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Constructional Changes and Constructionalization

Constructional Changes and Constructionalization. Elizabeth Closs Traugott traugott@stanford.edu in collaboration with Graeme Trousdale University of Santiago de Compostela , Oct. 16 th 2012. Outline. Some key points about construction grammar. Diachronic construction grammar.

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Constructional Changes and Constructionalization

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  1. Constructional Changesand Constructionalization Elizabeth Closs Traugott traugott@stanford.edu in collaboration with Graeme Trousdale University of Santiago de Compostela, Oct. 16th 2012

  2. Outline • Some key points about construction grammar. • Diachronic construction grammar. • A constructional account of change. • Constructional changes. • Constructionalization. • Grammatical constructionalization. • Lexical constructionalization. • Intermediate constructionalization. • The way-construction revisited. • Conclusions.

  3. Construction grammar • There are several versions of construction grammar (CxG). • All now conceive of it as a theory of grammar as a whole (Croft 2001, Goldberg 2006, Sag 2012), not only idioms and idiosyncracies, e.g. let alone, What’s this fly doing in my soup? (Fillmore, Kay & O’Connor 1988; partly also Goldberg 1995).

  4. Some General Assumptions • Tenets common to all approaches (Goldberg Forthc): • The basic unit of grammar is the construction (Cxn): a conventional pairing of form and meaning e.g. ditransitive He gave her a book: • [[SUBJ V OBJ1 OBJ2] [X cause Y receive Z]]. - It is therefore a theory of symbolic structures. - It is a non-modular theory—morphosyntax, phonology, semantics, pragmatics, discourse function all interact; they cannot be studied separately.

  5. 2. Semantic structure is mapped directly on to surface syntactic structure, without derivations (e.g. Goldberg 2002, Culicover & Jackendoff 2005). 3. Cross-linguistic (and dialectal) variation can be accounted by a mix of: - “domain-general cognitive processes” (e.g. Bybee 2010, Goldberg Forthc), - variety-specific constructions (e.g. Croft 2001; also Haspelmath 2008).

  6. Common to a subset of approaches: • Cxns (and therefore grammars) are language-specific, not universal (Croft 2001, Goldberg 2006). • Language structure is shaped by language use (Barlow & Kemmer 2000, Bybee 2010). • Language, like other cognitive systems, is a network of nodes and links between nodes: [W]e can describe a language as a structured inventory of conventional linguistic units. This structure—the organization of units into networks and assemblies—is intimately related to language use, both shaping it and being shaped by it. (Langacker 2008: 222; also Hudson 2007)

  7. • Cxns have subcomponents. In some formal models these are features, cf. Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Fried & Östman 2004), Sign Based Construction Grammar (Sag 2012). • In Radical CxG (Croft 2001) Cxns have six subcomponents: - form: syntax, morphology, phonology, - meaning: pragmatics, semantics, discourse functions. • My approach to CxG is a usage-based and most directly associated with Goldberg (2006) and Croft (2001) but I also draw opportunistically on insights from all models.

  8. Cxns can be atomic or complex and of any size from affix to abstract schemas with slots, e.g.: (2) Morpheme un-, -dom, -s Word data, if Complex word overlook, drop-out Idiom (partially filled) pain in the X Ditransitive SUBJ V OBJ1 OBJ2 (She gave him a book) Passive SUBJ aux VPpp (PPby) (The man was struck by lightning) Conditional If X (then) Y (If you leave now you will get here on time)

  9. • Distinguish degrees of abstraction: - constructs: tokens (actual utterances, written sentences/clauses), - micro-Cxns: types: individual conventionalized Cxns (e.g. be going to, beside, a lot of, table), - (partial) schemas: types of conventionalized abstract patterns with open slots (e.g. passive, ditransitive). • Schemas may have subschemas (e.g. for ditransitive: cause-receive (give), cause-not-receive (deny), intend-receive (bake), etc.).

  10. Cxns are on a gradient from grammatical/procedural to lexical/contentful: • GCxns are procedural and non-referential: they signal: - linguistic relations (e.g. case, aspect, relative tense), - perspectives (e.g. modality, metatextual markers), - deictic orientation (e.g. definiteness, tense, information-structure marking) (Diewald 2011).

  11. Lexical constructions (LCxns) are contentful and referential, e.g. talk,powerlifting, word-formations (Adj-ness, N-dom). • “Intermediate” constructions (ICxns) are partially contentful, partially grammatical, e.g. some adverbs (tomorrow, frankly), way-Cxn, give X a V-ing(e.g. give someone a talking to/roasting, Trousdale 2008), and valency Cxns (e.g. ditransitive, resultative). • A terminological caution: Jackendoff (2002: 176) refers to the way-Cxn, resultative, etc. as “a lexical item in its own right that undergoes free combination with verbs”. I agree that there is not a lexical rule creating new V-argument structure, but not that the Cxn is a “lexical item”.

  12. A constructional account of change • Recently considerable interest in “diachronic construction grammar” (starting with Noël 2007, Bergs & Diewald 2008). • The field addresses a range of theoretical topics from lexicalization (Lxn) (Lehmann 2002, Brinton & Traugott 2005), to grammaticalization (Gzn) (Lehmann 1995). • In most cases a historical dimension has been added to a largely synchronic theory, or CxG has been seen as “a tool for diachronic analysis” (Fried 2009, title).

  13. It’s time to take the potential of CxG and rethink/ resynthesize what we know about language change in terms of this model of grammar. • Traugott & Trousdale (Forthc) seeks to develop a coherent and restrictive account from a usage-based CxG perspective of the development over time of Cxns on the gradient from grammatical to lexical.

  14. Some tenets for a constructional view of change: • The construct (token utterance) is the locus of change. • The path of a change is (typically) from construct to micro-Cxn to schema. • Any feature or subcomponent may be subject to change. • Any subschema may be expanded or contracted. • Relationships among (sub)schemas in the network may be reorganized. • Changes are “incremental adjustments” (Hoffmann & Trousdale 2011: 13) to the “internal dimensions of a Cxn” (Gisborne 2011: 156) or of a (sub)schema.

  15. A question: • Are all incremental adjustments to a micro-Cxn of the same type? • A consensus is developing that the answer is No (papers at SLE 44, 2011 by Rostila, Smirnova, and Traugott). All proposed a distinction between: - constructional change (CC) - constructionalization (Cxzn) (but did not agree on the distinction between them!).

  16. Constructional changes • Constructional changes (CCs): changes that affect subcomponents of a Cxn, e.g. - semantics (want ‘lack’ > ‘desire’), - syntax (main verb will > auxiliary will), - morphophonology (auxiliary will > ‘ll). • CCs may be form changes or meaning changes, but not both. • They are discrete micro-steps in development. • They do not form new nodes in a network.

  17. Constructionalization • “Constructionalization” (Cxzn): a subset of CCs in which formnew-meaningnew (combinations) of signs are created. • New (combinations of) signs are created through a sequence of small-step neo-analyses of form or meaning (CCs). • Accompanied by changes in degree of: - schematicity (abstractness), - productivity (type and token frequency), - compositionality (transparency of link between form and meaning).

  18. New Cxns (output of Cxzn) form new nodes in a network. • New Cxns (output of Cxzn) may be: - atomic (will) or complex (X-dom, a lot of), - specific (will) or schematic (AUX; schemas often have open slots: X-dom), - grammatical/procedural, lexical/contenful, or intermediate.

  19. CCs prior to Cxzn enable Cxzn, CCs post Cxzn may allow for increasingly frequent use, reduction of form, and a variety of changes: (3) PreCxzn CCs  Cxzn  PostCxzn CCs • Note these distinctions are linguists’ generalizations and categorizations based on textual data, not necessarily neuronal changes.

  20. The Gradient Output of Cxzn • Grammatical constructionalization (GCxzn) is the development of (mostly) procedural formnew-meaningnew (combinations) of signs. • Lexical constructionalization (LCxzn) is the development of (mostly) contentful formnew-meaningnew (combinations) of signs. • Intermediate constructionalization (ICxzn) is the development of partially contentful and partially procedural formnew-meaningnew (combinations) of signs. • What is important in identifying types of Cxzn is output, not input.

  21. • Some CCs and Cxzns may be generalized and come to be systemic, e.g.: The loss of inflectional case in English initially involved individual Cxns (e.g. the old dative affix was replaced in part by to, genitive by of). But collectively the changes are systemic, contributing to overall shifts toward a largely more analytic system. • Systemic changes are among the contexts in which particular changes occur (Fischer 2007).

  22. Overview of GCxzn • Much prior work done in terms of morphosyntactic change and grammaticalization (Gzn). • Two main views of Gzn: • The tradition of “grammaticalization as increased reduction and dependency” (GIRD), e.g. Lehmann (1995), Haspelmath (2004). Typical exs.: • a. Latin cantare habeo'sing:INF have:1sg' > French chanterai'sing:FUT:1sg’, b. BE going to > BE gonna.

  23. The tradition of “grammaticalization as extension” (GE), e.g. “The process by which grammar is created” (Croft 2006: 366). Exs. are syntax-, discourse-related as well as morphosyntactic, e.g.: (5) say (imperative of main verb say) > ‘suppose, for example’ (Brinton 2008a). • Focus on: - expansion of semantic-pragmatic, syntactic, collocational (“host-class”) range (Himmelmann 2004), e.g.: (6) motion BE going to with constraints on V > ‘future’ with few constraints on V.

  24. • GIRD and GE are not orthogonal (Traugott 2010), but intertwined. •Expansion is the logical outcome of most of Lehmann’s (1995) reduction “parameters”. • GCxzn is typically correlated with (Trousdale 2010): - increase in schematicity (greater abstraction), - increase in productivity (in Cxn-(sub)types, and in token frequency), - decrease in compositionality (loss of transparency in link between form and meaning).

  25. • But Cxns and subschemas may obsolesce, so productivity may be lost in later stages. • Therefore, although there is directionality, there is no uni-directionality.

  26. Overview of LCxzn • Much prior work done in lexicalization (Lxn). • Typically thought of in terms of reduction (LIR) (Lehmann 2002, Brinton & Traugott 2005), e.g.: Lexicalization is a process by which complex word-formations and other syntagmatic constructions become syntactically and semantically fixed entries of the mental lexicon. (Blank 2001: 1603) (7) bullet-hole, button-hole, cupboard, gar ‘spear’ + leac ‘leek’ > garlic.

  27. But this excludes the development of word-formation (W-F) patterns in the first place. • The development of W-F patterns is LCxzn involving expansion (lexical/contentful to LE): (8) dom ‘status’ (but not ‘doom’) > derivational affix. • Expansion may be followed by reduction: (9) OE ræden ‘status’ > derivational affix. -ræden obsolesced during ME as productive affix; now found only in kindred, hatred.

  28. LCxzn as development of schematic W-F is correlated with: - increase in schematicity - increase in productivity - decrease in compositionality • LCxzn as development of specific micro-Cxns may however be correlated with: - decrease in schematicity - decrease in productivity - further decrease in compositionality • Note Trousdale’s (2010) hypothesis that LCxzn is correlated only with decrease no longer holds.

  29. Overview of ICxzn • Most obvious cases of ICxzn involve argument structure. • Trousdale (2008) discusses the development in the 18thC of e.g. give someone a talking to/roasting: (10) [[give X a Ving]  [cause X receive verbal/physical insult repeatedly]] • Intermediate because: - atelic, often iterative, complex predicate Cxn (grammatical/procedural), - non-compositional contentful meaning (usually verbal insult) (lexical/contentful), - ditransitive structure. .

  30. Now coexists with earlier largely telic complex predicates with light Vs (e.g. give John a bath [contrast bathe John] Brinton 2008b). • Ditransitives undergo ICxzn: - changes in subschemas (Colleman & De Clerck 2011 on English, Torrent 2011 on Brazilian Portuguese), - depending on language type, changes in morphological case (Barðdal 2008 on Icelandic).

  31. The way-Cxn revisited • The way-Cxn underwent ICxzn; has been said to be: - primarily lexical (Broccias 2012), - primarily grammatical (Gisborne & Patten 2011, Mondorf 2011). • Building on Israel (1996), Mondorf (2011), development toward the grammatical pole can be identified. • Israel focuses on semantics (how motion, path, manner, and cause are combined), the sequential rise of patterns/”threads”, and the role of analogy. • Mondorf focuses on relation to resultatives.

  32. • Note the way-Cxn is structurally a fake transitive; - most subschemas involve non-bounded Vs, - the newest manner/accompaniment subschema: (11) giggled her way to fame. (1997 Nash, Solid Goldie [COCA]) is typically iterative. Israel called it “accidental accompaniment”. • Jackendoff (1990: 213) suggests V in a PDE way-Cxn must designate a repeated action or unbounded activity, but iterative mainly true of this newest subschema.

  33. Some contemporary exs. of the way-Cxn: (12) a. Nix de la Fuente scowled at the editorial as she made her way from her car to the latest crime scene. (2012 Garner, Kiss of the Vampire [COCA]) • Ignoring her thanks, he went his way. (2006 Stroud, The Golem’s Way [COCA]) • I don't have to elbow my way through crowds to chase the tournament leaders from hole to hole. (2012 Hurt, Green Party [COCA]) d. she trash-talkedher way into a Strikeforce title shot. (March 4th 2012, Vancouver Sun [Google])

  34. Precursors: some very early constructs with wei, but not surface transitive (13a), not Poss (13b, c), or wei is plural (13b): (13) a. Moyses … ferdeforþ on his weiʒ. ‘Moses went forth on his way’. (c. 1175 H Rood 4/33 [MED wei n(1), 2b (a)]) b. And went the wayeshym before. ‘and went the way in front of him’. (a1400 Parl 3 Ages 37 [MED wei n(1), 2b (a)]) c. and to him þanewei he nam. ‘and to him the way he took’. (c. 1200 Orm 3465 [MED wei n(1), 2b (b)])

  35. MED (wei n(1), 2b) says “wei and phrases such as on wei combine with almost any verb denoting locomotion, forward progress, or the like”. • Citations appear with go, wend, fare, ride, flee/fly, ride, nim- ‘take’, take, drive forth. • Preferred without directional (DIR) before 1500: (14) Ah, flih, flihþinnewæi & burhþine life! ‘Ah, flee, flee your way and save your life!’ (c.1275 Layamon, Brut 8024 [MED wei n(1), 2b (d)])

  36. These are not way-Cxns, but particular examples of (15) [[SUBJanimVimotion DIR]  [‘traverse a path’]] In (15) way is a member of DIR (answers ‘Where did X go?). (16) [[SUBJanimVtacquisition OBJ]  [‘take a path’]] In(16) way is a member of OBJ (answers ‘What did X take (figuratively)?).

  37. By early 17thC, Cxzn of two new Cxns: I) Intransitive/unergative motion V without DIR, typical of religious texts: (17) Iesussaithvnto him, Go thy way, thy sonneliueth. And the man beleeued the word that Iesus had spoken vnto him, and he went his way. (1611 King James Bible, New Testament [HC centest2]) (It continues to be preferred without DIR, e.g. all 55 exs. with go in COCA have no DIR, see (12b)). II) Transitive acquisition V with DIR: (18) At last comes a notable clowne from Greenham, taking his way to Newbery. (1619 Deloney, Jack of Newbury [HC cefict2b])

  38. • With expansion of transitive acquisition schema to use with causative V, reorganization as a superschema with two subschemas, one motion, the other causative. (19) [[NPi V POSSi way DIR] [‘traverse (created) path by/while doing V’]] [[NPi V POSSi way DIR] [[NPi V POSSi way DIR]] [traverse path]] [‘create path]]

  39. • The causative subschema itself has two sub-subschemas: Vs involving obstruction (20a), Vs that do not (20b): (20) a. Afterwards about a dozen of them went into the Kitchin, forcing their way against all the Bolts and Locks. (1690 Trial of John Williams et al. [OBP t16900430-8]) b. the Fire; which on the East side had from Mascaluciamade its way to St. Giovanni di Galermo(1669 Winchilsea, Earthquake and Eruption of Mt. Ætna[Lampeter msca1669.sgm])

  40. Networks • Throughout its history networked with expansion of Vs encoding manner, especially Vi linked to sound emission (chug, rumble, splash, slosh) (Fanego 2012). • Because require DIR, linked primarily to “create a path” (Vt) subtype. • Also networked and in competition with self-resultative (Mondorf 2011). • By 20thC self- preferred with abstract, way with concrete resultatives (Mondorf 2011: 418): (21) a. Worked himself into a frenzy and gave himself indigestion. [BNC wridom1] b. … he worked his way down the steep bank toward the stream. [FROWN]

  41. By early 19thC, a new subschema is evidenced (CC), involving manner, but not motion Vs (e.g. elbow, beg), and wide variety of Vs, e.g.: (22) a. and shot my way home the next day; having, previously to my setting out, equally divided the game between the three. (1820-2 Hunt, Memoirs of Henry Hunt [CL 2]) b. The steamer … plashed its way forward. (1842 Borrow, Bible in Spain [CL 2]) • Members of this subschema have high type-frequency but low token frequency. • Strongly associated with iterativity.

  42. Over time there has been: - increase in schematicity, - increase in productivity, - decrease in compositionality, - category strengthening, - shift toward procedural status (the newest subschema (iterative accompaniment of path- making) is the most distinctly procedural and abstract).

  43. Conclusions • The theoretical architecture of CxG demands thinking in terms of both form and meaning equally. • The methodology of: - looking for both form and meaning changes, - distinguishing Cxzn from pre-Cxzn CCs and post-Cxzn CCs, suggests new ways of interpreting the data in a principled and consistent way. • Conceptualizing GCxzn as (mostly) procedural outputs suggests a wider range of data can be subsumed under GCxzn than has typically been the case under Gzn.

  44. Conceptualizing LCxzn as (mostly) contentful outputs suggests a way of accounting for W-F that integrates it with other types of Cxzn, and allows a far wider range of data to be considered than has typically been the case under Lxn. • Conceptualizing ICxzn as involving both contentful and procedural elements allows a richer account of gradience than is sometimes envisaged (e.g. by Aarts 2007). • A constructional approach allows a unified cross-domain approach to micro-changes.

  45. Thank you for your attention!

  46. Data sources BNC British National Corpus. 2007. Distributed by Oxford University Computing Services on behalf of the BNC Consortium. http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/. COCA The Corpus of Contemporary American English 1990-2010. 2008–. Compiled by Mark Davies. Brigham Young University. http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/. FROWN The Freiburg-Brown Corpus. Original release 1999 compiled by Christian Mair. Release 2007 compiled by Christian Mair and Geoffrey Leech. http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/CoRD/corpora/FROWN/.

  47. HC Helsinki Corpus of English Texts. 1991. Compiled by Matti Rissanen (Project leader), Merja Kytö (Project secretary); LeenaKahlas-Tarkka, MattiKilpiö (Old English); SaaraNevanlinna, Irma Taavitsainen (Middle English); Terttu Nevalainen, Helena Raumolin-Brunberg (Early Modern English).Department of English, University of Helsinki. http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/CoRD/corpora/HelsinkiCorpus/index.html MED The Middle English Dictionary. 1956-2001. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. http://www.hti.umich.edu/dict/med/. OBP Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online 1674-1913. http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/.

  48. References Aarts, Bas. 2007. Syntactic Gradience: The Nature of Grammatical Indeterminacy. Oxford: OUP. Barðdal, Jóhanna. 2008. Productivity: Evidence from Case and Argument Structure in Icelandic. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Barlow, Michael & Suzanne Kemmer, eds. 2000. Usage Based Models of Grammar. Stanford, CA: CSLI. Bergs, Alexander & Gabriele Diewald, eds. 2008. Constructions and Language Change. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Blank, Andreas. 2001. Pathways of lexicalization. In Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, WulfOesterreicher & Wolfgang Raible (eds.), Language Typology and Language Universals. Vol II. 1596-1608. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Brinton, Laurel J. 2008a. The Comment Clause in English: Syntactic Origins and Pragmatic Development. Cambridge: CUP.

  49. ----. 2008b. ‘Where grammar and lexis meet’: Composite predicates in English. In Elena Seoane & María José López-Couso, eds., in collaboration with Teresa Fanego. Theoretical and Empirical Issues in Grammaticalization, 3-53. Amsterdam: Benjamins. ---- & Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 2005. Lexicalization and Language Change. Cambridge: CUP. Broccias, Cristiano. 2012. The syntax-lexicon continuum. In Terttu Nevalainen & Elizabeth Closs Traugott, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the History of English, 735-747. New York: OUP. Bybee, Joan L. 2010. Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: CUP. Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: OUP. ----. 2006. Typology. In Mark Aronoff & Janie Rees-Miller, eds., The Handbook of Linguistics, 337-368. Oxford: Blackwell.

  50. Colleman, Timothy & Bernard De Clerck. 2011. Constructional semantics on the move: On semantic specialization in the English double object constructions. Cognitive Linguistics 22: 183-209. Culicover, Peter W. & Ray Jackendoff. 2005. Simpler Syntax. New York: OUP. Diewald, Gabriele. 2011. Grammaticalization and pragmaticalization. In Narrog & Heine, eds., 450-461. Fillmore, Charles J., Paul Kay & Mary Catherine O’Connor. 1988. Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions. Language 64: 501-538. Fanego, Teresa. 2012. Complex motion events in the history of English: On the emergence of the construction type Sir Ascelin clanked into the hall. Paper presented at SLE 45, Stockholm, August 29th. Fischer, Olga. 2007. Morphosyntactic Change: Functional and Formal Perspectives. Oxford: OUP. Fried, Mirjam. 2009. Construction grammar as a tool for diachronic analysis. Constructions and Frames 1: 262-291.

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