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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. 306–319

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How the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model might enrich Diachronic Construction Grammar

The case of (the) thing is (that)

 | LMU Munich
Published online: 28 May 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.00055.sch
Abstract
Explanations of language change in terms of Diachronic Construction Grammar generalize over gradual adaptations of the linguistic behaviour of individual speakers and communities. Presenting a diachronic case study of the pattern (the) (Adj) thing (clauserel) is (is) (that), I argue that the time course of formal, semantic and pragmatic changes, of changes in frequency and of changes regarding dispersion over speakers and choices of lexical items offer a glimpse of the gradual individual and communal adaptations underlying processes such as constructionalization and constructional change. I interpret data extracted from various corpora from the perspectives of Diachronic Construction Grammar and the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model (. 2020. The Dynamics of the Linguistic System: Usage, Conventionalization, and Entrenchment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and discuss how the latter perspective might enrich the former.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Characterizing and illustrating the patterns in present-day English
  • 3.The diachrony of the four usage types
  • 4.Stage I: From Germanic and Romance to usage types 1 and 2
    • 4.1Data
    • 4.2The constructionist perspective
    • 4.3The perspective of the EC-Model
  • 5.Stage II: Complementizer omission
    • 5.1Data
    • 5.2The constructionist perspective
    • 5.3The perspective of the EC-Model
  • 6.Stage III: Determiner omission
    • 6.1Data
    • 6.2The constructionist perspective
    • 6.3The perspective of the EC-Model
  • 7.Stage IV: Double is
    • 7.1Data
    • 7.2The constructionist perspective
    • 7.3The perspective of the EC-Model
  • 8.Discussion and conclusion
  • References
References (23)
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