What L2 Processing Strategy Reveals about the Prototypical Relationship: A Case of Japanese Modal Markers of Possibility

Grammaticalization deals with a diachronic process whereby a lexical word evolves into a grammatical word. The typological study recognized the common directionality of grammaticalization among different languages. Two common directionalities in grammaticalization are recognized in the case of the modal markers of possibility: (1) ability > root possibility > permission 1 and (2) ability> root possibility > epistemic possibility. On the contrary to this, the modality of possibility in Japanese is encoded by different modal markers. The aim of this study is to analogize the relationship among them based on the data of second language acquisition, especially based on the processing strategy adopted by learners. This survey suggests that both permission and epistemic possibility seem to develop out from root possibility in Japanese.