Chapter 9. The English conative as a family of constructions
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Pilar Guerrero Medina
Abstract
This chapter aims to provide a constructionist usage-based analysis of English conative expressions, arguing that a family of related constructions is required to account for the semantico-pragmatic properties of the at-frame in English. Drawing mainly on Broccias’s (2001) and Perek and Lemmens’s (2010) analyses, I challenge Goldberg’s (1995) monosemic analysis of the conative construction, where the ‘directed action’ meaning remains invariable, highlighting the essential role played by the verb’s inherent lexical semantics in determining the specific constructional senses that can be subsumed under the rubric of conative uses. Three distinct configurations are posited: the allative at-construction, instantiated by non-resultative verbs (Tsunoda 1985), the ablative at-construction, instantiated by resultative verbs, and the directional at-construction, compatible with intransitive verbs of ‘visual perception’.
Abstract
This chapter aims to provide a constructionist usage-based analysis of English conative expressions, arguing that a family of related constructions is required to account for the semantico-pragmatic properties of the at-frame in English. Drawing mainly on Broccias’s (2001) and Perek and Lemmens’s (2010) analyses, I challenge Goldberg’s (1995) monosemic analysis of the conative construction, where the ‘directed action’ meaning remains invariable, highlighting the essential role played by the verb’s inherent lexical semantics in determining the specific constructional senses that can be subsumed under the rubric of conative uses. Three distinct configurations are posited: the allative at-construction, instantiated by non-resultative verbs (Tsunoda 1985), the ablative at-construction, instantiated by resultative verbs, and the directional at-construction, compatible with intransitive verbs of ‘visual perception’.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Analytical perspectives on grammatical constructions
- Chapter 1. The role of verbs and verb classes in identifying German search -constructions 17
- Chapter 2. Embodied motivations for abstract in and on constructions 53
- Chapter 3. Doing Tsukahara and the Epley in a cross-linguistic perspective 77
- Chapter 4. The role of inferencing in the interpretation of two expressive speech act constructions 109
- Chapter 5. Exploring inter-constructional relations in the constructicon 135
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Part II. From applications to theory and back
- Chapter 6. Revisiting the English resultative family of constructions 175
- Chapter 7. The family of German dative constructions 205
- Chapter 8. Motivation behind the extended senses of the Polish ditransitive construction 241
- Chapter 9. The English conative as a family of constructions 277
- Chapter 10. Multimodal constructional resemblance 301
- Index 339
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Analytical perspectives on grammatical constructions
- Chapter 1. The role of verbs and verb classes in identifying German search -constructions 17
- Chapter 2. Embodied motivations for abstract in and on constructions 53
- Chapter 3. Doing Tsukahara and the Epley in a cross-linguistic perspective 77
- Chapter 4. The role of inferencing in the interpretation of two expressive speech act constructions 109
- Chapter 5. Exploring inter-constructional relations in the constructicon 135
-
Part II. From applications to theory and back
- Chapter 6. Revisiting the English resultative family of constructions 175
- Chapter 7. The family of German dative constructions 205
- Chapter 8. Motivation behind the extended senses of the Polish ditransitive construction 241
- Chapter 9. The English conative as a family of constructions 277
- Chapter 10. Multimodal constructional resemblance 301
- Index 339
