Grammatical categories as paradigms in Construction Grammar
This squib discusses the question whether Construction Grammar can account for the assumption of universal grammatical
categories (Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994) that are prone to language change, e.g. tense.
Most publications in Construction Grammar tackle individual constructions, such as the way-construction (Jackendoff 1990). But it remains unclear how grammatical categories as a universal phenomenon can be
described in constructionist terms. We propose that there is a way to (a) describe grammatical categories, which per definition are encoded
paradigmatically, as constructions themselves and (b) to thereby strengthen the assumption of a set of universal grammatical categories.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Grammatical functions and grammatical categories
- 3.What’s (in) a paradigm?
- 4.Bridging the gap: Paradigms and constructions
- 5.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
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References