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.

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.

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.

“Be Suicided”: A Construction Grammar Analysis of the Innovative bèi Construction in Chinese

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-106
Author(s):  
Rong Chen ◽  
Xiaoxia Hu
Keyword(s):  
Social Reality ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Passive Construction ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Grammar Analysis

This paper is a construction grammar analysis of the innovative bèi construction in Chinese. The bèi construction departs from the canonical passive construction in that, instead of a transitive verb, it has a lexeme that is not a transitive verb to go with the passive marker bèi. We propose that the non-transitive verb denotes an event (as opposed to a state or action) in which the referent of the subject participates involuntarily. The passive semantics of the construction then coerces the non-transitive lexeme into behaving like one. We will, in addition, demonstrate a case of what may be called a “reverse constructional coercion” whereby the innovative construction imposes its semantics onto canonical passive sentences. Lastly, we argue that the structure and semantics of the construction create a parody of the social reality the construction seems to reflect. This parody, which is based on the similarities between the bèi construction and the canonical passive construction, in turn, produces the rhetorical effects of satire/sarcasm, expressing a sense of absurdity about the event in question and a sense of indignation and helplessness on the part of the speaker.

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.

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