On Constructing a Theory of Grammatical Change

Börjars, Kersti; Vincent, Nigel; Walkden, George

doi:10.1111/1467-968x.12068

Cited by 51 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(34 reference statements)

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“…Even though the definition of constructionalization seems very clear on paper, in practice when you look at concrete examples in corpus data, and you see how a construction develops, you may sometimes be looking at a sequence of constructional changes which in the end conspire, so as to look like constructionalization. This point has been made in similar form by Börjars et al (2015) in a review of Traugott and Trousdale (2013). They have argued that what counts as constructionalization crucially depends on the previous steps of constructional change that are taken into consideration.…”

Section: When Is a New Construction A New Construction?mentioning

confidence: 83%

Ten Lectures on Diachronic Construction Grammar

Hilpert¹

2021

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Note on Supplementary MaterialAll original audio-recordings and other supplementary material, such as handouts and PowerPoint presentations for the lecture series, have been made available online and are referenced via unique DOI numbers on the website www.figshare.com. They may be accessed via a QR code for the print version of this book. In the e-book both the QR code and dynamic links will be available which can be accessed by a mouse-click.The material can be accessed on figshare.com through a PC internet browser or via mobile devices such as a smartphone or tablet. To listen to the audio recording on hand-held devices, the QR code that appears at the beginning of each chapter should be scanned with a smart phone or tablet. A QR reader/ scanner and audio player should be installed on these devices. Alternatively, for the e-book version, one can simply click on the QR code provided to be redirected to the appropriate website.This book has been made with the intent that the book and the audio are both available and usable as separate entities. Both are complemented by the availability of the actual files of the presentations and material provided as hand-outs at the time these lectures were given. All rights and permission remain with the authors of the respective works, the audio-recording and supplementary material are made available in Open Access via a CC-BY-NC license and are reproduced with kind permission from the authors. The recordings are courtesy of the China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics (http:// cifcl.buaa.edu.cn/), funded by the Beihang University Grant for International Outstanding Scholars.

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Section: When Is a New Construction A New Construction?mentioning

confidence: 83%

Ten Lectures on Diachronic Construction Grammar

Hilpert¹

2021

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“…He's written them in advance to make sure they're properly worded. (COHA, MAG, 1969) While we recognize the issues regarding mismatch versus alignment of semantic and syntactic heads in constructions of this kind, as raised by Francis and Yuasa (2008) and Börjars, Vincent, and Walkden (2015), we nevertheless believe that the quantitative findings regarding concord are relevant to our argument regarding post-constructionalization changes. We focus on verbal concord with a bunch of noun where bunch and the complement of the preposition of do not agree in number, so the complement has to be a plural noun.…”

Section: Implications For Diachronic Construction Grammarmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…To this end, we looked at two morphosyntactic properties: subject-verb concord and agreement between the noun and a coreferential pronoun, as illustrated in (4) and 5 While we recognize the issues regarding mismatch vs. alignment of semantic and syntactic heads in constructions of this kind, as raised by Francis & Yuasa (2008) and Börjars et al (2015), we nevertheless believe that the quantitative findings regarding concord are relevant to our argument regarding postconstructionalization changes. We focus on verbal concord with a bunch of NOUN…”

Section: Implications For Diachronic Construction Grammarmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multivariate Analysis of Diachronic Variation inA Bunch of noun: A Construction Grammar Account

Shao

Cai

Trousdale

2019

Journal of English Linguistics

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On the basis of data retrieved from the Corpus of Historical American English, this paper provides a multivariate analysis of diachronic change in collocations of the sequence a bunch of followed by a noun in the Late Modern and contemporary English periods. Our results show that (1) the partitive semantics shifts in the period from the 1910s to the 1960s from the original dominant meaning ‘bundle’ to ‘group,’ while the quantifier function/‘large quantity’ meaning of bunch becomes more entrenched from the 1970s onwards, though the three meanings continue to co-exist in the contemporary language; and (2) there exist statistically significant correlations between semantic, pragmatic, and discourse properties of the noun collocates in the partitive and quantifier constructions. While much work on diachronic construction grammar is concerned with the question of how new constructions come into being, the present article complements such research by providing a detailed account of the nature of persistence of the earlier partitive construction and the embedding and gradual entrenchment of the newer quantifier construction. It therefore addresses the consequences of “constructionalization” on a source construction, and the nature of frequency effects in “post-constructionalization” changes.

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“…This would also be in line with the layering model proposed by Heine & Kuteva (2007), which hypothesises that grammatical evolution proceeds from a one-word stage with nouns and verbs to increasingly complex grammatical patterns. Their argument is based on findings from grammaticalisation studies, which have given rise to "grammaticalisation theory" (but see Börjars et al 2015 for a criticism of this term). According to Heine & Kuteva (2012: 518), "[g]rammaticalization theory offers a tool for reconstructing the rise and development of grammatical forms and constructions."…”

Section: Usage-based Linguistic Theory and Constructionist Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Construction grammar for monkeys?

Pleyer

Hartmann

2020

ELT

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In recent years, multiple researchers working on the evolution of language have put forward the idea that the theoretical framework of usage-based approaches and Construction Grammar is highly suitable for modelling the emergence of human language from pre-linguistic or proto-linguistic communication systems. This also raises the question of whether usage-based and constructionist approaches can be integrated with the analysis of animal communication systems. In this paper, we review possible avenues where usage-based, constructionist approaches can make contact with animal communication research, which in turn also has implications for theories of language evolution. To this end, we first give an overview of key assumptions of usage-based and constructionist approaches before reviewing some key issues in animal communication research through the lens of usage-based, constructionist approaches. Specifically, we will discuss how research on alarm calls, gestural communication and symbol-trained animals can be brought into contact with usage-based, constructionist theorizing. We argue that a constructionist view of animal communication can yield new perspectives on its relation to human language, which in turn has important implications regarding the evolution of language. Importantly, this theoretical approach also generates hypotheses that have the potential of complementing and extending results from the more formalist approaches that often underlie current animal communication research.

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On Constructing a Theory of Grammatical Change

Cited by 51 publications

References 40 publications

Ten Lectures on Diachronic Construction Grammar

Ten Lectures on Diachronic Construction Grammar

A Multivariate Analysis of Diachronic Variation inA Bunch of noun: A Construction Grammar Account

Construction grammar for monkeys?

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