In:Constructional Approaches to Nordic Languages
Edited by Evie Coussé, Steffen Höder, Benjamin Lyngfelt and Julia Prentice
[Constructional Approaches to Language 37] 2023
► pp. 212–246
Chapter 8Danish verb prefixes and the schematizing transitive prefix
construction
Published online: 7 November 2023
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.37.08ped
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.37.08ped
Abstract
In a constructionist approach to grammar, morphological
constructions and clausal constructions may have the same theoretical status
as argument structure constructions (e.g., Goldberg, 1995, pp. 22–23; Croft, 2001; Booij, 2010). In this chapter, the author argues
that the Danish verb prefixes be- and
for-, in addition to verbal derivation, impose a
lexeme-independent transitive argument structure construction with three
meaning variants. In a large-scale corpus study, a distributional analysis
of the prefix construction and its association with verbal base lexemes
shows that the two constructional variants have a different semantic
profile. While the potential productivity of be- and
for- constructions is restricted, authentic examples of
creative usage show that all constructional variants are partially
productive in present-day Danish.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 2.1The German be-construction
- 2.2The English be-construction
- 3.The Danish STP construction
- 3.1Meaning variants and usage patterns
- 3.1.1(A) Transitive relation with manner-specification
- 3.1.2(B) Transitive relation with transfer/means-specification
- 3.1.3(C) Transitive relation with result-specification
- 3.1.4Meaning variants, usage patterns and productivity
- 3.1Meaning variants and usage patterns
- 4.Corpus analysis
- 5.Summarizing the semantics of the STP construction
- 6.Innovative usage
- 6.1Transitive relation with manner-specification
- 6.2Transitive relation with transfer/means-specification
- 6.3Transitive relation with result-specification
- 7.Concluding remarks
Notes References Appendix
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