Productivity: Evidence from Case and Argument Structure in Icelandic

225 Pages·2008·3.73 MB·English

by  Jóhanna Barðdal

Productivity
Constructional Approaches to Language
The series brings together research conducted within different constructional models and
makes them available to scholars and students working in this and other related fields.
The topics range from descriptions of grammatical phenomena in different languages
to theoretical issues concerning language acquisition, language change, and language use.
The foundation of constructional research is provided by the model known as Construction
Grammar (including Frame Semantics). The book series publishes studies in which this model
is developed in new directions and extended through alternative approaches. Such approaches
include cognitive linguistics, conceptual semantics, interaction and discourse, as well as
typologically motivated alternatives, with implications both for constructional theories and for
their applications in related fields such as communication studies, computational linguistics,
AI, neurology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology.
This peer reviewed series is committed to innovative research and will include
monographs, thematic collections of articles, and introductory textbooks.
Editors
Mirjam Fried Jan-Ola Östman
Institute for the Czech Language Department of Scandinavian Languages &
Czech Academy of Sciences Literature, University of Helsinki
Prague, Czech Republic Helsinki, Finland
Advisory Board
Peter Auer Seizi Iwata
University of Freiburg, Germany Osaka City University, Japan
Hans C. Boas Paul Kay
University of Texas at Austin, USA University of California, Berkeley, USA
William Croft Knud Lambrecht
University of New Mexico, USA University of Texas at Austin, USA
Charles J. Fillmore Michael Tomasello
Int. Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology,
USA Germany
Adele E. Goldberg Arnold M. Zwicky
Princeton University, USA Stanford University, USA
Volume 8
Productivity: Evidence from Case and Argument Structure in Icelandic
by Jóhanna Barðdal
Productivity
Evidence from Case and Argument Structure
in Icelandic
Jóhanna Barðdal
University of Bergen
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jóhanna Barðdal, 1969-
Productivity: Evidence from Case and Argument Structure in Icelandic / Jóhanna
Barðdal.
p. cm. (Constructional Approaches to Language, issn 1573-594X ; v. 8)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Icelandic language--Syntax. 2. Icelandic language--Morphology. 3. Icelandic
language--Verb. 4. Productivity (Linguistics) I. Title.
PD2423.J64 2008
439'.695--dc22 2008041942
isbn 978 90 272 1830 8 (Hb; alk. paper)
© 2008 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Til Harðar/To Hardy

Table of contents
Preface xi
chapter 1
Introduction 1
1.1 Aims and objectives 1
1.2 Construction Grammar 4
1.3 Overview 6
chapter 2
Productivity 9
2.1 Senses and synonyms of productivity 1 0
2.2 The concepts of productivity 1 9
2.3 Definitions and measurements of productivity 2 4
2.3.1 Existing definitions and measurements 2 4
2.3.2 Predicting productivity 2 7
2.4 Syntactic productivity 2 9
2.5 Type frequency, schematicity and degrees of productivity 3 4
2.6 Summary 5 3
chapter 3
New verbs in Icelandic: A general outline 5 5
3.1 Case and argument structure in Icelandic 5 6
3.1.1 Type frequency 5 7
3.1.2 The semantics of the Nominative subject construction 6 2
3.1.2.1 Nom-Acc 6 3
3.1.2.2 Nom-Dat 6 9
1.2.3 Nom-Gen 7 5
3.1.3 The productivity of the Nominative subject construction 7 6
3.2 New verbs in Icelandic 7 8
3.2.1 Recent borrowings 7 8
3.2.2 Analogy and token frequency 8 9
3.3 Summary 9 6
 Productivity
chapter 4
Nonce verbs: A psycholinguistic experiment 101
4.1 The experiment 102
4.2 The findings 104
4.3 The semantics of the Dative subject construction 111
4.4 Summary 116
chapter 5
New verbs of communication: A questionnaire 119
5.1 The Transfer, the Caused-motion and the Ditransitive constructions 120
5.1.1 The Transfer and the Caused-motion constructions 120
5.1.2 The Ditransitive construction 126
5.2 The questionnaire survey 128
5.3 The findings 128
5.4 Analogy vs. high type frequency 132
5.5 Summary 135
chapter 6
Old and Modern Icelandic: A frequency comparison 137
6.1 Structural vs. lexical case 139
6.2 The present cognitive-functional CxG approach 143
6.2.1 Swedish 147
6.2.2 English 148
6.2.3 German 150
6.2.4 Icelandic 151
6.2.5 Vocabulary, language contact, type frequency and loss of
case 156
6.3 Dative substitution in the history of Icelandic 158
6.4 The “blended” construction in English, Swedish and Faroese 164
6.5 Historical productivity 166
6.6 Summary 167
chapter 7
Synthesis 171
References 183
Appendix A: Case and argument structure constructions in the text
corpora and the predicates which instantiate them 191
Table of contents 
Appendix B: Recent borrowings in Icelandic 199
Appendix C: The questionnaire 201
Name index 203
Subject index 205
Constructions index 209