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Distributional assimilation in constructional semantics

On contact-related semantic shifts in Afrikaans three-argument constructions
  • Timothy Colleman
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Constructions in Contact
This chapter is in the book Constructions in Contact

Abstract

This paper brings a contact linguistic perspective to the investigation of variation and change in the semantic structures of schematic argument structure constructions, i.e. diachronic constructional semasiology. The empirical focus is on three clusters of ongoing change in the lexical and semantic possibilities of three-argument constructions in Afrikaans that can plausibly be related to interlingual identification with formally and functionally similar English argument structure constructions. The main theoretical argument is that the concept of distributional assimilation as introduced by Gast & van der Auwera (2012) can be fruitfully extended to constructional semantics.

Abstract

This paper brings a contact linguistic perspective to the investigation of variation and change in the semantic structures of schematic argument structure constructions, i.e. diachronic constructional semasiology. The empirical focus is on three clusters of ongoing change in the lexical and semantic possibilities of three-argument constructions in Afrikaans that can plausibly be related to interlingual identification with formally and functionally similar English argument structure constructions. The main theoretical argument is that the concept of distributional assimilation as introduced by Gast & van der Auwera (2012) can be fruitfully extended to constructional semantics.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface 1
  4. Part I. Constructions in contact
  5. Construction Grammar and language contact 5
  6. Grammar is community-specific 37
  7. Part II. Constructional variation and change in contact
  8. Towards a constructional analysis of the progressive aspect in Texas German 73
  9. Tense and aspect marking in (Low) German perfect constructions based on variety contact 115
  10. Distributional assimilation in constructional semantics 143
  11. Part III. Item-based patterns and constructional generalizations in contact
  12. Constructions as cross-linguistic generalizations over instances 181
  13. Texas German and English word order constructions in contact 211
  14. Part IV. Semantic frames in contact
  15. A constructional account of the modal particle ‘ja’ in Texas German 253
  16. Frames change in language contact environments 277
  17. Author index 311
  18. Index of constructions 313
  19. Subject index 315
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.24.05col

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface 1
  4. Part I. Constructions in contact
  5. Construction Grammar and language contact 5
  6. Grammar is community-specific 37
  7. Part II. Constructional variation and change in contact
  8. Towards a constructional analysis of the progressive aspect in Texas German 73
  9. Tense and aspect marking in (Low) German perfect constructions based on variety contact 115
  10. Distributional assimilation in constructional semantics 143
  11. Part III. Item-based patterns and constructional generalizations in contact
  12. Constructions as cross-linguistic generalizations over instances 181
  13. Texas German and English word order constructions in contact 211
  14. Part IV. Semantic frames in contact
  15. A constructional account of the modal particle ‘ja’ in Texas German 253
  16. Frames change in language contact environments 277
  17. Author index 311
  18. Index of constructions 313
  19. Subject index 315
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