{"title":"They worked their hardest on the construction’s history: Superlative Objoid Constructions in Late Modern American English","authors":"Tamara Bouso, M. Hundt","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2022-0088","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract English verbs can combine with an object-like (or Objoid) element consisting of a possessive and a superlative. These Superlative Objoids do not add a participant to the event but function like manner adverbs (they work their hardest, i.e. they work extremely hard). This paper is the first to use diachronic evidence from a corpus of Late Modern American English to trace the recent history of Superlative Objoid Constructions (SOC). In particular, it aims to assess whether the construction has become entrenched to the extent that it can give rise to analogical extension. Secondly, the evidence is used to model, within the framework of Construction Grammar, the horizontal and vertical links between the SOC and its (potential) relatives in the constructional network of transitivity changing constructions.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2022-0088","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract English verbs can combine with an object-like (or Objoid) element consisting of a possessive and a superlative. These Superlative Objoids do not add a participant to the event but function like manner adverbs (they work their hardest, i.e. they work extremely hard). This paper is the first to use diachronic evidence from a corpus of Late Modern American English to trace the recent history of Superlative Objoid Constructions (SOC). In particular, it aims to assess whether the construction has become entrenched to the extent that it can give rise to analogical extension. Secondly, the evidence is used to model, within the framework of Construction Grammar, the horizontal and vertical links between the SOC and its (potential) relatives in the constructional network of transitivity changing constructions.
期刊介绍:
Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory (CLLT) is a peer-reviewed journal publishing high-quality original corpus-based research focusing on theoretically relevant issues in all core areas of linguistic research, or other recognized topic areas. It provides a forum for researchers from different theoretical backgrounds and different areas of interest that share a commitment to the systematic and exhaustive analysis of naturally occurring language. Contributions from all theoretical frameworks are welcome but they should be addressed at a general audience and thus be explicit about their assumptions and discovery procedures and provide sufficient theoretical background to be accessible to researchers from different frameworks. Topics Corpus Linguistics Quantitative Linguistics Phonology Morphology Semantics Syntax Pragmatics.