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In:Corpus-based Approaches to Construction Grammar
Edited by Jiyoung Yoon and Stefan Th. Gries
[Constructional Approaches to Language 19] 2016
► pp. 11–38

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A constructional perspective on conceptual constituency

Dutch postpositions or particles?

Published online: 8 September 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.19.02bel
Cognitive Grammar distinguishes three types of constituents: phonological, conceptual, and grammatical constituents. This study argues that this distinction offers a new and promising perspective on constructions whose constituent structure, or ‘constituency’, has seemed to defy analysis in the past. In particular, the study proposes a method to analyze conceptual constituency, which crucially relies on semantic considerations. The method is applied to constructions from Dutch with adpositions whose syntactic status has been unclear: they have been analyzed as postpositions by some, yet as particles by others. Using corpus data rather than constructed data with grammaticality judgments, the study concludes that the method provides new arguments for a ‘particle analysis’.
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Th. Gries, Stefan
2025. Corpus Linguistics and the Cognitive/Constructional Endeavor. In The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar, ► pp. 171 ff. DOI logo
Pijpops, Dirk
2017. Jiyoung Yoon & Stefan Th. Gries (eds.). 2016.Corpus-based Approaches to Construction Grammar. Constructions and Frames 9:2 ► pp. 329 ff. DOI logo

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