Article published In:
Cognitive Linguistic StudiesVol. 9:1 (2022) ► pp.1–30
Individual differences in the decline of the Deontic nci construction
A radically usage-based exploratory investigation
This paper addresses the question of the (speaker-level) ‘cognitive how’ of (language-level) constructional attrition, defined as a systemic decrease in the occurrence of a construction in the history of a language. Presenting and analysing data from an historical idiolectal corpus on the frequency development in individual speakers’ use of a partially schematic construction instantiated by such types as be obliged to and be permitted to, it offers a first attempt to measure whether a general decline in the frequency of this construction can also be observed to be an internal development during a speaker’s lifespan. The results confirm this to be the case in a sizeable group of speakers and the paper provides an initial insight into how this may contribute to a genuinely cognitive account of the speaker-external development.
Keywords: diachronic construction grammar, usage-based model, individual differences, constructional attrition, periphrastic modals, deontic modality, Late Modern English, Corpus of English Novels
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background and problem
- 3.Methodology
- 4.Results
- 4.1Frequency averages and ranges
- 4.2Frequency development
- 4.2.1Authors using the Deontic nci construction less in later life
- 4.2.2Authors using the Deontic nci construction more in later life
- 4.2.3Authors using the Deontic nci construction as much in late as in early career
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
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2024. Culture in a radically usage-based model of language change, with special reference to constructional attrition. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 22:1 ► pp. 100 ff.
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