Despite a significant increase in interest over the last two decades in the English Noun Phrase, there are still many open questions and unexplored issues. The papers collected in this volume contribute to this ongoing research by addressing a range of topics concerning the internal structure, use… read more
This volume brings together ten contributions by leading experts who present their current usage-based research in Diachronic Construction Grammar. All papers contribute to the discussion of how to conceptualize constructional networks best and how to model changes in the constructicon, as for… read more
Edited by Jóhanna Barðdal, Elena Smirnova, Lotte Sommerer and Spike Gildea
Construction Grammar as a framework offers a new perspective on traditional historical questions in diachronic linguistics and language change: how do new constructions arise, how should competition in diachronic variation be accounted for, how do constructions fall into disuse, and how do… read more
This paper investigates the different functions of some in Present Day English. It especially focuses on whether and to what extent some functions as an indefinite article for non-count and plural nouns and as such competes with the bare marking strategy (I need to buy some milk/some cigarettes… read more
This paper analyzes temporal symmetric NPN constructions in which both nouns are singular, identical, and conjoined by a preposition (e.g. day to day, hour upon hour, night after night). The constructions’ binominal structure, their idiomatic nature, their apparent frozenness, and their… read more
This squib revisits the phenomenon of ‘Multiple Inheritance’ (MI) and discusses reasons why many usage-based, cognitive construction grammarians seem to be avoiding it when modeling the constructicon and linguistic knowledge. After a brief discussion of the concept and some examples from the… read more
This paper revisits POSS DEM constructions in Old English (OE) by analyzing 13 OE prose texts from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE). It aims to explain the marginalization and ultimate demise of this constructional family by discussing how the emergence of a… read more
In this chapter it will be argued that a proper understanding of grammaticalization has to take into account the driving force of lexically underspecified constructions. Using evidence from an extensive qualitative and quantitative corpus study in the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old… read more
