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Article published In:
The Wealth and Breadth of Construction-Based Research
Edited by Timothy Colleman, Frank Brisard, Astrid De Wit, Renata Enghels, Nikos Koutsoukos, Tanja Mortelmans and María Sol Sansiñena
[Belgian Journal of Linguistics 34] 2020
► pp. 135–147

The issue of specifying slots in argument structure constructions in terms of form and meaning

| FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
| FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg

In Construction Grammar theory, constructions are generally described as form-meaning pairings. It will be argued here that the formal specifications of some abstract constructions are so vague that the notion of form needs to be discussed rather critically. We aim to demonstrate how, in the English predicative and intransitive-motion constructions, the slots of more general constructions can be seen as being specified indirectly through sets of mini-constructions.

Keywords: construction, form-meaning pairing, argument structure, locatives, definition of construction, prepositional phrases
Article outline
  • 1.Form and meaning
  • 2.The concept of form
    • 2.1Subject and object as formal categories
    • 2.2Obliques and resultative phrases
    • 2.3Underspecification of form
  • 3.The English predicative construction
  • 4.The form side of the English intransitive-motion construction
  • 5.Form of constructions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 28 May 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.00041.her
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