Acknowledgments

This book grew out of my Ph.D. thesis (Dux 2016), which was completed at The University of Texas at Austin. I am deeply indebted to my advisor, Hans C. Boas, for his invaluable advice and unwavering support during all phases of the completion of this book. It is difficult to imagine having published a work of this scope without the insightful discussions, enthusiastic encouragement, and enriching opportunities Hans shared with me throughout and well beyond my doctoral studies.

Other members of the UT-Austin community contributed in countless ways to the research and writing that made this publication possible. I am especially grateful to Marc Pierce for his grounded and realistic, yet comforting and humorous, insights on numerous aspects of academic life, as well as his formal instruction on many other linguistic topics. My thesis committee members also helped broaden and refine various aspects of my thinking in the research leading to this work: I thank Per Urlaub for helping me to share these insights with students in my language teaching, Jürgen Streeck for emphasizing the humanistic, cultural importance of language, and John Beavers for prompting me to better understand how my approach and findings relate to those of scholars working in other frameworks.

I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Fulbright Program, which awarded me a fellowship to complete a portion of my thesis at the Heinrich Heine Universität in Düsseldorf, and of the Volkswagen Foundation, which awarded me a postdoctoral fellowship to carry out substantial revisions of my dissertation leading to the publication of this book while working at the Institut für Deutsche Sprache (IDS) in Mannheim. Among the many colleagues who enriched my research during these stays, I am very grateful to my hosts, Alexander Ziem and Dietrich Busse (Dusseldorf) and Stefan Engelberg (Mannheim) for their generous support and advising and for providing me with opportunities to share my ideas both formally and informally with other scholars associated with their institutions.

I consider myself very fortunate to have been engaged with so many inspiring people throughout the process leading to the publication of this book. I had the privilege of discussing my research with several experts in the fields of Frame Semantics and Construction Grammar during their visits to UT-Austin and my own research-related travels. Among these scholars who shared insights and opportunities that have enhanced the research leading to this publication, I would particularly like to thank Alexander Ziem, Oliver Czulo, Josef Ruppenhofer, Karin Madlener, Ben Lyngfelt, Francisco Gonzalvez-Garcia, and Robert Mailhammer. I am also grateful to Collin Baker, Miriam Petruck, and Michael Ellsworth, for sharing their insider knowledge about the workflow and history of FrameNet during my visits to Berkeley. The engaging discussions with numerous colleagues during my fellowship terms in Dusseldorf and Mannheim also helped enrich my research and my overall experience during my stays in Germany. I would particularly like to thank Kristel Proost, Arne Zeschel, Edeltraud Winkler, Jan Goritsch, Roman Schneider, Doris Gerland, Jens Fleischhauer, Rainer Osswald, and Albert Ortmann.

The work leading up to this book was also made significantly more enjoyable thanks to my peers at UT-Austin, including (but certainly not limited to) Cornelia Loos, Jörn Klinger, Margo Blevins, Maggie Gemmell, Alex Lorenz, and Matthias Fingerhuth. I am especially grateful to Justin Cope for being not only a helpful and insightful colleague and reviewer, but also a great friend who shared in the trials and joys of my research. I also thank David Hünlich for his thankless assistance and eye-opening discussions through various phases of the work leading to this book.

I am very grateful to the series editors of the Constructional Approaches to Language series, Kyoko Ohara and Jan-Ola Östman, for their support, encouragement, and patience throughout the publication process. Thanks are also due to the wonderful staff at John Benjamins who helped with the smooth production process of this volume, as well as to the two anonymous reviewers who provided invaluable feedback that undoubtedly enhanced the quality of this book.

This book would have never been completed without the love and support of my family. I am ever grateful for my supportive and loving mother, Ann, and all my siblings, for always encouraging me in my academic endeavors and helping me to make my research more intelligible.

Last, but certainly not least, I thank my wonderful wife, Natalie, for her patience, love, and support throughout this process, and our son, August, for the much-welcomed distractions that certainly delayed but also helped motivate and inspire the writing of this book.

Soli Deo Gloria