Constructions: Emerging and Emergent

✍ Scribed by Peter Auer (editor); Stefan Pfänder (editor)

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 340
• Series: linguae & litterae; 6
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume embarks on an exploration of the processual and dynamic character of grammatical constructions in emergence, both from an ‘emergent’ and an ‘emerging’ perspective. ‘Emerging’ constructions develop out of their discourse contexts. Talking of emerging constructions is compatible with a view of grammar as a stable system of rules and structures which may ‘emerge’ (i.e., come into existence) out of a pool of previously unordered elements. ‘Emergent’ constructions on the contrary are due to the on-line production of grammar in time. The term ‘emergent’ emphasises the fact that a grammatical structure is always temporary and ephemeral. In both senses, grammar is modelled as a highly adaptive resource for interaction.

On the basis of empirical studies on spoken English, German, Hebrew, Swedish and French, the volume addresses the following questions: How can what initially appears to be construction x end up being construction y in on-line syntax? What are the local interactional needs which such processes respond to in the process of their emergence? Does the on-line (re-)modelling of a construction concern its syntactic or semantic side ‑ or both? And finally: Should emergent grammatical structures as they unfold in real time be seen as stages in the emerging of grammar?

• exploration of the processual and dynamic character of grammatical constructions in emergence
• based on empirical studies on spoken English, German, Hebrew, Swedish and French

✦ Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Constructions: Emergent or emerging?
Emergent grammar and temporality in interactional linguistics
Emergent grammar for all practical purposes: the on-line formatting of left and right dislocations in French conversation
Constructions vs. lexical items as sources of complex meanings. A comparative study of constructions with German verstehen
Online changes in syntactic gestalts in spoken German. Or: do garden path sentences exist in everyday conversation?
Between emergence and sedimentation. Projecting constructions in German interactions
Improvisation, temporality and emergent constructions
Verb-first conditionals in German and Swedish: convergence in writing, divergence in speaking
Action, prosody and emergent constructions: The case of and
On the emergence of adverbial connectives from Hebrew relative clause constructions