Construction Grammar

General productivity: How become waxed and wax became a copula

by peter petre

This article provides an analysis — within the framework of Radical Construction Grammar — of how BECOME developed... more This article provides an analysis — within the framework of Radical Construction Grammar — of how BECOME developed into a copula ‘become’ out of an original sense ‘arrive’, and WAX, originally ‘grow’, also came to be used as a copula ‘become’. Importantly, it explains why these verbs successfully became fully productive copulas in a very short period of time. It is argued that this happened after a pre-copular stage had reached a cognitive threshold value. The occurrence of this threshold is related to the fact that the copular constructions featuring BECOME and WAX were not the end result of a single diachronic lineage of constructions (i.e. one construction developed out of another one, one at a time). Instead, the copularization of these verbs was the result of an interaction between lineages of constructions, belonging to two groups: (i) constructions involving BECOME or WAX, which gradually changed and interacted with each other; (ii) constructions involving already existing copulas, notably WEORÐAN ‘become’, which provided a generally productive analog upon which the newly emerging copulas could graft. Generally, the article calls attention to the importance of multiple source constructions and thresholds in understanding grammaticalization processes and productivity.

Kapatsinski, Vsevolod. 2012. When and why we (fail to) extend morphophonological alternations: Towards a usage-based Harmonic Grammar. Ms. U of Oregon.

by Vsevolod Kapatsinski

Kapatsinski, Vsevolod. 2012. Minding gaps or seeking bumps in learning phonotactics? Poster presented at LSA Annual Meeting.

by Vsevolod Kapatsinski

Barth, Danielle, & Vsevolod Kapatsinski. 2012. Modeling construction-specific contraction of is, am and are: It’s not all frequency. Ms. U of Oregon.

by Vsevolod Kapatsinski

Vakareliyska, Cynthia, Vsevolod Kapatsinski & Paul Olejarczuk. 2012. An Anglo-Americanism in Slavic Morphosyntax: Productive [N[N]] Constructions (with focus on Russian and Bulgarian). Ms. U of Oregon.

by Vsevolod Kapatsinski

Auxiliation in Persian

by Shadi Davari

Ett svenskt konstruktikon. Utgångspunkter och preliminära ramar

by Ben Lyngfelt

Towards a comprehensive Construction Grammar account of control: A case study of Swedish infinitives

by Ben Lyngfelt

Konstruktioner i finlandssvensk syntax: skriftspråk, samtal och dialekter

by Ben Lyngfelt

Svenskan i Finland, grammatiken och konstruktionerna

by Ben Lyngfelt

Huvuddriven valens-konstruktionsdriven argumentstruktur?

by Ben Lyngfelt

Mellan polerna. Reflexiv-och deponenskonstruktioner i svenskan

by Ben Lyngfelt

Simulating others: the basis of human cognition?

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as:
Cowley, S.J. (2004). Simulating others: the basis of human cognition? Language Sciences, 26/3: 273-299.

The paper critiques the argument of Michael Tomasello’s Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999). This culture-first... more The paper critiques the argument of Michael Tomasello’s Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999). This culture-first theory is judged to be a good sketch of how nature predisposes humans for talk. Above all, this is because if language mediated perspective-taking depends on cultural process, no innate linguistic representations are necessary in learning to talk. Unfortunately, the model is flawed by Tomasello’s claims for a putative species-specific competency. Rather than posit a simulation mechanism to link orthodox views of language with Gricean models of communication, I follow Dennett in treating ‘intentions’ as folk constructs. Talking, on this view, arises from encultured contextualizing. Situated, embodied activity turns infants into perspective-takers who, far from learning or acquiring ‘forms’, slowly become persons. Gradually, the infant’s developing social capacities produce activity that invites others to attribute linguistic knowledge to the child.

And up it rises: particle preposing in English

by Bert Cappelle

Cappelle, Bert. 2002. And up it rises: Particle preposing in English. In: Nicole
Dehé, Ray Jackendoff, Andrew McIntyre and Silke Urban (eds.), Verb-Particle Explorations. (Interface Explorations, 1.) Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 43-66.

On the status of intervening think-clauses in English long-distance dependency constructions

by Bert Cappelle

Cappelle, Bert. 2002. On the status of intervening think-clauses in English long-distance dependency constructions. Leuvense Bijdragen (Leuven Contributions in Linguistics and Philology)
91(3-4), 369-381.

OxfordHandbookofConstructionGrammar_06March11

by Bert Cappelle

prepublished version of:
Friedemann Pulvermüller, Bert Cappelle and Yury Shtyrov. 2012. Brain basis of meaning, words, constructions and grammar. In: Thomas Hoffmann and Graeme Trousdale (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Particle placement and the case for "allostructions"

by Bert Cappelle

Cappelle, Bert. 2006. Particle placement and the case for ‘allostructions’. Constructions [special issue titled Constructions all over: Case studies and theoretical implications, edited by Doris Schönefeld], urn:nbn:de:0009-4-6839.

Particle patterns in English: A comprehensive coverage

by Bert Cappelle

My Ph.D. thesis. 2005. K.U.Leuven, Belgium.

The the… the… construction: Meaning and readings

by Bert Cappelle

Heating up or cooling up the brain: MEG evidence that phrasal verbs are lexical units

by Bert Cappelle