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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. 243–274

Converging variations and the emergence of horizontal links

To-contraction in American English

The guiding question of this paper is how (horizontal) connections are established when new items enter the network of constructions. It presents a quantitative, corpus-based study of the development of to-contraction (e.g. want to > wanna) in American English since the 19th century. From a plethora of earlier forms, gonna, wanna and gotta emerge, first as representations of phonetic reduction, but in time claiming their place as newly emerged, separate nodes in the constructional network. As their frequency increases, their usage patterns (relative to the full form) become increasingly similar. I propose that this marks the emergence of a horizontal link, which can be described as an emerging “metaconstruction”. The study discusses the status of these forms as either phonetic variants, potential allostructions, or independent form–meaning pairings, and provides first-hand evidence for emergent connections via mechanisms of analogy in language. Moreover, it makes an argument that (changing) usage patterns reflect (changing) constructional links and degrees of entrenchment.
Keywords: modal expressions, horizontal links, analogy, metaconstruction, contraction
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Horizontal links and the emergence of schemata
  • 2.To-infinitives and contractions
  • 3.Corpus study 1: The history of non-conventional to-contraction
  • 4.Corpus study 2: Determinants of variation of contracted and full forms in the 20th century
    • 4.1Determinants of variation
      • 4.1.1Variables measuring the degree of entrenchment
        • Sentence type
        • Ellipsis
        • Sentence length
      • 4.1.2Variables measuring the degree of conventionalization
        • Register: Latin-based collocate
        • Genre: Movie vs Drama
      • 4.1.3Variables relating to both entrenchment and conventionalization
        • Attraction
        • Linguistic context: Subject
    • 4.2Modeling the data
    • 4.3Results
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Contractions in the constructional network and the emergence of horizontal links
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 13 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.27.07lor
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