New Benjamins title: Boas - Contrastive Studies in Construction Grammar

[Paul Peranteau]

Contrastive Studies in Construction Grammar
Edited by Hans C. Boas University of Texas, Austin

Constructional Approaches to Language 10
2010. vii, 244 pp.

Hardbound 978 90 272 0432 5 / EUR 90.00 / USD 135.00

e-Book – Available from e-book platforms
978 90 272 8760 1 / EUR 90.00 / USD 135.00

The papers in this volume provide a contrastive application of 
Construction Grammar. By referencing a well-described constructional 
phenomenon in English, each paper provides a solid foundation for 
describing and analyzing its constructional counterpart in another 
language. This approach shows that the semantic description (including 
discourse-pragmatic and functional factors) of an English construction 
can be regarded as a first step towards a "tertium comparationis" that 
can be employed for comparing and contrasting the formal properties of 
constructional counterparts in other languages. Thus, the meaning pole 
of constructions should be regarded as the primary basis for comparisons 
of constructions across languages – the form pole is only secondary. 
This volume shows that constructions are viable descriptive and 
analytical tools for cross-linguistic comparisons that make it possible 
to capture both language-specific (idiosyncratic) properties as well as 
cross-linguistic generalizations.

Table of contents

Acknowledgments vii–viii
Comparing constructions across languages
Hans C. Boas 1–20
Comparing comparatives: A corpus-based study of comparative 
constructions in English and Swedish
Martin Hilpert 21–42
Contrasting constructions in English and Spanish: The influence of 
semantic, pragmatic, and discourse factors
Francisco Gonzálvez García 43–86
Conditional constructions in English and Russian
Olga Gurevich 87–102
Results, cases, and constructions: Argument structure constructions in 
English and Finnish
Jaakko Leino 103–136
A contrastive study 
of the caused-motion 
and ditransitive 
constructions in English and Thai: Semantic and pragmatic constraints
Napasri Timyam and Benjamin K. Bergen 137–168
On expressing measurement and comparison in English and Japanese
Yoko Hasegawa, Russell Lee-Goldman, Kyoko Hirose Ohara, Seiko Fujii and 
Charles J. Fillmore 169–200
Revising Talmy’s typological classification of complex event constructions
William Croft, Jóhanna Barddal, Willem Hollmann, Violeta Sotirova and 
Chiaki Taoka 201–236
Index of constructions 237–238
Index of languages 239–240
Author index 241–242
Subject index 243–244



-- 
Paul M. Peranteau
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