Incipient Productivity: A Construction-Based Approach to Linguistic Creativity

Description

How do speakers vary established patterns of language use and adapt them to novel contexts of application? This study presents a usage-based approach to linguistic creativity: combining detailed qualitative with large-scale quantitative analyses of corpus data, it traces the emergence of partial productivity in clusters of conventional collocations. Focusing on English and German intensification constructions, it proceeds in three steps: having first inventoried the lexical means (of a given semantic type) that are recruited for signalling intensity in both languages, collostructional analysis is then used to identify entrenched intensity collocations involving these formatives in three different syntactic constructions. Third, multi-rater manual classification methods as well as distribution-based automatic classification methods are employed to uncover semantic generalisations over the attested types on different levels of abstraction. Collocational expansion is shown to proceed through local analogies within sets of semantically similar stored instances of a construction. Synthesising insights from research on language acquisition, variation and change, it is thus argued that creative extensions of linguistic conventions are intrinsically bound up with aspects of memory and repetition. 1. Introduction 1.1 The issue 1.2 Aims and scope 1.3 Structure of the book 2. Towards a usage-based model of constructional generalisation 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Incipient productivity: From collocations to constructional schemas 2.3 Theoretical framework 2.3.1 Usage-based construction grammar 2.3.2 Cognitive semantics 2.3.3 Models of constructional generalisation 2.4 Previous research 2.4.1 Insights from research on construction learning 2.4.2 Insights from research on constructional change 2.4.3 Insights from research on constructional variation 2.5 Chapter summary 3. Testing ground: Intensity collocations 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Intensity and intensification 3.2.1 Intensification as a linguistic function 3.2.2 Intensifier variation and change 3.3 Conceptualising intensification 3.3.1 Intensification strategies in English and German 3.3.2 PERCEPTION intensifiers 3.4 Constructing intensification 3.4.1 Construction A: Int + N 3.4.2 Construction B: Int + Adj 3.4.3 Construction C: Int + with/vor + N 3.5 Objectives 3.6 Chapter summary 4. Lexicalisation patterns: From concepts to words 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Prerequisites 4.2.1 The corpus-linguistic study of lexicalisation patterns 4.2.2 Data 4.3 Procedure 4.3.1 Setting up the search space 4.3.2 Data extraction and coding 4.4 Results 4.4.1 Overview 4.4.2 Construction A 4.4.3 Construction B 4.4.4 Construction C 4.5 Summary and discussion 5. Fixed expressions: From words to collocations 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Prerequisites 5.2.1 Formulaicity and creativity 5.2.2 Corpus data as clues to cognitive entrenchment patterns 5.3 Procedure 5.4 Results 5.4.1 Overview 5.4.2 Construction A 5.4.3 Construction B 5.4.4 Construction C 5.5 Summary and discussion 6. Incipient productivity: From collocations to constructional schemas 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Prerequisites 6.2.1 Problems of semantic classification 6.2.2 Approaches to semantic classification 6.2.3 Approaches to productivity 6.3 Procedure 6.3.1 Identifying item-based generalisations 6.3.2 Identifying pockets of productive use 6.3.3 Identifying higher-level generalisations 6.4 Results 6.4.1 Item-based generalisations 6.4.2 Incipient productivity 6.4.3 Higher-order patterns 6.5 Summary and discussion 7. Conclusion Appendix Notes References Index