scholarly journals Ficar, tornar-se e virar em construções relacionais: variação e/ou mudança construcional?

2018 ◽  
pp. 68-82
Author(s):  
Bruna Gois Pavão Ferreira ◽  
Márcia Dos Santos Machado Vieira
Keyword(s):  
Central Place ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
State Change ◽  
Functional Differences ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
State Construction ◽  
Constructionist Approach

Based on constructionist approach of Goldberg (1995, 2003, 2013) and Traugott & Trousdale (2013), this research focuses on the relational construction of state change and the variation/alternation between the verbs ficar, tornar-se e virar (stay, become and turn) in this type of construction in Brazilian Portuguese. The verbal forms that alternate are investigated in the same context (predicative construction of a change of state) and motivations for the variation to occur. The main objective of this research is to identify: (i) constructional verbal patterns of change of state in Brazilian Portuguese based on frequency and in the relations of form and/or meaning by family similarities existing in the instances of use of such verbal forms; (ii) the configuration of the relational construction of state change (in view of state construction formulated in Goldberg, 1995); (iii) the functional differences between the microconstructions with ficar, tornar-se e virar, seeking to analyze how the variation/alternation between such verbs occurs in the construction of change of state. The data were collected in academic articles, journalistic texts and texts accessed in some sites of evaluation or complaint and analyzed according to some parameters, among which: (a) the type of subject and of predicative syntagma; (b) the more permanent/more transient aspect of the construction; (c) the degree of formality of the context in which it was recorded. This paper also evidences the central place of variation in Construction Grammar.

scholarly journals The Chinese Notional Passive Construction under the View of Cognitive Construction Grammar

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-110
Author(s):  
Liulin ZHANG
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Language ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Special Situation ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Passive Construction ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
State Construction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Cognitive Construction Grammar

The notional passive construction (NPC, henceforth) is claimed to be the most common form of passive and the earliest mode of passive expression in Chinese. However, under the view of cognitive construction grammar, NPC remains a mystery with its form not clearly defined and its function not particularly discussed. Taking a character-based historical approach, this paper studies the form designated by NPC, the ‘theme + verbal’ structure in corpus data. Results show that the ‘theme + verbal’ structure is extremely stable in the history of the Chinese language, denoting change of state. In conjunction with some cross-linguistic findings, a change-of-state construction can thereby be proposed for the form ‘theme + verbal’. Accordingly, the idea of the so-called “notional passive construction” is challenged in the way that it essentially refers to a special situation of the change-of-state construction when the event expressed by the verbal is not likely to occur spontaneously- it is not a construction itself, yet plausibly passive.

Theoretical framework

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Huber
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Constructionist Approach ◽  
Manner Verbs

Chapter 2 provides an introduction to the motion encoding typology as proposed by Talmy, Slobin, and others (manner- and path-conflating languages, different types of framing and their concomitant characteristics). It argues that this typology is highly compatible with a construction grammar framework, points out the differences, and shows that particularly from the diachronic perspective taken in this study, the constructionist approach has advantages over the originally lexicalist approach of the motion typology. The chapter also provides a discussion of the different categories of motion verbs used in this study (manner verbs, path verbs, neutral motion verbs, and verbs that do not evoke a motion event on their own, but can receive a contextual motion reading).

Constructions with get

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 21-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphanie Bonnefille
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Real World ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
State Construction

The present article analyzes the copular realization of GET in relation to its lexical transitive, intransitive motion and passive realizations. The change-of-state construction was previously defined by the author as X CHANGES TO Ystate. If COME, GO, TURN… copular realizations were proved to be constrained (Bonnefille, 2001 and 2004; Bonnefille & McMichael, 2001) by X MOVES TO Ylocation (Goldberg, 1995), the search for real-world constraints at work in this construction when used with GET leads us to the conclusion that the copular realization of GET is constrained by the blending of two constructions, i.e. X MOVES TO Ylocation and either X EXPERIENCES Y (with the meaning “receiving an object”) or X ACTS ON Y (with the meaning “obtaining/possessing an object”), depending on the degree of agenthood of X.

scholarly journals A formação de construções resultativas no português brasileiro

2011 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Núbia Rech
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Small Clause ◽  
Resultative Constructions ◽  
Verb Phrase ◽  
Causative Alternation ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Motion Constructions ◽  
Secondary Predicates ◽  
Germanic Languages

This paper aims mainly at investigating if there is the formation of resultative constructions with simple adjective in Brazilian Portuguese, since researchers disagree on the existence of these constructions in Romance Languages. To start this discussion, first I make a distinction between resultative, depictive and circumstantial constructions. Then, I relate some of their main characteristics, testing how they appear in sentences written in Brazilian Portuguese. Afterwards, I propose an extension of Folli and Ramchand (2001)’s analysis on the Portuguese. These authors use a structure of verb phrase that consists of three different projections, each one consisting in a subpart of the event: Cause, Process and Result. My hypothesis about the Brazilian Portuguese is that the verbs of causative alternation – as they imply change of state – are the head of Result projection and have as their complement an adjective small clause (SC), whose predicate indicates the telic aspect of event, forming a resultative construction. Following this perspective of analysis, I study the possibility of formation of adjective resultatives with atelic and telic verbs that admit causative alternation. I also approach – although briefly – other types of constructions that express results, whose secondary predicates are, respectively, a complex adjective phrase, a PP or a DP. In this paper, only the constructions resulting from verbal actions are considered. Thus, goal of motion constructions – in which prepositions indicate the following of movement and its ending – and resultative constructions with causative verbs are not considered. The results show that there are not resultative constructions in the Brazilian Portuguese equivalent to those found in Germanic Languages, in which an atelic verb becomes a telic verb by adding a resultative secondary predicate to the sentence.

scholarly journals Aspectos cognitivos e pragmáticos das construções condicionais contrafactuais.

2011 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 107-117
Author(s):  
Fernanda Aparecida Raposo Meireles
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Epistemic Stance

This paper taker a sociocognitive approach on conditional counterfactual constructions in Brazilian Portuguese. Following work on Construction Grammar (Fillmore & Kay 1993, Goldberg1995), it is argued that tense and mood are related to contextually determined phenomena such as epistemic stance and epistemicdistance. The main argument is that past morphology is responsible for hypothetical or counterfactual interpretations. Moreover, this fact shows the interaction between verbs and constructions, confirming the Construction Grammar’s viewpoint.

Priming semantic structure in Brazilian Portuguese

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayden Ziegler ◽  
Rodrigo Morato ◽  
Jesse Snedeker
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Locative Alternation ◽  
Change Of State

Structural priming, the tendency for speakers to reuse previously encountered sentence structures, provides some of the strongest evidence for the existence of abstract structural representations in language. In the present research, we investigate the priming of semantic structure in Brazilian Portuguese using the locative alternation: A menina lustrou a mesa com o verniz “The girl rubbed the table with the polish” vs. A menina lustrou o verniz na mesa “The girl rubbed the polish on the table.” On the surface, both locative variants have the same syntactic structure: NP-V-NP-PP. However, location-theme locatives (“rub table with polish” describe a caused-change-of-state event, while theme-location locatives (“rub polish on table”) describe a caused-change-of-location event. We find robust priming on the basis of these semantic differences. This work extends our knowledge by demonstrating that semantic structural priming is not isolated to languages like English (e.g., satellite-framed with strict word order and limited inflection) but is present in a language with very different typological characteristics (e.g., verb-framed and richly inflected with subject dropping).

You can't cry your way to candy: Motion events and paths in the x's way construction

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konrad Szczesniak
Keyword(s):  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Motion Events ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Constructionist Approach ◽  
Open Class ◽  
Event Schemas

AbstractThis paper examines previous analyses of the x's way construction, focusing on the readings attributed to it within the Construction Grammar framework and constraints on the types of verbs allowed in the construction. It questions some of the characterizations of the construction and offers an alternative view that accounts for uses of the construction that have not been considered before. Specifically, it will demonstrate that metaphoric uses, particularly those with obtainment readings, reveal interesting properties of the construction that define how it assembles motion events and paths in these events. These will be shown to follow constraints of differing rigidity. While motion events can involve disparate subevents blended together, paths do not allow any integration of incongruous elements. The construction follows universal principles which govern how complex event schemas can be blended out of simpler schemas in linguistic constructions. More generally, as a closed-class form, not only does the construction conform to event-schema protocol, but its meaning associated with a motion event is a spare reading typical of a closed-class form. Thus the present analysis attempts to reconcile its constructionist approach to the way construction with the traditional division into closed- and open-class forms.

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.

scholarly journals On the adequacy of a constructionist approach to modality

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Wärnsby
Keyword(s):  
Native Language ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Present Problem ◽  
Theoretical Construct ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Modal Interpretations ◽  
Modal Verb ◽  
Constructionist Approach

When speakers are confronted with modal expressions in their native language, specifically those that contain a modal verb, they are able to interpret these expressions as epistemic or non-epistemic, for example. But what enables the speakers to interpret these modal expressions instantly and accurately despite the inevitably complex explanation any linguistic theory needs to evoke to account for this? Modality, modals, and modal interpretations are among those universal tension points where the explanatory value of any theoretical construct is sorely tested. This paper raises some questions about the adequacy of applying Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2006) as a method of analysis of expressions containing modal verbs. In particular, the following issues are discussed: (i) the necessity to postulate a great number of constructions to account for a modal utterance, (ii) the theoretically unrestricted scope of a construction, and (iii) the ever-present problem of indeterminate modal utterances.

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