Three-participant constructions in English : a functional-cognitive approach to caused relations / An Laffut.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Laffut, An.

Series:

Studies in language companion series ; v. 79.

Studies in language companion series, 0165-7763 ; v. 79

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Syntax.

English language.

English language--Locative constructions.

Grammar, Comparative and general--Locative constructions.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

English language--Prepositions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (280 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

3-participant constructions in English

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Pub., 2006.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

This study aims to give a systematic and comprehensive description of the constructions involved in three important types of alternation: the locative alternation, which is by far the most researched of the three, the image impression alternation and the material/product alternation. The author looks at the constructions as part of alternation, but also looks beyond the alternations, and analyzes and describes the constructions in their own right. They are analyzed as three-participant constructions with relational complements, construing causation of the three main subtypes of relations, namely intensive, circumstantial and possessive relations. Particular attention is paid to the concept of holicity, to the status of the prepositional phrase, and to collocational properties, which play a key role in the decision as to which alternate should be regarded as the unmarked one within its construction paradigm. The approach taken is inspired by systemic functional grammar and can broadly be characterized as cognitive-functional.

Contents:

Three-Participant Constructions in English

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

INTRODUCTION

1. The constructions

2. A functional-cognitive approach

3. Methodology

4. Outline

I. STATE OF THE ART

1. The partitive/holistic approach: did John ever finish the job?

2. Textual explanations

3. Lexicalist-formalist approaches

3.1. Levin and Rappaport: Lexical Conceptual Structures

3.2. Pinker: constraints and narrow conflation classes

3.3. Tenny: an aspectual approach

4. Conclusion

II. TEXTUAL DIMENSIONS

1. The notion of relative topicality

2. Relative topicality as motivation for the alternations

2.1. Identifiability of nominal referents

2.2. Analysis of corpus data

2.3. A structural analysis of information distribution

2.4. Analysis of corpus data

3. Interpretation and conclusion

III. HOLICITY AND PARTIVITY

1. The Location

1.1. The relation between Location and PrepP

1.2. The relation between Location and NG: holicity (?)

2. The Locatum

2.1. Holicity for the Locatum: quantity

2.2. Holicity/partivity and definiteness

2.3. A quantificational approach

3. Conclusion

IV. PROCESS AND PARTICIPANTS

1. Participants and circumstances

1.1. Formal tests

1.2. Semantic arguments

1.3. The syntagmatic relations: Langacker's dependence model

1.4. Conclusion

2. The roles

2.1. The Location

2.2. The Locatum

2.3. The Image

2.4. Material and Product

3. The Process

3.1. Constructionally determined polysemy

3.2. A dialectically motivated relation

V. A RELATIONAL ANALYSIS

1. The relational domain: from semiosis to possession, from identification to attribution

1.1. The intensive subdomain: semiosis

1.2. Circumstantials and possessives

2. Caused relations.

2.1. Caused intensives and possessives

2.2. A caused relational continuum

VI. THE MATERIAL/PRODUCT CONSTRUCTIONS

1. The semiotic type: instantiation and realization models

1.1. Indefinite Products

1.2. Definite Products

1.3. Alternation and reversibility

1.4. Interim conclusion

2. The part/whole type

2.1. Part/whole semantics: a discussion

2.2. Alternation

VII. THE IMAGE IMPRESSION AND LOCATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

1. Locative constructions as caused circumstantial relational configurations

2. Variants and markedness

2.1 A quantitative approach

2.2. Collocations and lexical selection restrictions

3. The locative alternation and agnation

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

REFERENCE LIST

INDEX

The series Studies in Language Companion Series.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612155888

9781282155886

1282155881

9789027293589

9027293589

OCLC:

613368043