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

Abstract

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