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Constructing Families of Constructions: Analytical perspectives and theoretical challenges
Edited by Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Alba Luzondo Oyón and Paula Pérez Sobrino
[Human Cognitive Processing 58] 2017
► pp. 175–204

Chapter 6
Revisiting the English resultative family of constructions

A unifying account

| University of La Rioja

The resultative construction has spurred much debate over the last five decades. This proposal, which is embedded within the Cognitive Construction Grammar paradigm, provides a critical discussion on two fine-grained classifications of resultatives, Goldberg and Jackendoff’s (2004) and Luzondo’s (2014), in order to lay the foundations for a new taxonomy. The family of constructions put forward here benefits from both typologies by drawing on their main insights (the inclusion of the creation and transformation configurations as resultatives, or the constraining factors which license lexical constructional fusion) and by making up for some drawbacks (the status of the way construction as part of the broad family of resultatives) with the goal of achieving a greater degree of refinement and accuracy in the description of resultatives.

Keywords: constructional paradigm, family of resultatives, constraining factors, way construction, creation and transformation constructions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Goldberg and Jackendoff’s classification of English resultatives
  • 3.Luzondo’s family of English resultatives
  • 4.A revised classification of resultative constructions in English
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.58.07cer
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