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Article published In: The Wealth and Breadth of Construction-Based Research:
Edited by Timothy Colleman, Frank Brisard, Astrid De Wit, Renata Enghels, Nikos Koutsoukos, Tanja Mortelmans and María Sol Sansiñena
[Belgian Journal of Linguistics 34] 2020
► pp. 30–41

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Patterns of coining and constructions

The role of productivity

 | Université Clermont Auvergne, LRL
 | Sorbonne Université, CELISO
Published online: 28 May 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.00032.del
Abstract
We develop the notion of pattern of coining found in some complete-inheritance models of Construction Grammar (Fillmore, Charles J. 1997. Construction Grammar Lecture Notes. ([URL]); . 2013. “The Limits of (Construction) Grammar.” In The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar, ed. by Thomas Hoffmann, and Graeme Trousdale, 32–48. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), which are processes used to coin new units based on analogy with an existing one. Unlike constructions, they cannot be considered systematically productive in synchrony. After providing measurement methods, we assess the productivity of three patterns (‧whelm, ‧licious and ‧holic). To do so, we carried out a statistical analysis using two web corpora. Unlike Kay, we show that the difference between constructions and patterns of coining is not so clear-cut, since patterns of coining may undergo constructionalization, and that qualitative aspects should be taken into account along with quantitative data when trying to assess the status of a word-formation pattern.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Defining productivity
  • 3.Kay’s patterns of coining
  • 4.Productivity of other potential patterns of coining
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (20)
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Droste, Kim-Kristin
2025. Constructing a hierarchical network of prefixal up from a Construction Morphology perspective. English Language and Linguistics ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Feltgen, Quentin
2025. Productivity in Language Change. In Reference Module in Social Sciences, DOI logo
Ivorra Ordines, Pedro
2025. Dime con quién te juntas y te diré quién eres: Substantive Idioms from Construction Grammar. In How to Do Things with Corpora [Linguistik in Empirie und Theorie/Empirical and Theoretical Linguistics, ], ► pp. 239 ff. DOI logo

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