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Constructions in Contact
Constructional perspectives on contact phenomena in Germanic languages
The last three decades have seen the emergence of Construction Grammar as a major research paradigm in linguistics. At the same time, very few researchers have taken a constructionist perspective on language contact phenomena. This volume brings together, for the first time, a broad range of original contributions providing insights into language contact phenomena from a constructionist perspective. Focusing primarily on Germanic languages, the papers in this volume demonstrate how the notion of construction can be fruitfully applied to investigate how a range of different language contact phenomena can be systematically analyzed from the perspectives of both form and meaning.
[Constructional Approaches to Language, 24] 2018. vi, 316 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 29 November 2018
Published online on 29 November 2018
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Part I. Constructions in contact: A theoretical overview
- Construction Grammar and language contact: An introductionHans C. Boas and Steffen Höder | pp. 5–36
- Grammar is community-specific: Background and basic concepts of Diasystematic Construction GrammarSteffen Höder | pp. 37–70
- Part II. Constructional variation and change in contact
- Towards a constructional analysis of the progressive aspect in Texas GermanMargaret Blevins | pp. 73–113
- Tense and aspect marking in (Low) German perfect constructions based on variety contactKathrin Weber | pp. 115–142
- Distributional assimilation in constructional semantics: On contact-related semantic shifts in Afrikaans three-argument constructionsTimothy Colleman | pp. 143–177
- Part III. Item-based patterns and constructional generalizations in contact
- Constructions as cross-linguistic generalizations over instances: Passive patterns in contactJan-Ola Östman | pp. 181–210
- Texas German and English word order constructions in contactRyan Dux | pp. 211–249
- Part IV. Semantic frames in contact
- A constructional account of the modal particle ‘ja’ in Texas GermanHans C. Boas | pp. 253–276
- Frames change in language contact environments: A case study of schleichen (‘to sneak’) and kommen (‘to come’)David Hünlich | pp. 277–310
- Author index | pp. 311–312
- Index of constructions | p. 313
- Subject index | pp. 315–316
“Language contact used to be a blind spot in Construction Grammar. This exciting volume demonstrates that it is now taking its rightful place in constructional research. The articles in this volume cover argument structure constructions, verbal inflections, split auxiliary systems, modal particles, word order, and motion verbs in languages such as Danish, Afrikaans, Swedish, Turkish, and Texas German. With its broad outlook, the volume not only pushes the boundaries of current constructional research; it also makes it relevant to researchers from other theoretical backgrounds.”
Martin Hilpert, University of Neuchâtel
“A timely contribution from Construction Grammar to the current discussion on language contact and multilingualism. The case studies in this volume are united by a perspective on multilingualism as normalcy that brings language contact phenomena into the mainstream of linguistic analysis where they belong, thus setting a challenge one hopes will be taken up by other frameworks.”
Heike Wiese, University of Potsdam
Cited by (23)
Cited by 23 other publications
Claassen, Simon A., Renata Enghels & M. Carmen Parafita Couto
Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Stefan Th. Gries
2025. Similative-pretence constructions in language contact situations. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 12:2 ► pp. 292 ff.
Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Stefan Th. Gries
Pavlović, Vladan & Biljana Mišić Ilić
2025. Review of Boas & Höder (2021): Constructions in contact 2: Language change, multilingual practices, and additional language acquisition. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 23:1 ► pp. 313 ff.
Warmuth, Matthias
2025. Construction Grammar and phonology?. In Constructions in Contact 3 [Constructional Approaches to Language, 40], ► pp. 247 ff.
Beyer, Klaus
Hendrikx, Isa & Kristel Van Goethem
2024. Dutch compound constructions in additional language acquisition. Constructions and Frames 16:1 ► pp. 64 ff.
PEREK, FLORENT
De Pascale, Stefano, Dirk Pijpops, Freek Van de Velde & Eline Zenner
Boas, Hans C. & Steffen Höder
2021. Widening the scope. In Constructions in Contact 2 [Constructional Approaches to Language, 30], ► pp. 1 ff.
Boas, Hans C. & Steffen Höder
2025. What makes Construction Grammar relevant for contact linguistics — and vice versa?. In Constructions in Contact 3 [Constructional Approaches to Language, 40], ► pp. 1 ff.
Boas, Hans C. & Steffen Höder
2025. Diasystematic Construction Grammar at work. In Constructions in Contact 3 [Constructional Approaches to Language, 40], ► pp. 22 ff.
Rottet, Kevin J.
2021. Making one’s way in Welsh. In Constructions in Contact 2 [Constructional Approaches to Language, 30], ► pp. 233 ff.
Urban, Aileen
2021. Idioconstructions in conflict. In Constructions in Contact 2 [Constructional Approaches to Language, 30], ► pp. 17 ff.
Van Goethem, Kristel & Isa Hendrikx
2021. Intensifying constructions in second language acquisition. In Constructions in Contact 2 [Constructional Approaches to Language, 30], ► pp. 375 ff.
Wiesinger, Evelyn
2021. The Spanish verb-particle construction [V para atrás]. In Constructions in Contact 2 [Constructional Approaches to Language, 30], ► pp. 139 ff.
Boas, Hans C.
Boas, Hans C.
Hickey, Raymond
Schmid, Hans-Jörg
2020. How the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model might enrich Diachronic Construction Grammar. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 34 ► pp. 306 ff.
Smirnova, Elena & Lotte Sommerer
2020. Introduction. In Nodes and networks in Diachronic Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language, 27], ► pp. 1 ff.
Hilpert, Martin
Noël, Dirk
2019. The decline of the Deontic nci construction in Late Modern English. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 6:1 ► pp. 22 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 march 2026. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.