Grammar is community-specific
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Steffen Höder
Abstract
Mainstream grammatical theory and traditional grammaticography concentrate on single languages or varieties, which are conceptualised as pre-existing, distinct entities and analysed in terms of coherent, static, ideally variation-free language systems. This is in stark contrast to actual language usage, where various kinds of structural contact phenomena are the rule rather than the exception. In line with recent insights from contact linguistics, Diasystematic Construction Grammar assumes that multilingual speakers and communities organise their grammatical knowledge on the basis of the available input via processes of interlingual identification, abstraction, generalisation, and categorisation, regardless of language boundaries. This results in a community-specific multilingual constructicon, comprising both language-specific constructions (restricted to certain communicative contexts associated with a particular language) and constructions unspecified for language.
Abstract
Mainstream grammatical theory and traditional grammaticography concentrate on single languages or varieties, which are conceptualised as pre-existing, distinct entities and analysed in terms of coherent, static, ideally variation-free language systems. This is in stark contrast to actual language usage, where various kinds of structural contact phenomena are the rule rather than the exception. In line with recent insights from contact linguistics, Diasystematic Construction Grammar assumes that multilingual speakers and communities organise their grammatical knowledge on the basis of the available input via processes of interlingual identification, abstraction, generalisation, and categorisation, regardless of language boundaries. This results in a community-specific multilingual constructicon, comprising both language-specific constructions (restricted to certain communicative contexts associated with a particular language) and constructions unspecified for language.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface 1
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Part I. Constructions in contact
- Construction Grammar and language contact 5
- Grammar is community-specific 37
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Part II. Constructional variation and change in contact
- Towards a constructional analysis of the progressive aspect in Texas German 73
- Tense and aspect marking in (Low) German perfect constructions based on variety contact 115
- Distributional assimilation in constructional semantics 143
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Part III. Item-based patterns and constructional generalizations in contact
- Constructions as cross-linguistic generalizations over instances 181
- Texas German and English word order constructions in contact 211
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Part IV. Semantic frames in contact
- A constructional account of the modal particle ‘ja’ in Texas German 253
- Frames change in language contact environments 277
- Author index 311
- Index of constructions 313
- Subject index 315
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface 1
-
Part I. Constructions in contact
- Construction Grammar and language contact 5
- Grammar is community-specific 37
-
Part II. Constructional variation and change in contact
- Towards a constructional analysis of the progressive aspect in Texas German 73
- Tense and aspect marking in (Low) German perfect constructions based on variety contact 115
- Distributional assimilation in constructional semantics 143
-
Part III. Item-based patterns and constructional generalizations in contact
- Constructions as cross-linguistic generalizations over instances 181
- Texas German and English word order constructions in contact 211
-
Part IV. Semantic frames in contact
- A constructional account of the modal particle ‘ja’ in Texas German 253
- Frames change in language contact environments 277
- Author index 311
- Index of constructions 313
- Subject index 315
