Productivity : evidence from case and argument structure in Icelandic / Jóhanna Bardal.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jóhanna Bardal, 1969-

Series:

Constructional approaches to language ; v. 8.

Constructional approaches to language, 1573-594X ; v. 8

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Icelandic language--Morphology.

Icelandic language.

Icelandic language--Syntax.

Icelandic language--Verb.

Productivity (Linguistics).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 207 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Pub. Co., c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Productivity of argument structure constructions is a new emerging field within cognitive-functional linguistics. The term productivity as used in linguistic research contains at least three subconcepts: 'extensibility', 'regularity', and 'generality'. The focus in this study of case and argument structure constructions in Icelandic is on the concept of extensibility, while generality and regularity are regarded as derivative of extensibility. Productivity is considered to be a function of type frequency, semantic coherence, and the inverse correlation between these two. This study establishes productivity as an emergent feature of the grammatical system, in an analysis that is grounded in a usage-based constructional approach, where constructions are organized into lexicality-schematicity hierarchies. The view of syntactic productivity advocated here offers a unified account of productivity, in that it captures different degrees of productivity, ranging from highly productive patterns through various intermediate degrees of productivity to low-level analogical extensions."--Jacket

Contents:

Productivity

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Dedication

Table of contents

Preface

Introduction

1.1 Aims and objectives

1.2 Construction grammar

1.3 Disposition

Productivity

2.1 Senses and synonyms of productivity

2.2 The concepts of productivity

2.3 Definitions and measurements of productivity

2.3.1 Existing definitions and measurements

2.3.2 Predicting productivity

2.4 Syntactic productivity

2.5 Type frequency, schematicity and degrees of productivity

2.6 Summary

New verbs in Icelandic

3.1 Case and argument structure in Icelandic

3.1.1 Type frequency

3.1.2 The semantics of the Nominative subject construction

3.1.2.1 Nom-Acc

3.1.2.2 Nom-Dat

1.2.3 Nom-Gen

3.1.3 The productivity of the Nominative subject construction

3.2 New verbs in Icelandic

3.2.1 Recent borrowings

3.2.2 Analogy and token frequency

3.3 Summary

Notes

Nonce verbs

4.1 The experiment

4.2 The findings

4.3 The semantics of the Dative subject construction

4.4 Summary

New verbs of communication

5.1 The Transfer, the Caused-motion and the Ditransitive constructions

5.1.1 The Transfer and the Caused-motion constructions

5.1.2 The Ditransitive construction

5.2 The questionnaire survey

5.3 The findings

5.4 Analogy vs. high type frequency

5.5 Summary

Old and modern Icelandic

6.1 Structural vs. lexical case

6.2 The present cognitive-functional CxG approach

6.2.1 Swedish

6.2.2 English

6.2.3 German

6.2.4 Icelandic

6.2.5 Vocabulary, language contact, type frequency and loss of case

6.3 Dative substitution in the history of Icelandic

6.4 The "blended" construction in English, Swedish and Faroese

6.5 Historical productivity

6.6 Summary

Synthesis

References

Appendix A

Modern Icelandic.

Dat-Nom (11 types):

Nom-Acc:

Nom-Dat (188)

Nom-Gen (24 types):

Dative subject predicates (73 types):

Accusative subject predicates (14 types):

Genitive Subject Predicates (7 types):

Old Norse-Icelandic

Dat-Nom (33 types):

Nom-Acc (173 types):

Nom-Dat (105 types):

Nom-Gen (21 types):

Dative subject predicates (72 types):

Accusative subject predicates (13 types):

Gen subject predicates (7 types):

Appendix B

Nom-Dat

Appendix C

Name index

Subject index

Constructions index

The series Constructional Approaches to Language.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [183]-190) and indexes.

ISBN:

9786612104831

9781282104839

1282104837

9789027289674

9027289670

OCLC:

432993402