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Changing Structures: Studies in constructions and complementation
Edited by Mark Kaunisto, Mikko Höglund and Paul Rickman
[Studies in Language Companion Series 195] 2018
► pp. 55–68

Goldberg’s Rely On construction

Overreliance on generalization?

| University of Helsinki

Goldberg (2014) proposes one polysemous argument structure construction (ASC) for cases as varied as nibble/rely/bet on something. Inspired by ASCs needed for a semantically similar domain in German, my analysis suggests that a more adequate solution can be reached with three constructions that are semantically further apart than the two sub-senses of Goldberg’s Rely On construction. The solution makes use of Israel’s (1996) empirical findings regarding the historical development of the English way ASC to model the development and interrelationships of the required constructions. Overall, the chapter advocates the advantages of a contrastive approach and the use of diachronic studies to inform synchronic Construction Grammar analyses of specific domains.

Keywords: Construction Grammar, argument structure construction, preposition, contrastive linguistics, German, English
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Goldberg’s Rely On construction
  • 3.Preliminaries for an alternative solution
  • 4.Improved solution
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 May 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.195.04ros
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