Cambridge University Press eBooks· 2013· Book chapter
Constructional Change in English
- 461citations
- 2013year
Short summary
This book introduces a new framework for studying language change by integrating construction grammar with corpus-based methods, demonstrating how changing language use patterns alter linguistic generalizations over time.
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Key points
- Introduces a new framework combining construction grammar and corpus-based methodology for studying language change.
- Constructions are defined as generalizations over remembered language use exemplars, storing formal and functional properties.
- Language change is explained as a consequence of evolving usage patterns altering these constructional generalizations.
- Illustrates constructional change with three corpus-based studies covering allomorphy, word formation, and syntax.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Martin Hilpert combines construction grammar and advanced corpus-based methodology into a new way of studying language change. Constructions are generalizations over remembered exemplars of language use. These exemplars are stored with all their formal and functional properties, yielding constructional generalizations that contain many parameters of variation. Over time, as patterns of language use are changing, the generalizations are changing with them. This book illustrates the workings of constructional change with three corpus-based studies that reveal patterns of change at several levels of linguistic structure, ranging from allomorphy to word formation and to syntax. Taken together, the results strongly motivate the use of construction grammar in research on diachronic language change. This new perspective has wide-ranging consequences for the way historical linguists think about language change. It will be of particular interest to linguists working on morpho-syntax, sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2013 · DOI ↗
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Field: Linguistics and Language
Linguistics and LanguageSocial Sciences