Aspectuality and countability: a cross-categorial analogy

Brinton, Laurel J.

doi:10.1017/s136067430000068x

Cited by 34 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…It is hardly surprising that crosscategorial correspondences have been recognized between count and noncount structures in nouns (car, mistake vs milk, information), and continuous and noncontinuous structures in verbs (know, hate, play vs arrive, die, cough) (Declerck 1979;Dahl 1981;Langacker 1987b;Talmy 1988;Jackendoff 1991;Frawley 1992;Verkuyl 1993;Depraetere 1995;Brinton 1998) and adjectives (good, long vs dead, identical) (Paradis 1997(Paradis , 2001). Count nouns, noncontinuous verbs and NONSCALE adjectives are BOUNDED, while noncount nouns, continuous verbs and SCALE adjectives are UNBOUNDED.…”

Section: O N F I G U R At I O N S C O N S T Rua L S a N D C H A Nmentioning

confidence: 99%

Configurations, construals and change: expressions of DEGREE

Paradis¹

2008

English Language and Linguistics

113

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This article challenges the widespread view that DEGREE is a grammatical phenomenon characteristic of certain types of word classes and, instead, argues that DEGREE is pervasive in language and may be associated with most meanings. The main aim of the article is to discuss the results of a number of corpus investigations and experiments of DEGREE meanings in general and of the modification of DEGREE in particular, and to accommodate these results in a general and dynamic model of Lexical Meaning as Ontologies and Construals (LOC; Paradis 2005). The claims are that (i) DEGREE is a BOUNDEDNESS configuration in conceptual space; (ii) DEGREE modifiers operate on the DEGREE structure of the meanings to which they apply through a construal of contextually motivated zone activation within conventionalized senses; (iii) nonconventionalized DEGREE readings of form-meaning pairings are invoked through implication by means of construals of metonymization between senses; and (iv) this process of metonymization is the mechanism through which change may or may not take place.

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Section: O N F I G U R At I O N S C O N S T Rua L S a N D C H A Nmentioning

confidence: 99%

Configurations, construals and change: expressions of DEGREE

Paradis¹

2008

English Language and Linguistics

113

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“…I take duration to be a corollary of boundedness. Boundedness in dynamic concepts is strongly related to aspectuality, in the same way as it corresponds to countability with respect to objects and gradability in the context of stative concepts (Declerck 1979;Dahl 1981;Langacker 1987a;Talmy 1988;Jackendoff 1991;Frawley 1992;Verkuyl 1993;Depraetere 1995;Brinton 1998;Paradis 2001). 14 For a discussion of structural and semantic relationships and the above terms in the area of object-oriented analysis and methods in computing, see, for instance, Graham 2001, pp.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…By contrast, 'took two seconds/minutes/ hours' or 'happened at 12 o'clock', which denote a definite end point, go well with events or accomplishments. The aspects dealt with here are, at least in theory, commonplace and relatively uncontroversial among researchers in the field of aspectuality (Levin 1993;Verkuyl 1993;Brinton 1998;Croft forthcoming). Second-order entities fall into three types, as is shown in Figure 5.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ontologies and Construals in Lexical Semantics

Paradis¹

2005

Axiomathes

132

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ABSTRACT. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework of lexical meaning, broadly along the lines of Cognitive Semantics (Langacker 1987a). Within the proposed model, all aspects of meaning are to be explained in terms of properties of ontologies in conceptual space, i.e. properties of content ontologies and schematic ontologies and construals which are imposed on the conceptual structures on the occasion of use. It is through the operations of construals on ontological structures that different readings of lexical expressions arise. Lexical meanings are dynamic and sensitive to contextual demands, rather than fixed and stable. In a dynamic, usagebased model like this, polysemy and multiple readings emerge as a natural consequence of the human ability to think flexibly. Another more specific purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the usefulness of ontologies in linguistic research in general and semantic modelling in particular.

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“…First, there appears to be a strong trend in synchronic as well as diachronic literature to regard (nominal) gerunds as mass nouns (e.g. Brinton 1995Brinton , 1998, and indefinite articles occurring with nominal gerunds seem to be regarded as a rare phenomenon.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competing motivations in the diachronic nominalization of English gerunds

Fonteyn

Maekelberghe

2018

DIA

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The present study is an in-depth, corpus-based analysis of the rise and institutionalization of the indefinite nominal gerund in Late Modern English, considering the observed developments in light of their interactions with functionally related constructions. Based on historical data taken from the Corpus of Late Modern English Texts (version 3.1), we argue that the rise of indefinite nominal gerunds constitutes an instance of diachronic nominalization, in which the nominal gerund over time gradually comes to exploit a fuller range of paradigmatic properties associated with the nominal class. At the same time, this study investigates the potential influence of isomorphism on the observed developments. While the results do support the frequently investigated claim that language systems have a (weak) preference for a one-form-one-meaning organization in later stages of their development, the initial emergence of indefinite nominal gerunds can more accurately be explained by allowing system pressure as an enabling force of linguistic innovation. The picture presented in this study serves as evidence that the long-term development of linguistic constructions can be the result of competing – even maximally opposite – forces.

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Aspectuality and countability: a cross-categorial analogy

Cited by 34 publications

References 32 publications

Configurations, construals and change: expressions of DEGREE

Configurations, construals and change: expressions of DEGREE

Ontologies and Construals in Lexical Semantics

Competing motivations in the diachronic nominalization of English gerunds

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