Abstract

The present article aims to clarify the process where the adverbial phrase (just) in case has been formed, through the intermediate stage as a complex preposition/conjunction. It has the meaning ‘apprehension’, which cannot be produced out of the simple summing up of all the lexemes involved in the phrase. It will be shown that the rise of ‘speech-act-related adjunct’or‘style disjunct’ usage has played an important role in the development of the adverbial usage.
The result will then be reconsidered from the viewpoint of grammaticalization, with special reference to (a) the rise of pragmatic meaning, (b) syntactic scope increase and (c) the formal gain resuiting from the attachment of just. Some aspects of its development seem to go with the basic principles of grammaticalization, while others might rather pose some questions regarding the recent definition of the notion ‘grammaticalization’ itself. An interrelated understanding of grammaticalization and idiomatization will help place a case like this in the right context of the research field.