Abstract We argue that we should maintain the distinction between ambiguity and vagueness in grammatical change, especially in usage-based linguistics, as it offers a more fine-grained perspective on types of context, change, and linguistic structure. Drawing on previous research, we present two case studies: the semantic history of be going to , and the morphosyntactic history of Mandarin modals and conditionals. These studies show that the initial relation involved in grammatical change is one of vagueness. We also contrast our usage-based perspective with that of frameworks where the clause is hierarchically organised such that the initial relation is more likely one of ambiguity.
Kuo et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: