A Constructional Approach to Resultatives

Download or read book A Constructional Approach to Resultatives written by Hans Christian Boas and published by Stanford Univ Center for the Study. This book was released on 2003 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a unified solution within the frameworks of Construction Grammar and Frame Semantics, Hans Boas develops an account of resultative constructions in English by grouping them in two classes: conventionalized and non-conventionalized. The usage-based model used here proposes that each particular sense of a verb constitutes a conventionalized mini-construction, which is crucial information for the licensing of arguments. In contrast, verbs in non-conventionalized resultative constructions can acquire a novel meaning and thereby a new syntactic frame. English and German resultatives are compared to illustrate the distinct lexical polysemy networks of English and German verbs.