Cover not available
Part of
Nodes and Networks in Diachronic Construction Grammar
Edited by Lotte Sommerer and Elena Smirnova
[Constructional Approaches to Language 27] 2020
► pp. 107–140

(Re)shaping the constructional network

Modeling shifts and reorganizations in the network hierarchy

This paper takes a dynamic perspective on constructional networks by investigating which factors play a role in the architecture of the network and how its internal structure may be reorganized over time. It starts from the idea that the network hierarchy is constantly being reconfigured: new generalizations may give rise to new subschemas, and existing subschemas can move up to a higher level or, conversely, subschemas may marginalize and eventually disappear completely. Such network shifts typically involve changes in schematicity (viz. the level of abstractness) and/or productivity (viz. the extensibility of the (sub)schema). An ideal candidate to investigate these productivity shifts and internal reorganizations is the Dutch intensifying fake reflexive resultative construction. In present-day Dutch, the network of this construction displays an intriguing combination of subschemas at different levels of abstraction, displaying varying degrees of productivity, as well as conventionalized or even fossilized micro-constructions. Tracing back the recent history of this construction, the paper aims to show how mechanisms like schematization and conventionalization work together in creating the constructicon’s network structure, and how certain constructional changes can be (re)interpreted as shifts within the constructional network. It will be discussed what new insights can be gained from such a network approach and which further steps may be taken to further flesh out the theory on constructional networks.
Keywords: modal expressions, constructional networks, productivity, schematicity, intensification, Dutch, constructional reorganization
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Tracking constructional changes: Empirical analysis of the Dutch intensifying fake reflexive resultative construction
    • 2.1Methodology
    • 2.2Results: Diachronic frequency and productivity increase
  • 3.A dynamic constructional network: Shifts at different levels of abstraction
    • 3.1Expansion and schematization
      • 3.1.1Case 1: Suf
      • 3.1.2Case 2: Het vuur uit de sloffen
      • 3.1.3Discussion
    • 3.2Conventionalization and loss
      • 3.2.1Case 3: Wild
  • 4.Discussion: Challenges in constructional network theory
    • 4.1Multiple representations
    • 4.2Other types of links?
    • 4.3Cognitive reality
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.27.03gys
References (43)
References
Anshen, F., & Aronoff, M. (1999). Using dictionairies to study the mental lexicon. Brain and Language, 68, 16–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barðdal, J. (2008). Productivity evidence from case and argument structure in Icelandic. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barðdal, J., & Gildea, S. (2015). Diachronic Construction Grammar: Epistemological Context, Basic Assumptions and Historical Implications. In J. Barðdal, E. Smirnova, L. Sommerer, & S. Gildea (Eds.), Diachronic Construction Grammar (pp. 1–49). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barðdal, J., Kristoffersen, K. E., & Sveen, A. (2011). West Scandinavian Ditransitives as a Family of Constructions: With a Special Attention to the Norwegian V-REFL-NP Construction. Linguistics, 49(1), 53–104. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bolinger, D. L. (1972). Degree words. Den Haag/Paris: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J. (1985). Morphology: A Study of the Relation between Meaning and Form. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1995). Regular morphology and the lexicon. Language and Cognitive Processes, 10(5), 425–455. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J., & Thompson, S. (1997). Three Frequency Effects in Syntax. Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical Structure, 23, 378–388. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colleman, T. (2015). Constructionalization and post-constructionalization: The constructional semantics of the Dutch krijgen-passive from a diachronic perspective. In J. Barðdal, E. Smirnova, L. Sommerer, & S. Gildea (Eds.), Diachronic Construction Grammar (pp. 213–255). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, W. (2003). Lexical rules vs. constructions: A false dichotomy. In H. Cuyckens, T. Berg, R. Dirven, & K.-U. Panther (Eds.), Motivation in Language: Studies in honor of Günter Radden (pp. 49–68). Amsterdam: John Benjamins DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Clerck, B., & Colleman, T. (2013). From noun to intensifier: massa and massa’s in Flemish varieties of Dutch. Language Sciences, 36, 147–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Smet, H., D’hoedt, F., Fonteyn, L., & Van Goethem, K. (2018). The changing functions of competing forms. Attraction and differentiation. Cognitive Linguistics, 29(2), 197–234. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diessel, H. (2015). Usage-based construction grammar. In E. Dąbrowska & D. Divjak (Eds.), Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 295–321). Berlin/New York: Mouton De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gries, S. T. (2013). 50-something years of work on collocations. What is or should be next… International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 18(1), 137–165. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gyselinck, E. (2018). The role of expressivity and productivity in reshaping the constructional network. A corpus-based investigation into synchronic and diachronic variation in the intensifying fake reflexive resultative construction in 19th–21st Century Dutch. PhD dissertation. Universiteit Gent.Google Scholar
Hilpert, M. (2013). Constructional change in English : developments in allomorphy, word formation, and syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2018). Three open questions in Diachronic Construction Grammar. In E. Coussé, P. Andersson, & J. Olofsson (Eds.), Grammaticalization meets Construction Grammar (Vol. 21–39). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hilpert, M., & Diessel, H. (2017). Entrenchment in Construction Grammar In H.-J. Schmid (Ed.), Entrenchment and the Psychology of Language Learning. How We Reorganize and Adapt Linguistic Knowledge (pp. 57–74). Berlin/New York: Mouton De Gruyter.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoeksema, J. (2012). Elative compounds in Dutch: Properties and developments. In G. Oebel (Ed.), Intensivierungskonzepte bei Adjektiven und Adverbien im Sprachvergleich [Cross-linguistic Comparison of Intensified Adjectives and Adverbs] (pp. 97–142). Hamburg: Verlag dr. Kovač.Google Scholar
Hopper, P. J. (1991). On some principles of grammaticization. In E. C. Traugott & B. Heine (Eds.), Approaches to Grammaticalization: Volume I. Theoretical and methodological issues (pp. 17–36). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ito, R., & Tagliamonte, S. (2003). Well Weird, Right Dodgy, Very Strange, Really Cool: Layering and Recycling in English Intensifiers. Language in Society, 32(2), 257–279. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (2008). Construction After Construction and its Theoretical Challenges. Language, 84(1), 8–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013). Constructions in the Parallel Architecture. In T. Hoffmann & G. Trousdale (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar (pp. 70–92). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Children’s first language acquistion from a usage-based perspective. In P. Robinson & N. C. Ellis (Eds.), Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. New York: Taylor and Francis.Google Scholar
Lorenz, G. (2002). Really worthwhile or not really significant? A corpus-based approach to delexicalization and grammaticalization of intensifiers in Modern English. In I. Wischer & G. Diewald (Eds.), New Reflections on Grammaticalization. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Partington, A. (1993). Corpus evidence of language change: the case of the intensifier. In M. Baker, G. Francis, & E. Tognini-Bonelli (Eds.), Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair (pp. 177–192). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perek, F. (2015). Argument Structure in Usage-Based Construction Grammar. Experimental and corpus-based perspectives. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
(2016). Recent change in the productivity and schematicity of the way-construction: a distributional semantic analysis. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, Published ahead of print.Google Scholar
Schmid, H.-J. (2017). A Framework for Understanding Linguistic Entrenchment and Its Psychological Foundations. In H.-J. Schmid (Ed.), Entrenchment and the Psychology of Language Learning. How We Reorganize and Adapt Linguistic Knowledge (pp. 9–36). Berlin/New York: Mouton De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stoffel, C. (1901). Intensives and down-toners: a study in English adverbs. Heidelberg: C. Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, S. (2008). So different and pretty cool! Recycling intensifiers in Toronto, Canada. English Language and Linguistics, 12(2), 361–394. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
ten Buuren, M., van de Groep, M., Collin, S., Klatter, J., & de Hoop, H. (to appear). Facking nice! Een onderzoek naar de intensiteit van intensiveerders. Nederlandse Taalkunde.
Torrent, T. T. (2015). On the relation between inheritance and change: The Constructional Convergence and the Construction Network Reconfiguration Hypotheses. In J. Barðdal, E. Smirnova, L. Sommerer, & S. Gildea (Eds.), Diachronic Construction Grammar (pp. 173–211). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, E. C. (2007). The concepts of constructional mismatch and type-shifting from the perspective of grammaticalization. Cognitive Linguistics, 18(4), 523–557. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008a). The Grammaticalization of NP of NP Constructions. In A. Bergs & G. Diewald (Eds.), Constructions and Language Change (pp. 21–43). Berlin/New York: Mouton De Gruyter.Google Scholar
(2008b). Grammaticalization, constructions and the incremental development of language: Suggestions from the development of degree modifiers in English. In R. Eckardt, G. Jäger, & T. Veenstra (Eds.), Variation, Selection, Development: Probing the Evolutionary Model of Language Change (pp. 219–250). Berlin/New York: Mouton De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Traugott, E. C., & Trousdale, G. (2013). Constructionalization and constructional changes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trousdale, G. (2008). A Constructional Approach to Lexicalization Processes in the History of English: Evidence from Possessive Constructions. Word Structure, 1(2), 156–177. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van de Velde, F. (2014). Degeneracy: The maintenace of constructional networks. In R. Boogaart, T. Colleman, & G. Rutten (Eds.), Extending the Scope of Construction Grammar (pp. 141–180). Berlin/New York: Mouton De Gruyter.Google Scholar
van Trijp, R., & Steels, L. (2012). Multilevel alignment maintains language systematicity. Advances in Complex Systems, 15(3), 1–30.Google Scholar
von Mengden, F., & Coussé, E. (2014). The role of change in usage-based conceptions of language. In E. Coussé & F. von Mengden (Eds.), Usage-based approaches to language change (pp. 1–19). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Zeldes, A. (2012). Productivity in Argument Selection From Morphology to Syntax. Berlin/New York: Mouton De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zeschel, A. (2012). Incipient Productivity: a Construction-Based Approach to Linguistic Creativity. Berlin/New York: Mouton De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Ungerer, Tobias
2024. Vertical and horizontal links in constructional networks. Constructions and Frames 16:1 ► pp. 30 ff. DOI logo
Höder, Steffen
2023. Chapter 4. The Devil is in the schema. In Constructional Approaches to Nordic Languages [Constructional Approaches to Language, 37], ► pp. 81 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Discourse Structuring Markers in English [Constructional Approaches to Language, 33], DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. Structural Priming in the Grammatical Network [Constructional Approaches to Language, 35], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.