Of travels and travails: The role of semantic typology, argument structure constructions, and language contact in semantic change

This paper is an investigation into the role of argument structure constructions as catalysts or blockers of lexical semantic change. It presents a case study of the divergent semantic development of French travailler ‘work’ and English travel ‘journey’ from their shared earlier meaning ‘labour, toil’. This divergence is shown to not be random: It can be explained as a product of the different intransitive motion constructions (IMCs) and different communicative habits in these two languages. Consequently, the development of travailler ‘journey’ in the Anglo-Norman dialect of French can be understood as the result of contact influence of Middle English. By pointing to similar instances in which verbs meaning ‘labour, toil’ have acquired a polysemous ‘motion’ sense in languages with an IMC that can coerce non-motion verbs into contextual motion readings, the paper argues that this is most probably a regular semantic trajectory in satellite-framing, manner-conflating languages.

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

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.

Trailing Harry Potter into Romanian

Characteristic of English and other Germanic languages, Goal of Motion constructions represent a challenge for any translator rendering them into a Romance language. This is because to express the motion of an entity to/towards a Goal in a particular manner, English typically combines a manner-of-motion verb or a verb of sound emission with a dynamic preposition like into in He ran into the park. However, the combination is not generally available in Romanian and other Romance languages, since they not only lack dynamic prepositions, but also have far fewer manner-of-motion verbs. Consequently, to render Goal of Motion into Romanian with as little loss as possible, a translator will have to resort to various translation techniques to compensate not only for the lack of dynamic prepositions in this language, but also for its far poorer class of manner-of-motion verbs. This paper proposes several strategies for the translation of Goal of Motion constructions into Romanian and shows that they depend on the lexical and syntactic resources available in this language. An analysis of the techniques employed in a selected sample from two Romanian translations of the Harry Potter series indicates that the translators' strategies generally mirror Talmy's (1985, 2000) typological classification of Germanic and Romance languages into satellite-framed and verb-framed languages, respectively.

Transfer Phenomena in Bilingual Language Acquisition: The Case of Caused-Motion Constructions

Usage-based approaches suggest that children gradually build abstract syntactic patterns, called constructions, through processes of abstraction and schematization from the input they receive. Bilingual children have the challenge of learning two sets of non-equivalent constructions when they build their constructicon. This can result in deviations from monolinguals, which are commonly referred to as transfer. Targeting the expression of the caused-motion construction, the present study focuses on idiosyncratic utterances, those that do not correspond to monolingual adult language use, in three different age groups (4, 6, and 8 years old) of German–French bilingual children in comparison to monolingual control groups. The quantitative analysis showed that idiosyncrasies could be found in both groups, but with significantly higher rates in bilinguals at all ages. In a qualitative analysis, idiosyncratic utterances were clustered into three different types: syntactic patterns, use of verbs, and directional phrases. Regarding the analysis of these types, the influence of French could be shown. In order to classify this linguistic phenomenon in a usage-based approach, we propose to consider transfer as a form of overgeneralization within the bilingual constructicon.

The effects of extensive reading on young Korean students’ construction development

This study explores how input-focused implicit learning through extensive reading (ER) facilitates construction development in Korean-speaking young EFL students. Twenty-four EFL students, 10–13 years old, participated in ER as an after-school activity for four weeks (ER group). Their construction development in writing was assessed using seven argument structure constructions. The ER group’s performance preceding and following ER activities was compared to 24 young EFL students who did not engage in ER (baseline group). The results showed that the ER group improved their production of ditransitive and caused-motion constructions. Compared to the baseline group, the ER group not only produced a greater number of these constructions, but also used a wider variety of verbs not observed prior to the ER experiences, indicating an expansion of their linguistic knowledge with the target constructions. We conclude by addressing the pedagogical implications for using ER with young EFL students.

Prepositional phrases in German in Austria – identifying patterns of variation

German in Austria is claimed to be shaped by wide-spread dialect use and historical language contact. In this context, variation in prepositional phrases (PPs) is frequently cited, but still underresearched. Three linguistic variables are particularly interesting: (1) preposition choice (p-choice), (2) case marking in PPs and (3) preposition–determiner contractions. The present study aims at identifying linguistic and sociolinguistic – including regional – patterns of variation in the realization of PPs with two-way prepositions in German in Austria on the basis of natural production data including formal and informal registers from urban and rural adults of different age groups and different socioeconomic backgrounds living in Bavarian regions of Austria. The data were compared against the German standard variety from Germany to identify all constructions (possibly) specific for German in Austria. Results indicate that p-choice (particularly in directed motion constructions) shows mostly regional effects: South Bavarian varieties are characterized by preposition drop, whereas in the other regions, the preposition auf ‘on(to)’ seems overrepresented. However, case marking is more dependent on sociodemographic variables and accusative–dative syncretism appears more frequently in plural than in singular contexts. Finally, specific preposition–determiner contractions are widespread across all regions and groups investigated, even in (close-to-)standard registers.

World-Wide Comparative Evidence for Calquing of Valency Patterns in Creoles

Creole languages consistently show valency patterns that cannot be traced back to their lexifier languages, but derive from their substrate languages. In this paper, I start out from the observation that a convincing case for substrate influence can be made by adopting a world-wide comparative approach. If there are recurrent matches between substrate and creole structures in a given construction type, in creoles of different world regions and with different substrates, then we can exclude the possibility of an accident, and substrate influence is the only explanation. The construction types that I will look at are ditransitive constructions (Section 3), weather constructions (Section 4), experiencer constructions (Section 5), and motion constructions (Section 6). I will draw on the unique typological data source from the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures (Michaelis et al., 2013a; 2013b). My conclusion is that the data provided in AP i CS support the claim that during creolization, valency patterns have been systematically calqued into the nascent creoles.