Grounding Meaning in Everyday Experience in the World: An Embodied Construction Grammar Analysis of Italian Caused-Motion Constructions

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrico Torre
Keyword(s):  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Everyday Experience ◽  
The World ◽  
Motion Constructions ◽  
Grammar Analysis

A construction grammar analysis of the transitivebeperfect in present-day Canadian English

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
YURI YERASTOV
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Fixed Material ◽  
Grammar Analysis ◽  
Generative Approach ◽  
Surface Realization

This article offers a syntactic analysis of the construction [be doneNP], e.g.I am done dinner, I am finished my homework, as found in Canadian English and some US dialects. After situating this construction in the context of a productive transitivebeperfect in Scots/English dialects, [be doneNP] will be distinguished from a set of its conceptual and structural relatives, and ultimately be shown not to be reducible to a surface realization of another underlying structure. From the perspective of syntactic theory, the article problematizes the parsimony of the mainstream generative approach (most recently in MacFadden & Alexiadou 2010) in accounting for the facts of [be doneNP] on strictly compositional grounds, as well as the mainstream view of lexical items as projecting theta grids and subcategorization frames (as e.g. in Grimshaw 1979; Emonds 2000). Following Fillmoreet al.(1988), Goldberg (1995, 2005) and others, what will be suggested instead is a construction grammar approach to [be doneNP], under which a construction holistically licenses its argument structure. Along these lines [be doneNP] will be characterized as an abstract construction with some fixed material.

scholarly journals Towards a Hylomorphic Solution to the Grounding Problem

2018 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 333-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathrin Koslicki
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Kit Fine ◽  
The World ◽  
Grounding Problem ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Do So

AbstractConcrete particular objects (e.g. living organisms) figure saliently in our everyday experience as well as our in our scientific theorizing about the world. Ahylomorphicanalysis of concrete particular objects holds that these entities are, in some sense, compounds of matter (hūlē) and form (morphēoreidos). TheGrounding Problemasks why an object and its matter (e.g. a statue and the clay that constitutes it) can apparently differ with respect to certain of their properties (e.g. the clay's ability to survive being squashed, as compared to the statue's inability to do so), even though they are otherwise so much alike. In this paper, I argue that a hylomorphic analysis of concrete particular objects, in conjunction with a non-modal conception of essence of the type encountered for example in the works of Aristotle and Kit Fine, has the resources to yield a solution to the Grounding Problem.

Enchantment

2020 ◽  
pp. 982-995
Author(s):  
Scott Burnham ◽  
Gordon Graham
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Material World ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The World ◽  
Spatial Terms ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Descriptive Language ◽  
Piano Prelude

In this essay, a philosopher (Graham) and a music analyst (Burnham) explore the nature of music’s power to enchant. Graham establishes this enchantment as the result of a desirable relocation into an alternative sonic world that nevertheless shares important features with the everyday material world. The huge range of descriptive language that music is able to sustain, including temporal and spatial terms, reveals the tangential relationship of music to the world of everyday experience, while more specifically musical terms (for example, cadenza) show that music operates as a truly different world. Burnham elaborates on the emotional rewards of relocation into the world of music by describing our investment in two specific musical worlds, a brief Chopin piano prelude and Barber’s Adagio for Strings. We are eager to be put under the spell of such pieces because relocations into the enchanted worlds of music ultimately anchor and enhance our sense of self.

scholarly journals English and Russian Genitive Alternations: A Study in Construction Typology

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-116
Author(s):  
Sergei Monakhov
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Structural Similarity ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
Genitive Case

There is little doubt that one of the most important areas of future research within the framework of Construction Grammar will be the comparative study of constructions in different languages of the world. One significant gain that modern Construction Grammar can make thanks to the cross-linguistic perspective is finding a clue to some contradictory cases of construction alternation. The aim of the present paper is to communicate the results of a case study of two pairs of alternating constructions in English and Russian: s-genitive (SG) and of-genitive (OG) in English and noun + noun in genitive case (NNG) and relative adjective derived from noun + noun (ANG) in Russian. It is evident that the long years of elaborate scientific analysis have not yielded any universally accepted view on the problem of English genitive alternation. There are at least five different accounts of this problem: the hypotheses of the animacy hierarchy, given-new hierarchy, topic-focus hierarchy, end-weight principle, and two semantically distinct constructions. We hypothesised that in this case the comparison of the distribution of two English and two Russian genitives could be insightful. The analysis presupposed two consecutive steps. First, we established an inter-language comparability of two pairs of constructions in English and Russian. Second, we tested the similarity of intra-language distribution of each pair of constructions from the perspective of the animacy hierarchy. For these two purposes, two types of corpora were used: (1) a translation corpus consisting of original texts in one language and their translations into one or more languages; and (2) national corpora consisting of original texts in two respective languages. It was established that in both languages, the choice between members of an alternating pair is governed by the rules of animacy hierarchisation. Additionally, it was possible to disprove the idea that the animacy hierarchy is necessarily based on the linearisation hierarchy. Two Russian constructions are typologically aligned with their English counterparts, not on the grounds of the linear order of head and modifier but on the grounds of structural similarity. The English SG and Russian NNG construction are diametrically opposed in terms of word order. However, they reveal the same underlying structure of the inflectional genitive as contrasted with the analytical genitive of the Russian ANG and the English OG. These findings speak strongly in favour of the animacy hierarchy account of English genitive alternation.

scholarly journals Unraveling the Mysteries of Childhood: Metaphorical Portrayals of Children in Margaret Atwood’s Fiction

2018 ◽  
pp. 29-50
Author(s):  
Teresa Gibert
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Positive Representations

Most metaphorical expressions related to children in Margaret Atwood’s novels and short stories can be grouped into two coherent sets. The predominant negative set includes a wide range of monsters and hideous animals, whereas the much shorter list of positive representations encompasses sunflowers, jewels, feathers, little angels, gifts and lambs. Negative representations of children in Atwood’s fiction are generally rendered in an unconventional manner and reflect the frustration felt by realistically portrayed characters in their everyday experience. On the contrary, favorable expressions have a tendency toward stereotype and often belong to the world of memories, dreams and illusions.

scholarly journals Towards a construction grammar account of the distributive PO in Polish

2015 ◽  
pp. 165-176
Author(s):  
Adam Przepiórkowski
Keyword(s):  
Potential Problem ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Grammar Analysis ◽  
Apparent Ability

Towards a construction grammar account of the distributive PO in PolishPolish distributive constructions involving the form po are well known for their syntactic and semantic idiosyncrasy. The aim of this paper is to show that, contrary to the received wisdom, two different lexemes po take part in such constructions: a preposition and an adnumeral operator. This explains some of the idiosyncratic behaviour, namely, the apparent ability of po to combine with different grammatical cases. A preliminary Construction Grammar analysis is proposed which eschews the potential problem of missed generalisations that such a dual account of po might engender.

scholarly journals Zur idiomatischen Komponente auffälliger kausativer Konstruktionen im Deutschen

2018 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martine Dalmas ◽  
Laurent Gautier
Keyword(s):  
Construction Grammar ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Semantic Level ◽  
Causative Constructions ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
Motion Constructions ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Given

This paper aims to analyze German caused-motion constructions such as jn aus dem Bett klingeln from both a phraseological and constructional perspective. Section 1 shows how the traditional definition of phraseologisms is nowadays challenged by new developments in construction grammar, especially within Goldberg’s framework. Section 2 focuses on the various possibilities existing in German to express causativity and proposes a continuum from mere morphological signs to the constructions under consideration here. Section 3 exemplifies the cognitive inscription of these causative constructions through the underlying frame semantic level. In section 4 we finally argue that several aspects of these structures, such as lexical constraint, figuration, and productivity suggest that some kinds of constructions should be integrated, at least peripherally, into the phraseological system of the given language.

Feminist Critiques, Visions, and Models of the Church

2018 ◽  
pp. 526-552
Author(s):  
Elaine Graham
Keyword(s):  
Historical Evidence ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Full Participation ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
The Church

Women have been vastly under-represented within the church’s ministries. Feminist ecclesiologies invariably begin from this situation of invisibility and discrimination, whilst arguing for the historic and contemporary legitimacy of women’s full participation alongside men. Feminist critiques and reconstructions have drawn on biblical and historical evidence in order to refute patterns of hierarchy and exclusion in favour of more egalitarian traditions of the church as a community of equals. The various strands of the ‘Women-Church’ movement have also been central to a practical feminist ecclesiology, in which women have sought new ways to name their everyday experience as sacred and to exercise new patterns of ministry and leadership. Institutionally-led initiatives, such as the World Council of Churches’ programme on The Community of Women and Men in the Church, have met with mixed success, although worship has been one of the most creative well-springs of feminist activity and renewal.

The issue of specifying slots in argument structure constructions in terms of form and meaning

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Herbst ◽  
Peter Uhrig
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Formal Specifications ◽  
Motion Constructions

Abstract In Construction Grammar theory, constructions are generally described as form-meaning pairings. It will be argued here that the formal specifications of some abstract constructions are so vague that the notion of form needs to be discussed rather critically. We aim to demonstrate how, in the English predicative and intransitive-motion constructions, the slots of more general constructions can be seen as being specified indirectly through sets of mini-constructions.

Cognitive Sociolinguistic Aspects of Football Chants: The Role of Social and Physical Context in Usage-based Construction Grammar

2015 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Physical Context ◽  
Context Factors ◽  
Grammar Analysis ◽  
Authentic Language ◽  
Context Constraints

AbstractUsage-based approaches to language stress that a speaker’s mental grammar arises from and is shaped by language use and that the resulting mental representations include rich contextual linguistic and non-linguistic information. Yet, despite the fact that sociolinguistic research has pointed out the great importance of social and physical context factors as well as individual styles that speakers draw on to create their linguistic identities in authentic language use, usage-based Construction Grammar approaches have so far not paid enough attention to these phenomena. While the growing field of Cognitive Sociolinguistics has already tried to incorporate a wide variety of sociolinguistic phenomena into their cognitive analyses, most Construction Grammar approaches usually only include sociolinguistic parameters (such as text type, register or dialect) as independent variables in their analyses. In this paper, I argue that such an approach ignores recent sociolinguistic insights into the active stylization of individuals by dynamic linguistic acts of identity. In this paper, I will show the importance of these insights by focussing on English football chants. First, I will illustrate how football chants can be analysed as linguistic constructions that are constrained by complex social and physical context factors. In a next step, I will then argue that the complex social and physical context constraints as well as the potential to function as linguistic acts of identity are not only relevant for these types of constructions, but also need to be taken into account in usage-based Construction Grammar analysis in general.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document