Grammaticalization potentiel of the anaphoric ten in spoken narative discourse

In my Ph.D. thesis, I examine the use of referential devices in spoken narrative discourse with predominant anaphoric reference. Special attention is paid to the relationship between two competing forms: lexical phrases containing the lexeme ten (ten-MARKED NPs) and lexical phrases not containing it (UNMARKED NPs) in repeated mentions. A primary aim of the work is (i) to identify factors favouring the use of ten-marked NPs at the expense of unmarked NPs and (ii) to explore the possibility of the lexeme ten grammaticalizing from its anaphoric use. Theoretically and methodologically I benefit mostly from the conception of discourse anaphora and the theory of grammaticalization. The referential devices are systematically explored in terms of their distribution into different classes according to a set of parameters and their values. These parameters reflect the conceptual (animacy), grammatical (syntactic function, type of clause etc.) as well as discourse characteristics of the forms and their referents (informational status of the NP in the clause, activation and persistence of the referent, etc.). The data consist of 45 short narratives produced by 15 speakers. The speakers' task was to retell three short silent-movie sketches which they had seen immediately before the recording. The design of the..