Morphological relatedness and the grammaticalization of old English-bora

Abstract

Abstract. This paper argues for the bound character of Old English -bora and explains it as a grammaticalization of the free lexeme bora «bearer’. The grammaticalization bora > -bora is explained as a process of meaning weakening and generalization whereby a transitive clausal correlate has yielded way to an intransitive clausal correlate of the copulative type (transitive > possessive > locative /copulative). In Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology the loss of lexical status with the corresponding gain of grammatical status is described as a feature switch requiring a transposition verb: noun and leading to a functional derivation with overt subjective and objective function.