Exploring the pedagogical potential of vertical and horizontal relations in the constructicon:The case of the family of subjective-transitive constructions with decir in Spanish

Francisco Gonzálvez-García

doi:10.1515/iral-2018-2009

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Exploring the pedagogical potential of vertical and horizontal relations in the constructicon:The case of the family of subjective-transitive constructions with decir in Spanish

Francisco Gonzálvez-García

Published/Copyright: December 6, 2018

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From the journal International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching Volume 57 Issue 1

Abstract

This paper explores the pedagogical implications and implementations of a Cognitive Construction Grammar (Goldberg, Adele E. 2006. Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. New York: Oxford University Press) approach for the teaching of construal in the L2 class of Spanish at an advanced level. To this end, this paper focuses on instances of secondary predication (involving a direct object and an object-related XPCOMP) with decir “say” and other verbs of saying and calling in present-day Spanish, under the rubric of the denominative subjective-transitive construction. This construction comprises a number of lower-level configurations involving a reflexive direct object (the reflexive subjective-transitive construction), and an imperative verb (the imperative subjective-transitive construction). The verb decir is also frequently attested in the reflex passive construction (the impersonal subjective-transitive construction), under which two different, though closely connected, lexically-filled lo que se dice XPCOMP configurations can be posited, which may function as a focusing/emphasizer subjunct or as a summative conjunct in present-day Spanish. A default inheritance system of the type invoked in Cognitive Construction Grammar is shown to capture broad and specific generalizations at a horizontal level (among the verbs attested in the (sub-)construction(s)) and a vertical level (among constructions of varying degrees of specificity) and can thus be informally used to optimize the pedagogical efficiency of the input for the explicit instruction of grammar in the advanced Spanish L2 class.

Keywords: construction; construal; coercion; inheritance; contrastive (English-Spanish); pedagogical/applied construction grammar; teaching of Spanish as a foreign language

Acknowledgements

Financial support from research project FFI2017-82730-P funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to thank Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Christopher Butler, as well as the editors of the volume for their constructive criticism on a previous draft. Any remaining weakness is, of course, my sole responsibility.

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Published Online: 2018-12-06

Published in Print: 2019-02-25

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2018-2009

Keywords for this article

construction; construal; coercion; inheritance; contrastive (English-Spanish); pedagogical/applied construction grammar; teaching of Spanish as a foreign language