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Cognitive Linguistic Studies
Vol. 4:2 (2017) ► pp.273–292

When tense meets constructional meaning

The realis and irrealis alternation in the enough construction

| University of Kitakyushu (Japan)

Construction Grammar, one of the major frameworks in Cognitive Linguistics, has been successful in providing accounts of a wide range of empirical data. The approach has recently placed great emphasis on low-level generalizations, and some studies have argued that a constructional meaning is often associated only with a specific lexical item. Therefore, by investigating in detail the form [copula be + Adj. + enough + to-infinitive], the present study proposes that the combinatorial potential of the intensifier enough and the derived constructional meanings are sensitive to tense, thus emphasizing the importance of ‘item- and tense-specific constructions’.

Keywords: construction grammar, scale structures, tense, the enough construction
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Construction grammar
    • 2.2Syntactic idiosyncrasy of enough
  • 3.Two approaches to threshold value
    • 3.1The implicit threshold approach
    • 3.2The explicit threshold approach
  • 4.Toward an item- and tense-specific construction
    • 4.1Realis and irrealis interpretations in the enough construction
    • 4.2Comparing be and other copulative verbs
    • 4.3Invited inference
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References


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Published online: 16 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.00005.kiy
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