catalan and sets the differences between the two main values of this negator within the community of speakers that use it: 1) a prosodically non-neutral pragmatic activator, and 2) a prosodically neutral pragmatically unmarked negator (generally used in Girona and Figueres). These differences are taken as evidence in favour of a current reanalysis and/or grammaticalisation process of 'poc/poca', in the latter speech variety, which involves its use as a negative head. Therefore, we put forward that in this variety 'poc' has undergone a 'specifier to head' grammaticalisation within PolP (thus, being an instance of van Gelderen's negative cycle). Last but not least, our argument is crucially supported by a phonetic test on intonation that proves, without a shred of doubt, that 'poc' and 'no' pattern alike from a prosodic viewpoint, whereas the intonation contours concerning 'pla' (a Northern Catalan negative emphatic polarity particle 'NOT') clearly diverge in the same contexts. Taking into account the general understanding on the grammaticalisation process itself (mostly concerning the intervention of semantic bleaching, pragmatic unmarking, prosodic or intonational unmarkedness and syntactic reanalysis), we conclude that the loss of pragmatic activation and the use of 'poc' in non-emphatic contexts can be taken as proofs of the grammaticalisation of 'poc' into a PolP head.