A far from simple matter revisited

Abstract In Present-day English far from belongs to a class of constructions ( close to, near to, next to ) which have undergone grammaticalization and/or constructionalization. The present corpus-based, diachronic study shows that the development of far from appears to be a clear case of grammaticalization, with quite significant changes in the Late Modern English period, including the extension of the downtoner to attributive contexts and the development of the emphasizer function. More importantly, the claim that “a well-known trajectory” ( Méndez-Naya 2008a : 215) is from degree adjunct to degree modifier is not borne out in this case. What we see here is a change from degree modifier to degree adjunct, a change consistent with Athanasiadou’s (2007) argument for an increase in subjectivity from degree modifier to emphasizer.