Cover not available

In:English Noun Phrases from a Functional-Cognitive Perspective: Current issues
Edited by Lotte Sommerer and Evelien Keizer
[Studies in Language Companion Series 221] 2022
► pp. 363–394

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Day to day and night after night

Temporal NPN constructions in Present Day English

 | University of Freiburg
Published online: 21 January 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.221.10som
Abstract
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 syntactic restrictions (e.g. determiners are not permitted) make them an interesting target for linguistic analysis. Although several researchers have analyzed these constructions in different frameworks (e.g. Travis 2001; Matsuyama 2004; Haïk 2009; Jackendoff 2008, 2013; Zwarts 2013; Kim & Sells 2015), there is no study which looks at these constructions quantitatively. Consequently, the paper analyzes data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English. The constructions’ frequency and productivity, as well as their syntactic function and extension potential is being investigated (e.g. day after day of suffering, hour by precious hour). Additionally, the constructions’ semantics and interesting clustering and multiplication patterns are discussed. In terms of theoretical modeling, the paper takes a Usage-based Cognitive Construction Grammar approach (Goldberg 2003, 2006, 2019; Tomasello 2003; Hilpert 2014; Diessel 2015, 2019; Ellis et al. 2016; Sommerer & Smirnova 2020) and sketches the constructional network of [CNsg,timei P CNsg,timei]Cx –constructions.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Symmetric NPNs
    • 2.1Characteristic features of NPN constructions
    • 2.2Previous studies
  • 3.Empirical analysis
    • 3.1Methodology
    • 3.2Results
      • 3.2.1Overall frequency and productivity
      • 3.2.2Modification and complementation
      • 3.2.3Syntactic functions
      • 3.2.4Multiplication and clustering
  • 4.A constructional network approach to temporal NPN constructions
    • 4.1Postulation of individual NPN constructions on different constructional levels
    • 4.2Additional, more complex templates
      • 4.2.1Template with optional modification/complementation slot?
      • 4.2.2Stylistic templates (multiplication, clustering)
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Statistics
  • Package nnet (multinomial regression)
  • Appendix
References (49)
References
Beck, Sigrid & von Stechow, Arnim. 2006. Dog after dog revisited. In Proceedings of the Sinn und Bedeutung 10, Christian Ebert & Cornelia Endriss (eds) 43–54. <[URL]> (2 July 2021).
Blumenthal-Dramé, Alice. 2012. Entrenchment in Usage-based Theories. What Corpus Data Do and Do not Reveal About The Mind. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cappelle, Bert. 2006. Particle placement and the case for “allostructions”. Constructions Online SV1–7: 1–28.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, William & Cruse, Allen. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culicover, Peter W. 1999. Syntactic Nuts: Hard Cases in Syntax. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culicover, Peter W. & Jackendoff, Ray. 2005. Simpler Syntax. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diessel, Holger. 2011. Review of “Language, usage and cognition” by Joan Bybee. Language 87: 830–844. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. Usage-based construction grammar. In Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, Ewa Dąbrowska & Dagmar Divjak (eds), 295–321. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. The Grammar Network. How Linguistic Structure is Shaped by Language Use. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ellis, Nick C., Römer, Ute & O’Donnell, Mathew B. 2016. Usage-based Approaches to Language Acquisition and Processing: Cognitive and Corpus Investigations of Construction Grammar [Language Learning Monograph Series 66]. Malden MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J., Kay, Paul & O’Connor, Mary C. 1988. Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: The case of let alone. Language 64: 501–538. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E. 2003. Constructions: A new theoretical approach to language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7(5): 219–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2006. Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2019. Explain me This. Creativity, Competition, and the Partial Productivity of Constructions. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haïk, Isabelle. 2009. Symmetric structures. Corela 11. <[URL]> (2 July 2021).
Heycock, Caroline & Zamparelli, Roberto. 2003. Coordinated bare definites. Linguistic Inquiry 34: 443–469. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hilpert, Martin. 2014. Construction Grammar and its Application to English. Edinburgh: EUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hilpert, Martin & Diessel, Holger. 2016. Entrenchment in Construction Grammar. In Entrenchment and the Psychology of Language Learning, Hans-Jörg Schmid (ed.), 57–74. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Thomas & Trousdale, Graeme. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 2002. Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. ‘Construction after Construction’ and its theoretical challenges. Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America 84(1): 8–28. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Constructions in the parallel architecture. In The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar, Thomas Hoffmann & Graeme Trousdale (eds), 70–92. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, Jong-Bok & Sells, Peter. 2015. English binominal NPs: A construction-based perspective. Journal of Linguistics 51(1): 41–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
König, Ekkehard & Moyse-Faurie, Claire. 2009. Spatial reciprocity: between grammar and lexis. In Form and Function in Language Research: Papers in Honour of Christian Lehmann, Johannes Helmbrecht, Yoko Nishina, Yong-Min Shin, Stavros Skopeteas & Elisabeth Verhoeven (eds), 57–68. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matsuyama, Tetsuya. 2004. The N after N construction: A constructional idiom. English Linguistics: Journal of English Linguistics Society of Japan 21: 55–84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. A Note of the two-sided behavior of N after N. English Linguistics: Journal of English linguistics society of Japan 23: 446–453. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Payne, John & Huddleston, Rodney. 2002. Nouns and noun phrases. In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Rodney Huddleston & Geoffrey K. Pullum (eds), 323–523. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pi Chia-Yi, Tony. 1995. The Structure of English Iteratives [Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics], 434–445. Toronto: University of Toronto.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pskit, Wiktor. 2012. The English NPN forms: Words or constructions? In Exploring Language Through Contrast, Sławomir Wacewicz, Tomasz Fojt & Waldemar Skrzypczak (eds), 126–144. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. Linguistic and philosophical approach to NPN structures. In Topics in Syntax and Semantics: Linguistic and Philosophical Perspectives, Wiktor Pskit (ed.), 93–128. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, & Svartvik Jan. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sommerer, Lotte & Smirnova, Elena. 2020. Nodes and Networks in Diachronic Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language 27]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sommerer, Lotte & Baumann, Andreas. 2021. Of absent mothers, strong sisters and peculiar daughters: The constructional network of English NPN constructions. Cognitive Linguistics 32(1), 97–131. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stefanowitsch, Anatol & Gries, Stefan T. 2003. Collostructions: investigating the interaction of words and constructions. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 8 (2): 209–243. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stefanowtisch, Anatol. 2006. Negative evidence and the raw frequency fallacy. Corpus Linguistics and Lingistic Theory 2(1): 61–77. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stefanowitsch, Anatol. 2013. Collostructional analysis. In The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar, Graeme Trousdale & Thomas Hoffmann (eds), 290–306. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tomasello, Michael. 2003. Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Travis, Lisa. 2001. The syntax of reduplication. In Proceedings of NELS 31, 455–469.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Reduplication feeding syntactic movement. In Proceedings of Canadian Linguistics Association, Sophie Burelle & Stanca Somesfalean (eds), 236–247. Montreal: University of Quebec.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van de Velde, Freek. 2014. Degeneracy: The maintenance of constructional networks. In Extending the Scope of Construction Grammar, Ronny Boogaart, Timothy Colleman & Gijsbert Rutten (eds), 141–179. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, Edwin. 1994. Remarks on lexical knowledge. In The Acquisition of the Lexicon, Lila R. Gleitman & Barbara Landau (eds), 7–34. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zehentner, Eva. 2019. Competition in Language Change: The Rise of the English Dative Alternation. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zwarts, Joost. 2013. From N to N: The anatomy of a construction. Linguistics and Philosophy 36(1): 65–90. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Statistics
R Core Team. 2018. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. <[URL]>
Package nnet (multinomial regression)
Venables, W. N. & Ripley, B. D. 2002. Modern Applied Statistics with S, 4th edn.. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Mellado Blanco, Carmen & Pedro Ivorra Ordines
2025.  Pasito a pasito, Schrittchen für Schrittchen : The platform CONSTRIDIOMS as a tool to learn constructional idioms in Spanish and German . International Journal of Bilingualism DOI logo
Diessel, Holger
2023. The Constructicon, DOI logo
Ordines, Pedro Ivorra
2023.  Por mí como si te operas. Constructional idioms of rejection from a constructionist approach. Yearbook of Phraseology 14:1 ► pp. 89 ff. DOI logo
Sommerer, Lotte
2020. Why we avoid the ‘Multiple Inheritance’ issue in Usage-based Cognitive Construction Grammar. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 34 ► pp. 320 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 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.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue