27.1095, Confs: Historical Ling, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax/Brazil

Tue Mar 1 20:01:54 UTC 2016

LINGUIST List: Vol-27-1095. Tue Mar 01 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.1095, Confs: Historical Ling, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax/Brazil

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Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2016 15:01:49
From: Tiago Torrent [tiago.torrent at ufjf.edu.br]
Subject: Constructionalization and Constructional Changes

Constructionalization and Constructional Changes 

Date: 05-Oct-2016 - 07-Oct-2016 
Location: Juiz de Fora - Minas Gerais, Brazil 
Contact: Maria Luiza Braga 
Contact Email: malubraga at terra.com.br 
Meeting URL: http://www.ufjf.br/iccg9/home/theme-sessions/constructionalization-and-constructional-changes/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Morphology; Semantics; Syntax 

Meeting Description: 

This theme session discusses case studies of constructionalization and/or
constructional changes of linguistic phenomena. We adopt a constructionalist
approach to language change and conceptualize language as a network of
constructions and links among them. The concept of network is not limited to
the lexicon and is dynamic, which is crucial in explaining linguistic changes.

Constructions are characterized as symbolic pairings of form and meaning and
are analyzed according to their size, their degrees of phonological
specificity and their types of concept, dimensions which are conceived as
being gradient. This means that they can be atomic, complex or intermediate on
the level of size; substantive, schematic or intermediate, on the dimension of
phonological specificity; and contentful, procedural or intermediate on the
dimension of type concept.

Three factors are relevant to the analyses to be presented in this Theme
Session: schematicity, productivity and compositionality. Schematicity can be
discussed int terms of slots and their filling ; produtivity, according to
Bybee (2010) , has to do with frequency, type frequency and token frequency.
Traugott and Trousdale quote Barodal (2008) who says that productivity
“pertains to (partial) schemas and concerns i) their extensibility , the
extent to which they sanction other less schematic contructions, and ii) the
extent to which they are constrained” (2013: 17). Compositionality correlates
to the transparency of the link between form and meaning. Traugott and
Trousdale maintain that in many cases change results in reduced
compositionality (op. cit.)

Some of the papers in this Theme Sessions focus on cases of
constructionalization, whereas others on constructionals changes and in this
regard it is interesting to distinguish these two different types of
linguistic changes. According to Traugott and Trousdale (2013),
Constructionalization is the creation of formnew-meaningnew (combinations of)
signs. It forms new type nodes, which have new syntax or morphology and new
coded meaning in the linguistic network of a population of speakers (2013:
22). Constructional change is a change affecting one internal dimension of a
construction. It does not envolve a new node.(2013:26)

In analyzing their phenomena, we are aware of the potential effects of the
linguistic change on the reconfiguration of the network and of the fact that
change occurs when an innovation first introduced by an individual is
replicated in a community.

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