A Diasystematic Construction Grammar analysis of language change in the Afrikaans and English finite verb complement clause construction

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Complement Clause ◽  
Grammar Analysis ◽  
Finite Verb

Development of conditional imperatives in Japanese: A diachronic constructional approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-273
Author(s):  
Chiharu Uda Kikuta
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Effective Model ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Multiple Inheritance ◽  
Inheritance Model ◽  
Different Types ◽  
New Type ◽  
Grammar Analysis ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractThis paper proposes a diachronic construction grammar analysis of the conditional imperative in Japanese to demonstrate that a constructional approach provides an effective model for language change. The Japanese conditional imperative comprises two types with distinct properties, but no study to date has successfully analyzed how the two types appeared and are related to each other. In diachronic construction grammar, language change is situated in the context of a construction as well as in relation to other constructions linked in a network. This perspective makes it a particularly beneficial model for accommodating the case in question. The construction developed in two steps, exemplifying different types of language change, both of which, however, are motivated by analogy between different constructions. Adopting the multiple inheritance analysis, I contend that the construction first emerged as a result of the reanalysis of a sequence of an imperative sentence and a subsequent sentence as a type of the conditional construction. A later development reflected another case of construction-based analogy: the daughter construction inherited the host-class expansion that occurred in the parent, and the new type emerged as a result of coercion to accommodate the expansion. Thus the development of the Japanese conditional imperative not only finds a consistent analysis in this framework, but provides valuable insight into the workings of the construction network. This paper also addresses the issues of the inheritance model, and suggests the present case argues for a model with default inheritance at the construction level, which runs counter to previous studies which have restricted the overrides of default inheritance to the level of construct.

A construction grammar analysis of the transitivebeperfect in present-day Canadian English

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
YURI YERASTOV
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Fixed Material ◽  
Grammar Analysis ◽  
Generative Approach ◽  
Surface Realization

This article offers a syntactic analysis of the construction [be doneNP], e.g.I am done dinner, I am finished my homework, as found in Canadian English and some US dialects. After situating this construction in the context of a productive transitivebeperfect in Scots/English dialects, [be doneNP] will be distinguished from a set of its conceptual and structural relatives, and ultimately be shown not to be reducible to a surface realization of another underlying structure. From the perspective of syntactic theory, the article problematizes the parsimony of the mainstream generative approach (most recently in MacFadden & Alexiadou 2010) in accounting for the facts of [be doneNP] on strictly compositional grounds, as well as the mainstream view of lexical items as projecting theta grids and subcategorization frames (as e.g. in Grimshaw 1979; Emonds 2000). Following Fillmoreet al.(1988), Goldberg (1995, 2005) and others, what will be suggested instead is a construction grammar approach to [be doneNP], under which a construction holistically licenses its argument structure. Along these lines [be doneNP] will be characterized as an abstract construction with some fixed material.

The growth of the transitivising Reaction Object Construction

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Bouso
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Traditional Form ◽  
Historical Trend ◽  
Object Construction ◽  
Early Modern English

Abstract This paper explores the growth of the Reaction Object Construction (ROC) as in Pauline smiled her thanks, offering new insights into its characterisation and historical development from the perspective of Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2006, 2019) and its application to patterns of language change (Hilpert 2013; Traugott & Trousdale 2013). It is argued that the modern ROC qualifies as a traditional form-meaning pairing and, at a deeper level, as a polysemous construction that follows the path of development of other transitivising constructions such as the way-construction (Israel 1996), and of processes of constructionalisation in general. Once the ROC imposes a coreferential constraint on its object argument, acquiring in this way its status as a form-meaning pairing over the Early Modern English period (1500–1700), the construction increases its productivity and schematicity; at the same time it decreases its compositionality since the link between the form/syntax and the overall meaning of the construction becomes less transparent, as in The door jingled a welcome. The ROC can thus be argued to be part and result of a broader development in the grammar of English, namely the historical trend towards transitivisation.

Principles of Constructional Change

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjam Fried
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Construction Grammar

This chapter considers the application of the principles of Construction Grammar to language change. It describes a particular change in a morphological construction of Old Czech and discusses some of the ways in which constructions may change internally. The chapter explains the concept of constructionalization and establishes its connection with Construction Grammar. It highlights the gradual nature of constructional change, the micro-steps involved at different constructional levels, and the importance of context.

scholarly journals Towards a construction grammar account of the distributive PO in Polish

2015 ◽  
pp. 165-176
Author(s):  
Adam Przepiórkowski
Keyword(s):  
Potential Problem ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Grammar Analysis ◽  
Apparent Ability

Towards a construction grammar account of the distributive PO in PolishPolish distributive constructions involving the form po are well known for their syntactic and semantic idiosyncrasy. The aim of this paper is to show that, contrary to the received wisdom, two different lexemes po take part in such constructions: a preposition and an adnumeral operator. This explains some of the idiosyncratic behaviour, namely, the apparent ability of po to combine with different grammatical cases. A preliminary Construction Grammar analysis is proposed which eschews the potential problem of missed generalisations that such a dual account of po might engender.

Morphology in Dene-Yeniseian Languages

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Vajda
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Comparative Linguistics ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Contact Linguistics ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Northwestern North America ◽  
Finite Verb

Dene-Yeniseian is a putative family consisting of two branches: Yeniseian in central Siberia and Na-Dene (Tlingit-Eyak-Athabaskan) in northwestern North America. Yeniseian contains a single living representative, Ket, as well as the extinct Yugh, Kott, Assan, Arin, and Pumpokol languages. Na-Dene contains Tlingit, spoken mainly in the Alaskan Panhandle, and a second branch divided equidistantly between the recently extinct Eyak language of coastal Alaska and the widespread Athabaskan subfamily, which originally contained more than 40 distinct languages, some now extinct. Athabaskan was once spoken throughout interior Alaska (Dena’ina, Koyukon) and most of northwestern Canada (Slave, Witsuwit’en, Tsuut’ina), with enclaves in California (Hupa), Oregon (Tolowa), Washington (Kwalhioqua-Clatskanie), and the American Southwest (Navajo, Apache). Both families are typologically unusual in having a strongly prefixing verb and nominal possessive prefixes, but postpositions rather than prepositions. The finite verb arose from the amalgamation of an auxiliary and a main verb, both with its own agreement prefixes and tense-mood-aspect suffixes, creating a rigid, mostly prefixing template. The word-final suffixes largely elided in Yeniseian but merged with the ancient verb root in Na-Dene to create a series of allophones called stem sets. Na-Dene innovated a unique complex of verb prefixes called “classifiers” on the basis of certain inherited agreement and tense-mood-aspect markers; all of these morphemes have cognates in Yeniseian, where they did not innovate into a single complex. Metathesis and reanalysis of old morphological material is quite prevalent in the most ancient core verb morphology of both families, while new prefixal or suffixal slots added onto the verb’s periphery represent innovations that distinguish the individual daughter branches within each family. Other shared Dene-Yeniseian morphology includes possessive constructions, directional words, and an intricate formula for deriving action nominals from finite verb stems. Yeniseian languages have been strongly affected by the exclusively suffixing languages brought north to Siberia by reindeer breeders during the past two millennia. In modern Ket the originally prefixing verb has largely become suffixing, and possessive prefixes have evolved into clitics that prefer to attach to any available preceding word. Na-Dene languages were likewise influenced by traits prevalent across the Americas. Athabaskan, for example, developed a system of obviation in third-person agreement marking and elaborated an array of distinct verb forms reflecting the shape, animacy, number, or consistency of transitive object or intransitive subject. Features motivated by language contact differ between Tlingit, Eyak, and Athabaskan, suggesting they arose after the breakup of Na-Dene, as the various branches spread across northwestern North America. The study of Dene-Yeniseian morphology contributes to historical-comparative linguistics, contact linguistics, and also to the diachronic study of complex morphology. In particular, comparing Yeniseian and Na-Dene verb structure reveals the prominence of metathesis and reanalysis in processes of language change. Dene-Yeniseian is noteworthy not only for its wide geographic spread and for the effects of language contact on each separate family, but also for the opportunity to trace the evolution of uncommon morphological structures.

Reinforcement by realignment in diachronic construction grammar

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-238
Author(s):  
Yueh Hsin Kuo
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Construction Grammar

Abstract This paper suggests that xiē ‘some’ in Mandarin Chinese originated as a quantifier but became a classifier in the yi ‘one’ construction via realignment, or change in inheritance in diachronic construction grammar. This change has created yi xiē, semantically equivalent to xiē, therefore it is also a case of reinforcement in the sense of Jespersen’s Cycle. However, this study argues that yi xiē has not necessarily undergone grammaticalisation. Generalising the analysis, two types of reinforcement are proposed: reinforcement by innovation and by realignment. The former involves grammaticalisation, but the latter may not. The study highlights the importance of higher-level generalisations in language change.

Cognitive Sociolinguistic Aspects of Football Chants: The Role of Social and Physical Context in Usage-based Construction Grammar

2015 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Physical Context ◽  
Context Factors ◽  
Grammar Analysis ◽  
Authentic Language ◽  
Context Constraints

AbstractUsage-based approaches to language stress that a speaker’s mental grammar arises from and is shaped by language use and that the resulting mental representations include rich contextual linguistic and non-linguistic information. Yet, despite the fact that sociolinguistic research has pointed out the great importance of social and physical context factors as well as individual styles that speakers draw on to create their linguistic identities in authentic language use, usage-based Construction Grammar approaches have so far not paid enough attention to these phenomena. While the growing field of Cognitive Sociolinguistics has already tried to incorporate a wide variety of sociolinguistic phenomena into their cognitive analyses, most Construction Grammar approaches usually only include sociolinguistic parameters (such as text type, register or dialect) as independent variables in their analyses. In this paper, I argue that such an approach ignores recent sociolinguistic insights into the active stylization of individuals by dynamic linguistic acts of identity. In this paper, I will show the importance of these insights by focussing on English football chants. First, I will illustrate how football chants can be analysed as linguistic constructions that are constrained by complex social and physical context factors. In a next step, I will then argue that the complex social and physical context constraints as well as the potential to function as linguistic acts of identity are not only relevant for these types of constructions, but also need to be taken into account in usage-based Construction Grammar analysis in general.

Construction Grammar as Cognitive Structuralism: the interaction of constructional networks and processing in the diachronic evolution of English comparative correlatives

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS HOFFMANN
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Secondary Role ◽  
The Family ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Processing Effects ◽  
Constructionist Approach ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Correspondence Hypothesis

Following the Uniformitarian Principle, the Performance–Grammar Correspondence Hypothesis (PGCH; Hawkins 2004) predicts a directionality in language change: if the same content can be expressed by two competing structures and one of these is easier to process (see Hawkins 1999, 2004), then the simpler structure will be preferred in performance. Consequently, it will be used more often with a greater range of different lexical items, which increases its type frequency and ultimately leads to it being more cognitively entrenched than its alternative (see Hawkins 2004: 6). As an analysis of the diachronic evolution of the family of English comparative correlative constructions (the more iconiccause–before–effectC1C2 constructionthe more you eat, the fatter you getvs the less iconiceffect–before–causeC2C1 constructionyou get the fatter, the more you eat) shows, however, the PGCH only played a secondary role in the genesis of this set of constructions. In this article, I will present a usage-based constructionist approach that allows researchers to reinterpret the classical Structuralist notion of gaps in the system as gaps in the mental constructional network. This type of Cognitive Structuralist analysis accounts for the presence of the less iconic C2C1 structure (and the absence of the more iconic C1C2 structure) in OE, the genesis of C1C2 structures at the end of the OE period as well as the processing effects predicted by the PGCH once both the C1C2 and the C2C1 constructions were in competition during the ME period.

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