Gradualism of the process of grammaticalization and the principle of persistence: evidence of a hierarchy of features?

Abstract

From the analysis of prototypical cases of grammaticalization that were studied in a diachronic perspective and that have attested a persistence of formal features, this text discusses the thesis that the features that define the grammatical categories are hierarchically marked in the linguistic system. This way, it is assumed that there are features stronger than others, which could explain their persistence even in advanced stages of the process of grammaticalization, and it is proposed a hierarchy for such features into two levels, a macro one, taking as a parameter the stratum in which the categorical change takes place, and a micro one, for analyzing the features in each stratum.