Publications
Publication details [#59896]
Perek, Florent. 2015. Argument Structure in Usage-Based Construction Grammar. Experimental and corpus-based perspectives. (Constructional Approaches to Language 17). John Benjamins. x, 246 pp.
Publication type
Book – monograph
Publication language
English
Keywords
Language as a subject
Annotation
The argument structure of verbs, defined as the part of grammar that deals with how participants in verbal events are expressed in clauses, is a classical topic in linguistics that has received considerable attention in the literature. This book investigates argument structure in English from a usage-based perspective, taking the view that the cognitive representation of grammar is shaped by language use, and that crucial aspects of grammatical organization are tied to the frequency with which words and syntactic constructions are used. On the basis of several case studies combining quantitative corpus studies and psycholinguistic experiments, it is shown how a usage-based approach sheds new light on a number of issues in argument realization and offers frequency-based explanations for its organizing principles at three levels of generality: verbs, constructions, and argument structure alternations.