In:Nodes and Networks in Diachronic Construction Grammar
Edited by Lotte Sommerer and Elena Smirnova
[Constructional Approaches to Language 27] 2020
► pp. 45–68
Constructionalization and the Sorites Paradox
The emergence of the into-causative
Published online: 13 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.27.01fla
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.27.01fla
Abstract
This article discusses the relationship between
“constructionalization” and
“constructional change” (Traugott & Trousdale, 2013). Expanding
on recent critical reviews, the paper argues that the problems with
constructionalization arise from the ambiguity of the concept: it
refers simultaneously to processes leading to the creation of a new
node and to the point of node creation itself. The issues are
illustrated by tracking the emergence of the
into-causative: the data show that a series of
interrelated changes in multiple parts of the network provided
necessary and facilitating conditions, some of which predate the
into-causative by several generations. The
suggestion is that constructionalization should be reserved for its
point reading, while aspects of its process reading are better
captured by “constructional emergence”.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Constructionalization and constructional change
- 3.The into-causative
- 3.1Synchronic properties
- 3.2Diachronic assumptions
- 4.Constructional emergence
- 4.1Data
- 4.2Analysis
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Concluding remarks
Acknowledgements Notes References
References (44)
Börjars, K., Vincent, N., & Walkden, G. (2015). On
constructing a theory of grammatical
change. Transactions of the
Philological
Society, 113(3), 363–382.
Bybee, J. (2006). From
usage to grammar: The mind’s response to
repetition. Language, 82(4), 711–733.
Dąbrowska, E. (2015). Language
in the mind and in the
community. In J. Daems, E. Zenner, K. Heylen, D. Speelman, & H. Cuyckens (Eds.), Change
of paradigms – New paradoxes: Recontextualizing language and
linguistics (pp. 221–235). Berlin: De Gruyter.
Davies, M. (2008). The
Corpus of Contemporary American English: 450 million words,
1990-present. Late 2015 offline
version.
(2010). The
Corpus of Historical American English: 400 million words,
1810–2009. Late 2015 offline
version.
(2012). Some
methodological issues related to corpus-based investigations
of recent syntactic changes in
English. In T. Nevalainen & E. C. Traugott (Eds.), The
Oxford handbook of the history of
English (pp. 157–174). New York: Oxford University Press.
Davies, M., & Kim, J.-B. (2019). Historical
shifts with the into-causative construction
in American
English. Linguistics, 57(1), 29–58.
De Smet, H. (2008). Functional
motivations in the development of nominal and verbal gerunds
in Middle and Early Modern
English. English Language and
Linguistics, 12(1), 55–102.
De Smet, H., Flach, S., Tyrkkö, J., & Diller, H.-J. (2015). The
Corpus of Late Modern English (CLMET), version 3.1: Improved
tokenization and linguistic
annotation. KU Leuven, FU Berlin, U Tampere, RU Bochum.
Diewald, G. (2006). Konstruktionen
in der diachronen
Sprachwissenschaft. In K. Fischer & A. Stefanowitsch (Eds.), Konstruktionsgrammatik
I. Von der Anwendung zur
Theorie (pp. 79–103). Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
(2015). Elizabeth
Closs Traugott & Graeme Trousdale:
Constructionalization and constructional
changes. Beiträge
Zur Geschichte Der Deutschen Sprache Und
Literatur, 137(1), 108–182.
Diewald, G., & Smirnova, E. (2012). “Paradigmatic
integration”: The fourth stage in an expanded
grammaticalization
scenario. In K. Davidse, T. Breban, L. Brems, & T. Mortelmans (Eds.), Grammaticalization
and language change: New
reflections (pp. 111–134). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Duffley, P. J. (2018). Talk
into vs convince to: Talking
as a cause leading to containment, convincing as a cause
leading to a
result. In M. Kaunisto, M. Höglund, & P. Rickman (Eds.), Changing
structures: Studies in constructions and
complementation (pp. 15–30). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Fanego, T. (2004). On
reanalysis and actualization in syntactic change: The rise
and development of English verbal
gerunds. Diachronica, 21(1), 5–55.
Flach, S. (to
appear). From
movement into action to manner
of causation: Changes in argument mapping in
the
into-causative. Accepted
for publication
in Linguistics.
Fonteyn, L. (2019). Categoriality
in language change: The case of the English
gerund. New York: Oxford University Press.
Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions:
A Construction Grammar approach to argument
structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
(2006). Constructions
at work: The nature of generalization in
language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gries, S. Th., & Stefanowitsch, A. (2004). Covarying
collexemes in the
into-causative. In M. Achard & S. Kemmer (Eds.), Language,
culture, and
mind (pp. 225–236). Stanford, CA: CSLI.
Hilpert, M. (2013). Constructional
change in English: Developments in allomorphy, word
formation, and
syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(2015). From
hand-carved to
computer-based: Noun-participle
compounding and the upward strengthening
hypothesis. Cognitive
Linguistics, 26(1), 113–147.
(2018). Three
open questions in Diachronic Construction
Grammar. In E. Coussé, P. Andersson, & J. Olofsson (Eds.), Grammaticalization
meets Construction
Grammar (pp. 21–39). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hilpert, M., & Diessel, H. (2016). Entrenchment
in Construction
Grammar. In H. J. Schmid (Ed.), Entrenchment
and the psychology of language learning: How we reorganize
and adapt linguistic
knowledge (pp. 57–74). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Hunston, S., & Francis, G. (2000). Pattern
grammar: A corpus-driven approach to the lexical grammar of
English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kim, J.-B., & Davies, M. A. (2016). The
into-causative construction in English:
A construction-based
perspective. English Language
and
Linguistics, 20(1), 55–83.
Kroch, A., Santorini, B., & Delfs, L. (2004). The
Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English (PCEME),
tagged version. Department of Linguistics: University of Pennsylvania.
Rohdenburg, G. (2006). The
role of functional constraints in the evolution of the
English complementation
system. In C. Dalton-Puffer, D. Kastovsky, & N. Ritt (Eds.), Syntax,
style and grammatical
norms (pp. 143–166). Vienna: Peter Lang.
Rudanko, J. (2000). Corpora
and complementation: Tracing sentential complementation
patterns of nouns, adjectives, and verbs over the last three
centuries. Lanham: University Press of America.
(2005). Lexico-grammatical
innovation in current British and American English: A case
study on the transitive into -ing pattern
with evidence from the Bank of English
Corpus. Studia
Neophilologica, 77(2), 171–187.
(2011). Changes
in complementation in British and American English:
Corpus-based studies on non-finite complements in recent
English. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
(2015). “Wheedled
me into lending him my best hunter”: Comparing the emergence
of the transitive into -ing construction in
British and American
English. In M. Höglund, P. Rickman, J. Rudanko, & J. Havu (Eds.), Perspectives
on complementation: Structure, variation and
boundaries (pp. 128–140). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sag, I. A., & Pollard, C. (1991). An
integrated theory of complement
control. Language, 67(1), 63–113.
Schmid, H.-J. (2016). Introduction. In H.-J. Schmid (Ed.), Entrenchment
and the psychology of language learning: How we reorganize
and adapt linguistic
knowledge (pp. 9–35). Berlin: De Gruyter.
Smirnova, E. (2015). Constructionalization
and constructional change: The role of context in the
development of
constructions. In J. Barðdal, E. Smirnova, L. Sommerer, & S. Gildea (Eds.), Diachronic
Construction
Grammar (pp. 81–106). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Stefanowitsch, A. (2014). Collostructional
analysis: A case study of the English
into-causative. In T. Herbst, H.-J. Schmid, & S. Faulhaber (Eds.), Constructions
collocations
patterns (pp. 217–238). Berlin: De Gruyter.
Stefanowitsch, A., & Gries, S. Th. (2005). Covarying
collexemes. Corpus
Linguistics and Linguistic
Theory, 1(1), 1–43.
Torrent, T. T. (2015). The
constructional convergence and the construction network
reconfiguration
hypotheses. In J. Barðdal, E. Smirnova, L. Sommerer, & S. Gildea (Eds.), Diachronic
Construction
Grammar (pp. 173–211). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Traugott, E. C. (2015). Towards
a coherent account of grammatical
constructionalization. In J. Barðdal, E. Smirnova, L. Sommerer, & S. Gildea (Eds.), Diachronic
Construction
Grammar (pp. 51–80). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Traugott, E. C., & Trousdale, G. (2013). Constructionalization
and constructional
changes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Trousdale, G. (2014). On
the relationship between grammaticalization and
constructionalization. Folia
Linguistica, 48(2), 557–578.
Vosberg, U. (2006). Die
große Komplementverschiebung: Außersemantische Einflüsse auf
die Entwicklung satzwertiger Ergänzungen im
Neuenglischen. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Wulff, S., Stefanowitsch, A., & Gries, S. Th. (2007). Brutal
Brits and persuasive Americans: Variety-specific meaning
construction in the
into-causative. In G. Radden, K.-M. Köpcke, T. Berg, & P. Siemund (Eds.), Aspects
of meaning construction in lexicon and
grammar (pp. 265–281). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Cited by (12)
Cited by 12 other publications
Becker, Israela & Mira Ariel
2025. Scaffolding the sentential Ultimate construction into a word. Constructions and Frames 17:1 ► pp. 92 ff.
Daugs, Robert & Ulrike Schneider
Hilpert, Martin
Alba-Salas, Josep
Schneider, Stefan
Gildea, Spike & Jóhanna Barðdal
2023. From grammaticalization to Diachronic Construction Grammar. Studies in Language 47:4 ► pp. 743 ff.
Torres-Martínez, Sergio
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs
2023. On the rise of a marker of disaffiliation from Others’ discourse. In Reconnecting Form and Meaning [Studies in Language Companion Series, 230], ► pp. 99 ff.
Ungerer, Tobias
Flach, Susanne
Flach, Susanne
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 december 2025. 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.