A quantitative approach to the development of complex predicates
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Martin Hilpert
Abstract
This paper traces the historical development of the Swedish Pseudo-Coordination construction with the posture verb sitta “sit”. In Swedish a small number of verbs, including posture verbs such as sitta, are used in coordination with another verb to convey that the described event has an extended duration or is in progress. Quantitative evidence from Swedish historical corpora suggests that the construction has, even after it established itself as a grammatical construction, undergone a number of gradual changes in the course of the past five centuries. As part of the Pseudo-Coordination construction, the verb sitta has changed its argument structure, and the entire construction has increased in syntactic cohesion.
Abstract
This paper traces the historical development of the Swedish Pseudo-Coordination construction with the posture verb sitta “sit”. In Swedish a small number of verbs, including posture verbs such as sitta, are used in coordination with another verb to convey that the described event has an extended duration or is in progress. Quantitative evidence from Swedish historical corpora suggests that the construction has, even after it established itself as a grammatical construction, undergone a number of gradual changes in the course of the past five centuries. As part of the Pseudo-Coordination construction, the verb sitta has changed its argument structure, and the entire construction has increased in syntactic cohesion.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
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Part I. Diachrony
- From nominal to clausal morphosyntax 23
- Re(e)volving complexity 53
- Multiple routes to clause union 81
- On the origins of serial verb constructions in Kalam 119
- A quantitative approach to the development of complex predicates 145
- Elements of complex structures, where recursion isn’t 163
- Nominalization and the origin of subordination 199
- The co-evolution of syntactic and pragmatic complexity 215
- Two pathways of grammatical evolution 239
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Part II. Child language
- On the role of frequency and similarity in the acquisition of subject and non-subject relative clauses 251
- ‘ Starting small ’ effects in the acquisition of early relative constructions in Spanish 277
- The ontogeny of complex verb phrases 311
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Part III. Cognition and neurology
- Syntactic complexity versus concatenation in a verbal production task 391
- The emergence of linguistic complexity 405
- Cognitive and neural underpinnings of syntactic complexity 433
- Neural mechanisms of recursive processing in cognitive and linguistic complexity 461
- Syntactic complexity in the brain 491
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Part IV. Biology and evolution
- Neural plasticity 509
- Recursion 531
- Index 545
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Diachrony
- From nominal to clausal morphosyntax 23
- Re(e)volving complexity 53
- Multiple routes to clause union 81
- On the origins of serial verb constructions in Kalam 119
- A quantitative approach to the development of complex predicates 145
- Elements of complex structures, where recursion isn’t 163
- Nominalization and the origin of subordination 199
- The co-evolution of syntactic and pragmatic complexity 215
- Two pathways of grammatical evolution 239
-
Part II. Child language
- On the role of frequency and similarity in the acquisition of subject and non-subject relative clauses 251
- ‘ Starting small ’ effects in the acquisition of early relative constructions in Spanish 277
- The ontogeny of complex verb phrases 311
-
Part III. Cognition and neurology
- Syntactic complexity versus concatenation in a verbal production task 391
- The emergence of linguistic complexity 405
- Cognitive and neural underpinnings of syntactic complexity 433
- Neural mechanisms of recursive processing in cognitive and linguistic complexity 461
- Syntactic complexity in the brain 491
-
Part IV. Biology and evolution
- Neural plasticity 509
- Recursion 531
- Index 545
