Edited by Merja Kytö and Erik Smitterberg
[Studies in Language Companion Series 214] 2020
► pp. 143–164
This paper is devoted to explaining the historical development of constructions of the representative locative alternation verbs load and spray from a diachronic construction grammar perspective. These verbs can occur in at least two syntactic frames: the location-as-object variant (e.g., load the wagon with hay) and the locatum-as-object variant (e.g., load hay onto the wagon). These two variants have undergone different historical developments. This paper proposes that the prototype of the constructions with load/spray was the adjectival “[location] (be) loaded/sprayed with [locatum]” construction, from which the location-as-object variant developed. The locatum-as-object variants for load and spray, in contrast, developed in the Present-day English period, independently of the location-as-object variants or, at most, the two variants are linked metonymically.