This 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.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE:Marcadores discursivos. Implicatura convencional. Desenvolvimento diacrônico. Princípio de contraste.
ABSTRACT:The present study focuses on the use of discourse markers afinal and enfim based on data of Corpus do Português DaviesFerreira. First we offer a brief presentation on discourse markers. In a second step, we list the most common uses of the markers discussed in this study, and later we approach their diachronic development. These are followed by an analysis of the data, whose purpose is to compare the number of uses of afinal and enfim with a justificative reading, a use the two markers share. Through the analysis, we found, among other results, that: a) the frequency of both markers decreased from the 19 th to the 20 th century; b) the marker enfim with a justificative reading, which was more frequent than afinal with the same value in the 19 th century, was surpassed in frequency by afinal in the 20 th century. The greater frequency of the justificative afinal in relation to enfim in the 20 th century is in accordance with the Principle of Contrast, postulated by Clark (1980).
This study looks at the variable use of two related forms, namely the reflexive construction (The defendant talked himself into trouble) and the way construction (The actress danced her way to stardom). Despite their differences, the two constructions are often used in ways that can be described as one taking over the other’s expressive functions. Following Mondorf (2011), I assume that the variation results in part from the historical competition between the two, and from the fact that the process of specialization is not yet complete. I present another factor responsible for the overlap, which may keep the specialization from ever being concluded. It involves specific uses of a construction chunked into formulaic phrases (like talk oneself into trouble) which are used reversively (talk oneself out of trouble) against the specifications of the construction they are based on. That is, the kind of variation discussed here is set in motion by the same mechanism observed in novelty motivated through local analogies with specific expressions and low-level instances of a construction.
AbstractThis study examines a pair of constructions in Portuguese, the transitive construction and its paraphrase equivalent involving reflexive verbs with prepositional phrase complements. Each pattern’s thematic cores and semantic properties will be described, with the underlying assumption that the pair represents a verb alternation. The two Portuguese patterns will be held up as a case in favor of preserving alternations in cognitive models of grammar. First, it will be argued that whatever irregularities they may exhibit are only apparent and do not pose a challenge to the notion of alternations. Second, some important intuitions regarding the use of a verb in related constructions are only possible when the constructions are considered together.
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