Germanic Future Constructions

A usage-based approach to language change

Martin Hilpert | Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027218292 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027291035 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00

This study offers a Construction Grammar approach to the historical development and modern usage of future constructions in English, German, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish. On the basis of corpus data, constructions such as English be going to or German werden are analyzed as symbolic units that convey a range of temporal and modal meanings. A special focus lies on the main verbs that occur with these constructions. Statistical co-occurrence patterns between constructions and lexical items guide the semantic analyses in this study: It is argued that a construction that conventionally occurs with main verbs such as write or speak differs functionally from a construction that typically occurs with verbs such as rain or increase. The same approach is also applied historically: If a construction co-occurs with different main verbs at subsequent stages in time, this is seen as a sign of semantic change.

[Constructional Approaches to Language, 7] 2008. ix, 205 pp.

Publishing status: Available
Published online on 19 September 2008

https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.7

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments | p. ix

Chapter 1. Introduction | pp. 1–12

Chapter 2. Theory and methodology | pp. 13–48

Chapter 3. Comparing future constructions in a single language | pp. 49–87

Chapter 4. Cross-linguistic comparisons | pp. 89–123

Chapter 5. Collexemes and grammaticalization paths | pp. 125–155

Chapter 6. The futurate present | pp. 157–179

Chapter 7. Conclusions | pp. 181–186

Notes | pp. 197–201

Index | pp. 203–205

“[...] a new approach to a well-studies phenomenon that offers many new insights into grammaticalization of future constructions. The combination of corpus linguistic methods and construction grammar theory thus is an approach that holds great potential for grammaticalization studies in general, and it can only be hoped that this approach is applied to many other phenomena in the near future.”

Thomas Hoffmann, University of Regensburg, on eLanguage, July 2010

“[...] Its strength is undoubtedly grounded in a superb handling of corpus linguistics, the presentation of a well-founded point of departure, impressive proposals to account for the manny illuminating findings, and - last but not least - in Hilpert's constant, nevertheless highly relevant appeal to the clustering of the synchronic and diachronic dimension of linguistic data.”

Wolfgang Schulze, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, in Cognitive Linguistics, October 2010

“[...] valuable insights into the mechanism of grammatical change based on a new, promising method of linguistic analysis [...] I hope that the methodology described in the book will become a standard tool for students of grammatical meaning and grammatical change.”

Bernd Heine, Universität zu Köln, in Studies in Language Vil. 33:3 (2009).

“Situated at the crossroads of construction grammar, historical linguistics and comparative/contrastive linguistics, Hilpert's monograph is especially noteworthy because it extends the range of research topics dealt with so far from synchronic, particularist studies (of primarily present-day English) to diachronic, comparative ones (of various Germanic languages) and thus adds important new facets to the agenda of cognitively oriented and empirically minded construction grammar as wel as to its existing inventory of corpus methods.”

Beate Hampe, Erfurt University, in the Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics Vol. 7 (2009).

Cited by (110)

Cited by 110 other publications

Order by:

Berdicevskis, Aleksandrs, Evie Coussé, Alexander Koplenig & Yvonne Adesam

2024. To drop or not to drop? Predicting the omission of the infinitival marker in a Swedish future construction. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 20:1 ► pp. 219 ff.

Bozza, Cristiana

2024. On the grammaticalization of ġādi in Moroccan Arabic: new insights. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 45:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Daugs, Robert & David Lorenz

2024. A radically usage-based, collostructional approach to assessing the differences between negative modal contractions and their parent forms. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory

Dietrich, Nadine

2024. The seamlessness of grammatical innovation: the case of be going to (revisited). Folia Linguistica 58:s45-s1 ► pp. 149 ff.

Giomi, Riccardo & Guglielmo Inglese

2024. Chapter 6. Underspecification and ambiguity of voice markers. In Vagueness, Ambiguity, and All the Rest [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 347], ► pp. 110 ff.

Hartmann, Stefan & Olaf Mikkelsen

2024. Future constructions in English and Norwegian. Languages in Contrast 24:2 ► pp. 170 ff.

Liao, Shengyu, Stefan Th. Gries & Stefanie Wulff

2024. Transfer five ways: applications of multiple distinctive collexeme analysis to the dative alternation in Mandarin Chinese. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory

MORETTI, LORENZO

2024. A quantitative exploration of the functions of auxiliary do in Middle English. English Language and Linguistics ► pp. 1 ff.

BYBEE, JOAN

2023. What Is Usage‐Based Linguistics?. In The Handbook of Usage‐Based Linguistics, ► pp. 7 ff.

Coussé, Evie, Steffen Höder, Benjamin Lyngfelt & Julia Prentice

2023. Chapter 1. Introduction. In Constructional Approaches to Nordic Languages [Constructional Approaches to Language, 37], ► pp. 1 ff.

DESAGULIER, GUILLAUME & PHILIPPE MONNERET

2023. Cognitive Linguistics and a Usage‐Based Approach to the Study of Semantics and Pragmatics. In The Handbook of Usage‐Based Linguistics, ► pp. 31 ff.

Fries, Simon, Jakob Halfmann, Eugen Hill & Denise Hübner

2023. From noun to future tense. STUF - Language Typology and Universals 76:1 ► pp. 53 ff.

Gries, Stefan T.

2023. Collostructional Methods. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, ► pp. 1 ff.

Kirsten, Johanita

2023. Future Time Reference Alternation in Afrikaans as a West-Germanic Language. Languages 8:2 ► pp. 107 ff.

Knooihuizen, Remco

2023. Grammaticalisation. In The Linguistics of the History of English, ► pp. 157 ff.

Liu, Meichun

2023. Semantic Annotation and Mandarin VerbNet. In Chinese Language Resources [Text, Speech and Language Technology, 49], ► pp. 187 ff.

Norde, Muriel & Graeme Trousdale

2023. Issues in Diachronic Construction Morphology. Constructions and Frames 15:2 ► pp. 145 ff.

Schnelle, Gohar, Mathilde Hennig, Carolin Odebrecht & Anke Lüdeling

2023. Historische Korpora in sprachhistorisch orientierter germanistischer Hochschullehre. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 145:2 ► pp. 175 ff.

Smirnova, O. V., G. V. Denisova, I. A. Pankeyev, D. S. Ilchenko & A. S. Antipova

2023. Short-Term Semantic Changes in Space-Related Categories in Russian Media Discourse. Scientific and Technical Information Processing 50:1 ► pp. 81 ff.

Traugott, Elizabeth

2023. Context in Historical Linguistics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language in Context, ► pp. 49 ff.

Yaguchi, Michiko

2023. Development of the Subject of BE going to in Grammaticalisation from the 1820s to 2010s in Comparison with BE about to . English Studies 104:7 ► pp. 1287 ff.

Artigas, Esther & Mar Garachana Camarero

2022. Origin and development of Spanish verbal periphrases haber + ( nexus ) + infinitive. In From Verbal Periphrases to Complex Predicates [IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature, 31], ► pp. 131 ff.

Farahani, Mehrdad Vasheghani & Mahmoud Elshahat Abdelghaffar Omar

2022. Book Review: Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck, Tania Kuteva and Haiping Long, The Rise of Discourse Markers. Discourse & Communication 16:6 ► pp. 735 ff.

Herbst, Thomas & Judith Huber

2022. Diachronic Construction Grammar – Introductory Remarks to This Special Issue. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 70:3 ► pp. 213 ff.

Hilpert, Martin & Florent Perek

2022. You don’t get to see that every day. Constructions and Frames 14:1 ► pp. 13 ff.

Mikkelsen, Olaf & Stefan Hartmann

2022. Competing future constructions and the Complexity Principle. In Broadening the Spectrum of Corpus Linguistics [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 105], ► pp. 8 ff.

Mousavi, S. Hamzeh

2022. When past meets future in Persian: A construction grammar approach to futurity. Australian Journal of Linguistics 42:2 ► pp. 105 ff.

van Trijp, Remi, Katrien Beuls, Paul Van Eecke & Andrew Kehler

2022. The FCG Editor: An innovative environment for engineering computational construction grammars. PLOS ONE 17:6 ► pp. e0269708 ff.

Hartmann, Stefan

2021. Diachronie der Zukunft. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 143:3 ► pp. 364 ff.

Podhorodecka, Joanna

2021. Martin Hilpert, Ten Lectures on Diachronic Construction Grammar. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2021. Półrocznik Językoznawczy Tertium 6:2 ► pp. 211 ff.

Talavira, Nataliia, T. Andrienko, S. Potapenko & L. Slavova

2021. Constructionist basis of composing and translating political speeches: A case study of President Trump’s inaugural address. SHS Web of Conferences 105 ► pp. 03006 ff.

Tang, Xuri

2021. How metaphoremes emerge. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 19:1 ► pp. 80 ff.

Wang, Huiping & Luyao Wang

2021. A Research on the Evolution of Chinese Semantics Based on Distributed Representation. In Chinese Lexical Semantics [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12278], ► pp. 747 ff.

Yuksel, Arda, Berke Ugurlu & Aykut Koc

2021. Semantic Change Detection With Gaussian Word Embeddings. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing 29 ► pp. 3349 ff.

Budts, Sara & Peter Petré

2020. Putting connections centre stage in diachronic Construction Grammar. In Nodes and Networks in Diachronic Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language, 27], ► pp. 318 ff.

Buerki, Andreas

2020. Formulaic Language and Linguistic Change,

Daugs, Robert

2020. Chapter 2. Revisiting global and intra-categorial frequency shifts in the English modals. In Re-Assessing Modalising Expressions [Studies in Language Companion Series, 216], ► pp. 17 ff.

Daugs, Robert

2021. Contractions, constructions and constructional change. In Modality and Diachronic Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language, 32], ► pp. 12 ff.

Davidse, Kristin & Hendrik De Smet

2020. Diachronic Corpora. In A Practical Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, ► pp. 211 ff.

Georgakopoulos, Thanasis, Eliese-Sophia Lincke, Kiki Nikiforidou & Anna Piata

2020. On the polysemy of motion verbs in Ancient Greek and Coptic. Studies in Language 44:1 ► pp. 27 ff.

Heine, Bernd, Tania Kuteva, Haiping Long, Heiko Narrog & Fang Wu

2020. Where do demonstratives come from?. STUF - Language Typology and Universals 73:3 ► pp. 403 ff.

Herbst, Thomas

2020. Constructions, generalizations, and the unpredictability of language. Constructions and Frames 12:1 ► pp. 56 ff.

Herbst, Thomas

2022. Constructions, generalizations, and the unpredictability of language. In Construction Grammar across Borders [Benjamins Current Topics, 122], ► pp. 55 ff.

Mousavi, S. Hamzeh & Mohammad Amouzadeh

2020. ‘I hear the smell of roses’. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 18:2 ► pp. 397 ff.

Schulze, Rainer & Pascal Hohaus

2020. Chapter 1. Modalising expressions and modality. In Re-Assessing Modalising Expressions [Studies in Language Companion Series, 216], ► pp. 1 ff.

Sun, Linlin & David Correia Saavedra

2020. Measuring grammatical status in Chinese through quantitative corpus analysis. Corpora 15:3 ► pp. 317 ff.

Bochnak, M. Ryan

2019. Future reference with and without future marking. Language and Linguistics Compass 13:1

Johnson, Cynthia A., Peter Alexander Kerkhof, Leonid Kulikov, Esther Le Mair & Jóhanna Barðdal

2019. Argument structure, conceptual metaphor and semantic change. Diachronica 36:4 ► pp. 463 ff.

Kuteva, Tania, Bernd Heine, Bo Hong, Haiping Long, Heiko Narrog & Seongha Rhee

2019. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization,

Liang, Shichen, Jianyu Zheng, Xuemei Tang, Renfen Hu & Zhiying Liu

2019. 2019 International Conference on Asian Language Processing (IALP), ► pp. 267 ff.

Pedersen, Johan

2019. Verb-based vs. schema-based constructions and their variability: On the Spanish transitive directed-motion construction in a contrastive perspective. Linguistics 57:3 ► pp. 473 ff.

Rosemeyer, Malte & Mar Garachana

2019. De la consecución a la contraexpectación: la construccionalización delograr/conseguir+ infinitivo. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 12:2 ► pp. 383 ff.

Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, Emma Moore, Linda van Bergen & Willem B. Hollmann

2019. Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax,

Enghels, Renata & Marie Comer

2018. Evaluating grammaticalization and constructional accounts. In Grammaticalization meets Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language, 21], ► pp. 107 ff.

Enghels, Renata & Marie Comer

2020. Causative and inchoative constructions with poner and meter (‘to put’) in Spanish. In Changes in Meaning and Function [IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature, 25], ► pp. 22 ff.

Gilquin, Gaëtanelle

2018. Chapter 6. Exploring the spoken learner English constructicon. In Speaking in a Second Language [AILA Applied Linguistics Series, 17], ► pp. 127 ff.

Kapatsinski, Vsevolod

2018. Learning Morphological Constructions. In The Construction of Words [Studies in Morphology, 4], ► pp. 547 ff.

Kinn, Torodd

2018. Pseudocoordination in Norwegian. In Grammaticalization meets Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language, 21], ► pp. 75 ff.

Li, Yanzhi & Yicheng Wu

2018. The constructionalization and constructional change of noncanonical V-NP expressions in Mandarin Chinese. Studies in Language 42:4 ► pp. 886 ff.

Lyngfelt, Benjamin, Tiago Timponi Torrent, Adrieli Laviola, Linnéa Bäckström, Anna Helga Hannesdóttir & Ely Edison da Silva Matos

2018. Chapter 9. Aligning constructicons across languages. In Constructicography [Constructional Approaches to Language, 22], ► pp. 255 ff.

Culicover, Peter W.

2017. Syntactic Change in the Parallel Architecture: The Case of Parasitic Gaps. Cognitive Science 41:S2 ► pp. 213 ff.

Ghafar Samar, Reza & Tej Bhatia

2017. The future of ‘future’. Asia-Pacific Language Variation 3:2 ► pp. 130 ff.

Perek, Florent & Martin Hilpert

2017. A distributional semantic approach to the periodization of change in the productivity of constructions. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 22:4 ► pp. 490 ff.

Talavira, Nataliia

2017. English orientating constructions denoting location: classification and article use. Lingua Posnaniensis 59:2 ► pp. 101 ff.

Wiliński, Jarosław

2017. On the Brink of-Noun vs. On the Verge of-Noun: a Distinctive-Collexeme Analysis. Research in Language 15:4 ► pp. 425 ff.

Willis, David

2017. Degrammaticalization. In The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Syntax, ► pp. 28 ff.

Bernolet, Sarah & Timothy Colleman

2016. Sense-based and lexeme-based alternation biases in the Dutch dative alternation. In Corpus-based Approaches to Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language, 19], ► pp. 165 ff.

Cappelle, Bert & Ilse Depraetere

2016. Short-circuited interpretations of modal verb constructions. Constructions and Frames 8:1 ► pp. 7 ff.

Cappelle, Bert & Ilse Depraetere

2016. Modal meaning in Construction Grammar. Constructions and Frames 8:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Garachana Camarero, Mar

2016. Verbos de movimiento y perífrasis verbales en español medieval: "uviar (a)" + infinitivo. Revista de Historia de la Lengua Española :11 ► pp. 59 ff.

Heine, Bernd, Heiko Narrog & Haiping Long

2016. Constructional change vs. grammaticalization. Studies in Language 40:1 ► pp. 137 ff.

Schneider, Agnes

2016. Future time marking in spoken Ghanaian English. In New Approaches to English Linguistics [Studies in Language Companion Series, 177], ► pp. 141 ff.

Desagulier, Guillaume

2015. Forms and meanings of intensification: a multifactorial comparison of quite and rather. Anglophonia 20

Hilpert, Martin

2015. Hendrik De Smet, Spreading Patterns. Diffusional Change in the English System of Complementation . English Text Construction 8:1 ► pp. 125 ff.

Hilpert, Martin

2016. Change in modal meanings. Constructions and Frames 8:1 ► pp. 66 ff.

Hilpert, Martin

2020. The great temptation. In Corpora and the Changing Society [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 96], ► pp. 3 ff.

Hilpert, Martin

2024. Corpus linguistics meets historical linguistics and construction grammar: how far have we come, and where do we go from here?. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 20:3 ► pp. 481 ff.

Zhan, Fangqiong & Elizabeth Closs Traugott

2015. The constructionalization of the Chinese cleft construction. Studies in Language 39:2 ► pp. 459 ff.

Zhan, Fangqiong & Elizabeth Closs Traugott

2020. A study of the development of the Chinese correlative comparative construction from the perspective of constructionalization. Diachronica 37:1 ► pp. 83 ff.

Boas, Hans C. & Francisco Gonzálvez-García

2014. Chapter 1. Applying constructional concepts to Romance languages. In Romance Perspectives on Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language, 15], ► pp. 1 ff.

Coussé, Evie

2014. Lexical expansion in the HAVE and BE perfect in Dutch. Diachronica 31:2 ► pp. 159 ff.

Coussé, Evie

2018. Chapter 4. Grammaticalization, host-class expansion and category change. In Category Change from a Constructional Perspective [Constructional Approaches to Language, 20], ► pp. 93 ff.

Grossman, Eitan & Stéphane Polis

2014. On the pragmatics of subjectification: The grammaticalization of verbless allative futures (with a case study in Ancient Egyptian). Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 46:1 ► pp. 25 ff.

Höder, Steffen

2014. Phonological elements and Diasystematic Construction Grammar. Constructions and Frames 6:2 ► pp. 202 ff.

Höder, Steffen

2014. Constructing diasystems: Grammatical organisation in bilingual groups. In The Sociolinguistics of Grammar [Studies in Language Companion Series, 154], ► pp. 137 ff.

TAGLIAMONTE, SALI A., MERCEDES DURHAM & JENNIFER SMITH

2014. Grammaticalization at an early stage: futurebe going toin conservative British dialects. English Language and Linguistics 18:1 ► pp. 75 ff.

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Graeme Trousdale

2014. Contentful constructionalization. Journal of Historical Linguistics 4:2 ► pp. 256 ff.

Anishchanka, Alena V. & Weiwei Zhang

2012. Review of Philip (2011): Colouring Meaning: Collocation and Connotation in Figurative Language. Metaphor and the Social World 2:1 ► pp. 121 ff.

Hirschmann, Hagen, Anke Lüdeling & Amir Zeldes

2012. Measuring and coding language change. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage 5:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs

2012. Geoffrey Leech, Marianne Hundt, Christian Mair and Nicholas Smith, Change in contemporary English: A grammatical study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xxviii + 341. ISBN 978-0-521-86722-I.. English Language and Linguistics 16:1 ► pp. 183 ff.

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs

2015. Toward a coherent account of grammatical constructionalization. In Diachronic Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language, 18], ► pp. 51 ff.

TRAUGOTT, ELIZABETH CLOSS

2017. ‘Insubordination’ in the light of the Uniformitarian Principle. English Language and Linguistics 21:2 ► pp. 289 ff.

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs

2023. Chapter 4. On the rise of a marker of disaffiliation from Others’ discourse. In Reconnecting Form and Meaning [Studies in Language Companion Series, 230], ► pp. 99 ff.

Glynn, Dylan

2011. Review of Gaëtanelle Gilquin. Corpus, cognition and causative constructions. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2010, xvii + 326 pp., ISBN: 9789027223135.. Language and Cognition 3:2 ► pp. 331 ff.

Glynn, Dylan

2014. Techniques and tools. In Corpus Methods for Semantics [Human Cognitive Processing, 43], ► pp. 307 ff.

Petersen, Hjalmar P.

2011. The convergence process between Faroese and Faro-Danish. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 34:1 ► pp. 5 ff.

BREMS, LIESELOTTE

2010. Size noun constructions as collocationally constrained constructions: lexical and grammaticalized uses. English Language and Linguistics 14:1 ► pp. 83 ff.

GRIES, STEFAN TH. & MARTIN HILPERT

2010. Modeling diachronic change in the third person singular: a multifactorial, verb- and author-specific exploratory approach. English Language and Linguistics 14:3 ► pp. 293 ff.

Gries, Stefan Th. & Martin Hilpert

2012. Variability-based neighbor clustering: A bottom-up approach to periodization in historical linguistics. In The Oxford Handbook of the History of English, ► pp. 134 ff.

PETRÉ, PETER

2010. The functions ofweorðanand its loss in the past tense in Old and Middle English. English Language and Linguistics 14:3 ► pp. 457 ff.

Petré, Peter

2016. Unidirectionality as a cycle of convention and innovation. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 30 ► pp. 115 ff.

PETRÉ, PETER

2016. Grammaticalization by changing co-text frequencies, or why [BE Ving] became the ‘progressive’. English Language and Linguistics 20:1 ► pp. 31 ff.

Nikiforidou, Kiki

2009. Constructional analysis. In Handbook of Pragmatics, ► pp. 1 ff.

Nikiforidou, Kiki

2022. Constructional analysis. In Handbook of Pragmatics [Handbook of Pragmatics, ], ► pp. 310 ff.

Trousdale, Graeme

2008. A constructional approach to lexicalization processes in the history of English: Evidence from possessive constructions. Word Structure 1:2 ► pp. 156 ff.

Trousdale, Graeme

2016. Response to Wärnsby. Constructions and Frames 8:1 ► pp. 54 ff.

[no author supplied]

2014. Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space [Studies in Language Companion Series, 157],

[no author supplied]

2017. Pivotal Constructions in Chinese [Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse, 8],

[no author supplied]

2022. Discourse Structuring Markers in English [Constructional Approaches to Language, 33],

[no author supplied]

2024. A Construction Grammar of the English Language [Cognitive Linguistics in Practice, 5],

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 december 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.

Subjects