Open Access

Sarah Feryal Gemicioglu

• The 'de-allative'-pattern (Heine/ Kuteva 2008: 103) gives rise to the French grammaticalized periphrasis aller + INF and the Spanish grammaticalized periphrasis ir a + INF. This construction (anar + INF) also consists in Catalan, but here, however, with the periphrasis expressing a past tense. Concerning the grammaticalization path ir a + INF and aller + INF were formerly used to express a past (historical present), whereas anar + INF also expressed a future (and can still take on this function). This paper discusses possible reasons for the development and the thus exceptional position of the Catalan past-periphrasis. In addition to morphological and normative explanations, language contact between Catalan and Spanish/ French as well as sociolinguistic circumstances are factors which may possibly account for the development of the Catalan construction. After a separate presentation of the development and the former and actual use(s) and forms of the three periphrasis, the cognitive processes which took place during the grammaticalization are presented. Afterward the three periphrasis are compared using the parameters of Lehmann. The second part of this paper consists of a corpus which verifies and illustrates the results of the previous part.