The Grammaticalization of Catalan anar (‘to go’) + Infinitive for the Expression of Perfective Past: A Diachronic, Corpus-Based Perspective

This study constitutes an exploratory analysis of the grammaticalization cline anar (‘to go’) + infinitive in Catalan to express perfective past (e.g., va arribar ‘s/he arrived’). Our research interest primarily lies diachronically tracing evolution this grammatical change, which appears be unprecedented other Romance languages Spanish, French), construction has instead led expression a near and/or intentional future. A gap is found fact that there have been few corpus-based, pragmatic approaches matter. We base our theoretical framework on definition by Hopper and Traugott (2003) number related publications (Alturo 2017, Pérez-Saldanya & Hualde 2003). Critical items (N=346) were retrieved from diachronic corpus CICA (11th-18th c.) subsequently analyzed light factors, establishing three-stage based Segura (2012). Results show how informative bridging contexts are shaping processes, as they highlight challenges process corpora literary texts. discussion follows identification potential next steps might useful complementing own research.