Contrastive studies in construction grammar / edited by Hans c. Boas.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Boas, Hans Christian, 1971-

Series:

Constructional approaches to language ; 10.

Constructional approaches to language ; 10

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Construction grammar.

Phrase structure grammar.

Physical Description:

vi, 244 p.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Pub. Co., 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The papers in this volume provide a contrastive application of Construction Grammar. By referencing a well-described constructional phenomenon in English, each paper provides a solid foundation for describing and analyzing its constructional counterpart in another language. This approach shows that the semantic description (including discourse-pragmatic and functional factors) of an English construction can be regarded as a first step towards a "tertium comparationis" that can be employed for comparing and contrasting the formal properties of constructional counterparts in other languages. Thus, the meaning pole of constructions should be regarded as the primary basis for comparisons of constructions across languages - the form pole is only secondary. This volume shows that constructions are viable descriptive and analytical tools for cross-linguistic comparisons that make it possible to capture both language-specific (idiosyncratic) properties as well as cross-linguistic generalizations.

Contents:

Comparing constructions across languages / Hans C. Boas

Comparing comparatives: A corpus-based study of comparative constructions in English and Swedish / Martin Hilpert

Contrasting constructions in English and Spanish: The influence of semantic, pragmatic, and discourse factors / Francisco Gonzálvez-García

Conditional constructions in English and Russian / Olga Gurevich

Results, cases, and constructions: Argument structure constructions in English and Finnish / Jaakko Leino

A contrastive study of the caused-motion and ditransitive constructions in English and Thai: semantic and pragmatic constraints / Napasri Timyam and Benjamin K. Bergen

On expressing measurement and comparison in English and Japanese / Yoko Hasegawa, Russell Lee-Goldman, Kyoko Hirose Ohara, Seiko Fujii and Charles J. Fillmore

Revising Talmy's typological classification of complex event constructions / William Croft, Jóhanna Barðdal, Willem Hollmann, Violeta Sotirova, and Chiaki Taoka.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612897306

9781282897304

1282897306

9789027287601

9027287600

OCLC:

690177210