The motivated unmotivated: Variation, function and context
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Hendrik De Smet
Abstract
Variation occurs when a language has two or more ways of achieving the same communicative goal. Cases of variation have been approached in very different ways by two different groups of linguists. Variationists assume that variation is natural and common. On this view, change is due to naturally occurring variation interacting with language-external forces. Functionalists assume that variation is anomalous. On this view, change may reflect a language-internal drive to eradicate variation. In this paper, it is argued that these conflicting views can be reconciled by considering how variation functions in the broader context of the grammar. Drawing on a case study into the prepositional complements following emotion adjectives, it is proposed that variation (as Variationists maintain) is natural and that languages have no intrinsic tendency to reduce variability. Nevertheless, the synchronic availability and historical development of specific variants is (as Functionalists maintain) also internally motivated, typically by analogical relations.
Abstract
Variation occurs when a language has two or more ways of achieving the same communicative goal. Cases of variation have been approached in very different ways by two different groups of linguists. Variationists assume that variation is natural and common. On this view, change is due to naturally occurring variation interacting with language-external forces. Functionalists assume that variation is anomalous. On this view, change may reflect a language-internal drive to eradicate variation. In this paper, it is argued that these conflicting views can be reconciled by considering how variation functions in the broader context of the grammar. Drawing on a case study into the prepositional complements following emotion adjectives, it is proposed that variation (as Variationists maintain) is natural and that languages have no intrinsic tendency to reduce variability. Nevertheless, the synchronic availability and historical development of specific variants is (as Functionalists maintain) also internally motivated, typically by analogical relations.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- List of tables and figures VII
- Grammar – discourse – context: Grammatical variation and change and the usage-based perspective 1
- Contextualizing Old English noun phrases 15
- Syntax, text type, genre and authorial voice in Old English: A data-driven approach 49
- The intensifier system of the Ormulum and the interplay of micro-level and macro-level contexts in linguistic change 93
- Constructional change across the lifespan: The nominative and infinitive in early modern writers 125
- Contextualizing dual-form adverbs in the Old Bailey Corpus: An assessment of semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic factors 157
- Bridging contexts in the reanalysis of naturally as a sentence adverb: A corpus study 191
- From parataxis to amalgamation: The emergence of the sentence-final is all construction in the history of American English 221
- The role of context in the entrenchment of new grammatical markers in World Englishes 249
- Paradigms, host classes, and ancillariness: A comparison of three approaches to grammatical status 277
- The motivated unmotivated: Variation, function and context 305
- Grammar in context: On the role of hypercharacterization in language variation and change 333
- List of contributors 365
- Index 367
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- List of tables and figures VII
- Grammar – discourse – context: Grammatical variation and change and the usage-based perspective 1
- Contextualizing Old English noun phrases 15
- Syntax, text type, genre and authorial voice in Old English: A data-driven approach 49
- The intensifier system of the Ormulum and the interplay of micro-level and macro-level contexts in linguistic change 93
- Constructional change across the lifespan: The nominative and infinitive in early modern writers 125
- Contextualizing dual-form adverbs in the Old Bailey Corpus: An assessment of semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic factors 157
- Bridging contexts in the reanalysis of naturally as a sentence adverb: A corpus study 191
- From parataxis to amalgamation: The emergence of the sentence-final is all construction in the history of American English 221
- The role of context in the entrenchment of new grammatical markers in World Englishes 249
- Paradigms, host classes, and ancillariness: A comparison of three approaches to grammatical status 277
- The motivated unmotivated: Variation, function and context 305
- Grammar in context: On the role of hypercharacterization in language variation and change 333
- List of contributors 365
- Index 367
