Chapter published in:
Nodes and Networks in Diachronic Construction GrammarEdited by Lotte Sommerer and Elena Smirnova
[Constructional Approaches to Language 27] 2020
► pp. 213–242
Allostructions, homostructions or a constructional family?
Changes in the network of secondary predicate constructions in Middle English
The network of prepositional secondary predicate
constructions has undergone massive changes throughout the history
of English. While in Old English forms marked with to (e.g. crown someone as king) used to dominate, forms marked with as dominate
in Present-Day English (e.g. crown someone as king). The present
paper studies the changes in the network of such constructions
marked with as, for, into, and to in the Middle English
period by analysing changes in frequency and semantic similarity. A
corpus study in the PPCME2 was conducted, based on a Distributional
Semantic Model. The results indicate a sudden turning point in the
early Middle English period whereby to-marked forms
quickly lost their importance. In addition to providing insights
into the (changing) nature of polysemic links and allostructions,
the description of constructions copied from Anglo-Norman introduces
a language contact component to the framework of Diachronic
Construction Grammar.
Keywords: secondary predication, Middle English, modal expressions, distributional semantics, language contact
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Secondary predicate constructions in Present-Day English and in
the history of English
- 2.1Characterisation of secondary predicate constructions in Present-Day English
- 2.2Diachronic developments of prepositional secondary predicate constructions in the history of English
- 3.Allostructions, polysemy and homostructions in the network of secondary predicate constructions
- 4.Empirical analysis: Methodology
- 5.Empirical analysis: Results
- 5.1Changes in frequency
- 5.2The rise of French-based verbs
- 5.3Development of semantic differences
- 6.Changes in the network of prepositional secondary predicates constructions
- 7.Conclusion
-
Notes -
References
Published online: 13 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.27.06per
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.27.06per
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Cited by
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