Constructions and Language Change
Description
Studies in diachronic linguistics increasingly acknowledge that linguistic change is highly context-dependent and somehow tied to constructions as linguistic units. This is the first volume to investigate the role of constructions and the potential of constructional approaches in linguistic change. The contributions in this volume comprise both theoretical and empirical studies, all of which are accessible for a general audience. While some contributions explicitly aim at comparing and unifying concepts from both traditional grammatical theories and recent construction grammar approaches, others offer detailed case studies of exemplary problems from a constructional point of view. The papers offer a cross-linguistic perspective and deal with a number of different language families, ranging from Germanic to Austronesian.
Reviews / Votes
"In summary, the volume as a whole focuses on a series of issues pertinent to linguists interested in the specific application of construction grammars (or some general insights on language provided by construction grammars) to patterns of language change, most particularly, though not exclusively, to the related and debated processes of grammaticalization and degrammaticalization. The editors are to be congratulated for providing such a useful and insightful collection of articles. The volume certainly has the potential to stimulate further work in this developing area of historical linguistics research."Graeme Trousdale in: Language 6/2011More details
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Content
- Frontmatter
- Table of contents
- Introduction: Constructions and Language Change
- The grammaticalization of NP of NP patterns
- Constructions and constructs:mapping a shift between predication and attribution
- Constructional idioms as products of linguistic change: the aan het + INFINITIVE construction in dutch
- Where did this future construction come from? A case study of Swedish komma att V
- Bedusted, yet not beheaded: The role of be-'s constructional properties in its conservation
- Negative verbal clause constructions in Puyuma: exploring constructional disharmony
- Borrowed rhetorical constructions as starting points for grammaticalization
- (De)grammaticalisation as a source for new constructions: the case of subject doubling in Dutch
- Syntax as a repository of historical relics
- Backmatter
