Rethinking the Relationship between Subjectification, Intersubjectification, and Textualization from a Constructionalist Perspective

In the last forty years there have been several proposals regarding a generalizable historical ordering among subjectification, intersubjectification and textualization. To date, most hypotheses have been developed within the framework of grammaticalization, in which hypotheses about unidirectional paths of change have played a significant role. In this paper I ask two questions: 1: Is there evidence for a generalizable historical ordering among subjectification, intersubjectification and textualization? 2. What hypotheses about the relationship between these three change-types appear to be optimal from the perspective of Diachronic Construction Grammar? I argue that, although particular data may suggest one trajectory or another, it is not possible to generalize over the order of changes. I propose a constructionalist model in which constructions have communicative, among other, functions, and in which the properties subjective, intersubjective and textual are of equal status and may emerge simultaneously in certain domains of grammar, such as Discourse Structuring Markers.