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Nodes and Networks in Diachronic Construction Grammar
Edited by Lotte Sommerer and Elena Smirnova
[Constructional Approaches to Language 27] 2020
► pp. 69–103

Constructionalization, constructional competition and constructional death

Investigating the demise of Old English POSS DEM constructions

This paper revisits POSS DEM constructions in Old English (OE) by analyzing 13 OE prose texts from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE). It aims to explain the marginalization and ultimate demise of this constructional family by discussing how the emergence of a new node (“constructionalization”) but also the reorganization of node-external, vertical and horizontal links can lead to constructional competition and ultimately to the disappearance of (a) node(s) in the network. It will especially discuss frequency effects and cognitive factors like strong/weak entrenchment or analogical thinking as driving forces of network change, especially constructional loss. Additionally, this paper makes some suggestions on how constructions should be annotated and sketched in networks.

Keywords: nominal determination, co-occurrence of determinatives, determination slot, constructionalization, node loss, constructional death, analogy
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The phenomenon
    • 2.1Questioning the existence of co-occurrence patterns
    • 2.2Co-occurrence as a Latin calque
    • 2.3Additional characteristic features
  • 3.Empirical analysis
    • 3.1Analyzing the four constructional subtypes
      • 3.1.1[[DEMinfl]+[POSSinfl]+[ADJinfl]+[CNinfl]]NPdef construction
      • 3.1.2The [[DEMinfl]+[POSSinfl]+[CNinfl]]NPdef construction
      • 3.1.3The [[POSSinfl]+[DEMinfl]+[ADJinfl]+[CNinfl]]NPdef construction
      • 3.1.4[[POSSinfl]+[DEMinfl]+[CNinfl]]NPdef construction
    • 3.2Testing the variable ‘text type’ and ‘historical period’
  • 4.A constructional sketch
    • 4.1A constructional family: Nodes in the network
    • 4.2Constructional loss: Demise of the constructional family
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Manuscripts used
  • Statistics programs used
Published online: 13 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.27.02som
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