Should conditionals be emergent... Asyndetic subordination in English and German as a challenge to grammaticalization research

One of the themes of this conference, and indeed grammaticalization theory at large, is the importance of usage-based factors like frequency and the routinization of discourse patterns. It is well-known that recurrent combinations of sentence-types in discourse may over time result in the formation of complex sentences (Hopper and Traugott 2003: chap. 7). The challenge lies in integrating changes of this kind into the theoretical and methodological framework of grammaticalization, given that the main concepts of grammaticalization research have in the past been informed largely by changes affecting lexical items. In our contribution we would like to offer some ideas on how this challenge can be met. A central notion will be Hopper's (1998) concept of ‘Emergence’, understood (following Krug 2000) as the gradual integration of a new subsystem into an existing grammar. The emerging subsystem in question are asyndetic subordinate constructions, in particular conjunction-less conditionals whose protasis has the internal structure of polar interrogatives, as in this example from German: (1) Scheint die Sonne, (so / dann) gehen wir baden. shines the sun (so / then) go we bat