The dissertation investigates possible grammaticalization paths of a particular set of source items - viz. several verbs of motion and posture - in a wide range of languages of different genetic and areal affiliation.
The Introduction contains a brief overview of main ideas in grammaticalization research over the last twenty years.
Chapter 1 provides the discussion of methodology and previous attempts in investigating specific lexical sources, especially treatments of motion and/or posture verbs. Here the language sample is also described. The total number of languages in which cases of grammaticalization of motion and posture verbs where looked for approximates 400, with representatives from all the world's major families. For about 200 languages book-length descriptions were used to find relevant cases of development, and the information on the other half of languages was obtained from special studies of grammaticalization phenomena in these languages or from general typological works. Some data was also discovered in the course of the fieldwork.
Chapters 2 and 3 describe grammaticalization paths of individual motion and posture verbs, respectively. The following motion verbs -- or, strictly speaking, verbal senses -- were taken into account: GO (and GO AWAY), COME, WALK, RETURN, GO UP (ASCEND), GO DOWN (DESCEND), GO IN (ENTER), GO OUT, PASS (and GO THROUGH). As for posture verbs, three most basic ones (SIT, STAND, LIE) were investigated. For each of the selected source items all discovered paths are listed with detailed discussion of conditions favouring particular lines of development (for example, the structure of source construction as a whole) and examples from different languages. All the languages of the sample where a given development was encountered are mentioned with relevant references.
The first part of Chapter 4 is organized alternatively from target categories (like tense, aspect, modality, valence, etc.) to possible sources (among motion and posture verbs) and gives an idea for creating of grams of which functional domains these sources are most extensively used. Here also possible motivations of changes are suggested. In the second part some general frequency counts are presented and problems like multiple interrelations between sources and targets (one source giving rise to several target grams or one target coming into being from various sources) are discussed.
The Conclusion summarizes main results of the dissertation.
There is also a list of References and three appendixes: Language Index with genetic affiliation, Language Index with reference to sections, and Source-Target List (in A-Z format).
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