Bedeutung und Gebrauch in der Konstruktionsgrammatik. Wie kompositionell sind modale Infinitive im Deutschen?

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anatol Stefanowitsch
Keyword(s):  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
General Abstract ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Semantic Properties

AbstractTheories of grammar typically have some way of accommodating fixed or semi-fixed idiomatic expressions in addition to expressions derived compositionally by general abstract rules. Construction Grammar differs from most other theories in that it takes such idiomatic expressions as a model for the grammar of natural languages as a whole. Linguistic structures at all levels of complexity and schematicity are uniformly modeled as “constructions”, i.e. form-meaning pairs with unpredictable formal or semantic properties. This view of grammar is plausible only to the extent that abstract and complex linguistic structures can be shown to constitute such form-meaning pairs. In this paper, I present an analysis of the so-called “modal infinitives” in German (structures consisting of

scholarly journals Raising Collocational Awareness with Humour

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-113
Author(s):  
Tünde Nagy
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Easy Task ◽  
Specific Meaning ◽  
Linguistic Structures

AbstractDespite the increased interest that collocations have received in EFL methodology lately, making language learners aware of these multiword constructions continues to represent a challenge for teachers. While there may be different ways of teaching collocations, finding activities that raise collocational awareness efficiently is no easy task. Collocational awareness can be defined as the ability of language learners (and users) to use and acknowledge word combinations in their entirety. Humour can be useful in this regard as it not only ensures a more relaxed atmosphere in the classroom but can also help students to acknowledge and remember specific linguistic structures (among them, also collocations) more easily. In line with Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 1997, 2006), it is believed that collocations are to be treated as constructions, pairings of form with a specific meaning and varying degrees of predictability – teaching them as such can contribute to a better understanding and acquisition of these constructions. After offering a brief overview of the characteristics of collocations and reflecting on the possible advantages of using humour in class, the paper shows possible ways of teaching collocations with humour. The exercises and activities suggested focus on both the productive and receptive competence of language learners and also incorporate the necessary skills required in the language learning process: listening, reading, writing, and speaking.

How to build a constructicon in five years

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A. Janda ◽  
Anna Endresen ◽  
Valentina Zhukova ◽  
Daria Mordashova ◽  
Ekaterina Rakhilina
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Electronic Database ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Searchable Database ◽  
Qualitative Level ◽  
Syntactic Properties

Abstract We provide a practical step-by-step methodology of how to build a full-scale constructicon resource for a natural language, sharing our experience from the nearly completed project of the Russian Constructicon, an open-access searchable database of over 2,200 Russian constructions (https://site.uit.no/russian-constructicon/). The constructions are organized in families, clusters, and networks based on their semantic and syntactic properties, illustrated with corpus examples, and tagged for the CEFR level of language proficiency. The resource is designed for both researchers and L2 learners of Russian and offers the largest electronic database of constructions built for any language. We explain what makes the Russian Constructicon different from other constructicons, report on the major stages of our work, and share the methods used to systematically expand the inventory of constructions. Our objective is to encourage colleagues to build constructicon resources for additional natural languages, thus taking Construction Grammar to a new quantitative and qualitative level, facilitating cross-linguistic comparison.

Form and Meaning of (Indefinite) Pronouns

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olaf Koeneman ◽  
Hedde Zeijlstra
Keyword(s):  
Free Choice ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Morphological Form ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Semantic Function ◽  
Morphological Differences ◽  
Negative Indefinites ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Indefinite Pronouns

The relation between the morphological form of a pronoun and its semantic function is not always transparent, and syncretism abounds in natural languages. In a language like English, for instance, three types of indefinite pronouns can be identified, often grouped in series: the some-series, the any-series, and the no-series. However, this does not mean that there are also three semantic functions for indefinite pronouns. Haspelmath (1997), in fact distinguishes nine functions. Closer inspection shows that these nine functions must be reduced to four main functions of indefinites, each with a number of subfunctions: (i) Negative Polarity Items; (ii) Free-Choice Items; (iii) negative indefinites; and (iv) positive or existential indefinites. These functions and subfunctions can be morphologically realized differently across languages, but don’t have to. In English, functions (i) and (ii), unlike (iii) and (iv), may morphologically group together, both expressed by the any-series. Where morphological correspondences between the kinds of functions that indefinites may express call for a classification, such classifications turn out to be semantically well motivated too. Similar observations can be made for definite pronouns, where it turns out that various functions, such as the first person inclusive/exclusive distinction or dual number, are sometimes, but not always morphologically distinguished, showing that these may be subfunctions of higher, more general functions. The question as to how to demarcate the landscape of indefinite and definite pronouns thus does not depend on semantic differences alone: Morphological differences are at least as much telling. The interplay between morphological and semantic properties can provide serious answers to how to define indefinites and the various forms and functions that these may take on.

What is learnable in manually coded English sign systems?

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenda Schick ◽  
Mary Pat Moeller
Keyword(s):  
Reading Achievement ◽  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Control Group ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Deaf Students ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Sign System ◽  
Linguistic Structures

AbstractIt has been suggested that manual sign systems designed to represent English are unlearnable because they are not natural languages. In order to examine this premise, the present study examines reading achievement and expressive English skills of 13 profoundly deaf students, aged 7;1 to 14;8, who were educated using only a manually coded English (MCE) sign system. Linguistic structures selected for analysis were designed to reflect unique characteristics of English, as well as those common to English and American Sign Language, and to obtain a broad picture of English skills. Results showed that the deaf students had expressive English skills comparable to a hearing control group for some features of English that reflected syntactic and lexical skills. They showed substantial deficits in inflectional morphological skills that were not predictive of the complexity of their language. The results reveal which aspects of MCE appear to be learnable and which appear problematic for deaf students.

scholarly journals Toddlers can use semantic cues to learn difficult nonadjacent dependencies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Willits ◽  
Jenny Saffran ◽  
Jill Lany
Keyword(s):  
Natural Languages ◽  
Semantic Cues ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
Nonadjacent Dependencies ◽  
Linguistic Structures

languages. The fact that infants and adults have difficulty learning nonadjacent structure in laboratory settings has led to theories suggesting that there are strict constraints on the units over which humans track nonadjacent structure. In four experiments, we tested the hypothesis that correlated semantic cues enhance toddlers’ ability to learn nonadjacent linguistic structures. Toddlers successfully transferred these patterns to new strings spanning novel intervening items, and to novel nonadjacent pairs drawn from the same semantic categories. The results provide evidence that toddlers can use rich, redundant input that includes meaning to learn nonadjacent structures akin to those present in natural languages.

scholarly journals Typological and Diachronic Motivations for Syntax and Semantics of Chinese Resultative Construction

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 582
Author(s):  
Canzhong Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Causative Constructions ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
Serial Verb Construction ◽  
Serial Verb ◽  
Semantic Shift ◽  
Resultative Construction ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
Semantic Properties

Motivations for syntax and semantics of Chinese Resultative Construction have been primarily attributed to thematic operations, syntactic movements or argument raising within its components by previous researches. However, such an attribution has resulted in not inconsiderable theoretical and practical issues and controversies, e.g., over generation, existence of quite a few exceptions, unlicensed violations of theoretical rules and principles. This paper re-examined motivations for syntax and semantics of Chinese Resultative Construction from typological and diachronic perspectives within the framework of Construction Grammar. It is argued that syntax and semantics of Chinese Resultative Construction are typologically motivated by Causative Constructions in the sense that its syntactic and semantic properties are inherited from different kinds Causative Constructions while they are diachronically motivated in the senses that they are historically inherited from Serial Verb Construction [V V] due to semantic shift and disyllabification. This paper has provided totally different explanations for syntax and semantics of Chinese Resultative Construction by focusing on their gestalt properties, in stark contrast to previous emphasis on bottom-up motivations from components of Chinese Resultative Construction, which will prove a breakthrough for further research on syntax-semantics interface of Chinese Resultative Construction.

Substratum Semantics in the Verbal Lexicon of Haitian Creole

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Lefebvre
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Haitian Creole ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Semantic Properties

The aim of this paper is to document the presence of substratum semantics in the verbal inventory of Haitian creole on the basis of a comparison of a sample of verbs in Haitian, French (its lexifier language) and Fongbe (one of its substratum languages). The paper begins with a comparison of the meanings of a sample of Haitian, French and Fongbe verbs. Although the phonological representations of the Haitian verbs are derived from the phonetic representations of French verbs, the details of their semantics do not correspond exactly to those of French, but rather to those of Fongbe. Idiomatic expressions in Haitian are often expressed with similar verbal phrases in Fongbe, whereas they are rendered by a simple verb in French. Aspectual properties of verbs (stative/non-stative) constitute another facet of verbal semantics, and I compare the aspectual properties of Haitian, French and Fongbe verbs. Haitian verbs, like Fongbe verbs, are often not specified for aspectual properties, in contrast to French verbs. Thematic properties constitute yet another topic in the semantics of verbs, addressed here from the point of view of the verbs' agentiveness. On the basis of these various types of data, it is argued that the bulk of Haitian verbs' semantic properties have been carried over into the creole from the substratum lexicons. This situation argues in favor of the claim that the process of relexification plays a central role in the formation of a Creole's lexicon. Some cases of acquisition of French verbs are also reported. Such cases have triggered a reorganization in the properties of the verbal lexical entries originally relexified from the Haitian substratum languages.

scholarly journals Other-initiated repair in Murrinh-Patha

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Blythe
Keyword(s):  
Potential Source ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Semantic Properties

AbstractThe range of linguistic structures and interactional practices associated with other-initiated repair (OIR) is surveyed for the Northern Australian language Murrinh-Patha. By drawing on a video corpus of informal Murrinh- Patha conversation, the OIR formats are compared in terms of their utility and versatility. Certain “restricted” formats have semantic properties that point to prior trouble source items. While these make the restricted repair initiators more specialised, the “open” formats are less well resourced semantically, which makes them more versatile. They tend to be used when the prior talk is potentially problematic in more ways than one. The open formats (especially thangku, “what?”) tend to solicit repair operations on each potential source of trouble, such that the resultant repair solution improves upon the troublesource turn in several ways.

Meaning, metaphor, and argument structure

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 629-662
Author(s):  
TIM NISBET
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Parallel Architecture ◽  
News Report ◽  
Semantic Constraints ◽  
Syntactic Representation ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Verbal Idioms ◽  
Semantic Properties

This paper challenges what it calls the semantic determinist hypothesis (SDH) of argument licensing, according to which the syntactic realisation of a verb’s arguments is a function of its semantic properties. Specifically, it takes issue with ‘event schema’ versions of the SDH applied to the English ditransitive alternation (give/send {Jesse the gun/the gun to Jesse}), which claim a systematic, syntactically predictive distinction between ‘caused possession’ and ‘caused motion’. It is first shown that semantic and syntactic irregularities among the alternating verbs disconfirm such a mapping. More crucially, however, it is argued that ‘non-prototypical’ (metaphorical and idiomatic) usage (The news report gave Walt an idea, Walt’s actions gave the lie to his promises, The discovery sent Jesse into a fury) is fatal to the SDH, since the hypothesis entails the existence of semantic constraints on argument realisation which these expressions violate.Based on an analysis of the semantically-related verbs give, send, and put, it is claimed that prototypical, metaphorical and idiomatic expressions of a verb can all be licensed straightforwardly, but only if theory maintains separate syntactic and semantic representation of arguments in lexical entries, observing the ‘parallel architecture’ of Jackendoff (1997, 2002), and only if argument tokens are licensed by the syntactic representation alone. A type of structure called a Lexical Argument Construction is proposed, which can describe all the relevant properties of verbs and verbal idioms.

Construction shifts in translations

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Serbina
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Quantitative Results ◽  
Linguistic Structures

In the present paper the phenomenon of translation shifts is discussed within the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar. It is suggested that viewing linguistic structures of various sizes and levels of abstractness as constructions allows us to better grasp the complexities of the phenomenon of translation shifts. The methodology of studying construction shifts is applied to the analysis of the construction [Subject Verb Direct Object] for the translation direction English-German. The quantitative results have been obtained using the parallel CroCo corpus.

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