Discourse Structuring Markers in English (Constructional Approaches to Language)

✍ Scribed by Elizabeth Closs Traugott

• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 294
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book is a contribution to the growing field of diachronic construction grammar. Focus is on corpus evidence for the importance of including conventionalized pragmatics within construction grammar and suggestions for how to do so. The empirical domain is the development of Discourse Structuring Markers in English such as after all, also, all the same, by the way, further and moreover (also known as Discourse Markers). The term Discourse Structuring Markers highlights their use not only to connect discourse segments but also to shape discourse coherence and understanding. Monofunctional Discourse Structuring Markers like further, instead, moreover are distinguished from multifunctional ones like after all and by the way. Drawing on usage-based work on constructionalization and constructional changes, the book is in three parts: foundational concepts, case studies, and currently open issues in diachronic construction grammar. These open issues are how to incorporate the concepts subjectification and intersubjectification into a constructional account of change, whether position in a clause is a construction, and the nature of constructional networks and how they change.

✦ Table of Contents

Discourse Structuring Markers in English
Editorial page
Title page
Copyright page
Table of contents
List of figures
List of tables
List of abbreviations
Preface and acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Introduction and overview
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Goals
1.3 The empirical domain: Discourse Structuring Markers
1.4 Overview of the book
1.5 Data and methodology
1.6 Summary
Part I. Foundations
Chapter 2. Cognitive linguistics and construction grammar
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Cognitive linguistics
2.3 Goldberg’s model of construction grammar
2.4 Croft’s (2001) model of a construction
2.5 The semantics-pragmatics interface
2.6 Summary of key points
Chapter 3. A Diachronic Construction Grammar view of language change
3.1 Introduction
3.2 What changes and how?
3.2.1 “Usage changes” vs. “grammar changes”
3.2.2 Innovation vs. change
3.2.3 Gradualness vs. abruptness
3.3 Mechanisms underlying change
3.3.1 Neoanalysis, analogy, borrowing, and frequency
3.3.2 Pragmatic inferencing
3.4 Subjectification and intersubjectification
3.5 Constructionalization and constructional changes
3.6 A brief comparison of work on constructionalization and on grammaticalization
3.7 Contexts for change
3.8 Summary of key points
Chapter 4. Discourse Structuring Markers and some generalizations about how they arise
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Pragmatic Markers
4.2.1 Characteristics of Pragmatic Markers
4.2.2 Characteristics of Discourse Markers
4.3 Discourse Structuring Markers
4.3.1 Constructional properties of Discourse Structuring Markers
4.3.2 Types of Discourse Structuring Markers
4.3.3 Interim summary
4.4 Generalizations about the rise of Discourse Structuring Markers
4.4.1 From Circumstance adverbial to [[Conjunct adverbial] ↔ [Discourse Structuring Marker]]
4.4.2 From monofunctional to multifunctional Discourse Structuring Marker function
4.4.3 Contexts for the rise of Discourse Structuring Markers
4.5 A preliminary case study: The development of after all
4.5.1 After all in contemporary American English
4.5.2 A sketch of the history of after all
4.6 Summary
Chapter 5. Alternative hypotheses about the rise of Discourse Markers
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The grammaticalization hypothesis
5.3 The pragmaticalization hypothesis
5.4 The hypothesis of cooptation to thetical grammar
5.5 The Diachronic Construction Grammar hypothesis
5.6 Summary comparison of the four approaches
Part II. Case studies
Chapter 6. The development of elaborative markers
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Also
6.3 Further and furthermore
6.3.1 Further
6.3.2 Furthermore
6.4 Moreover
6.5 Other elaborators
6.6 Conclusion
Chapter 7. The development of contrastive markers
7.1 Introduction
7.2 But
7.2.1 Background
7.2.2 The history of but
7.3 All the same
7.4 Instead
7.5 Conclusion
Chapter 8. The development of markers of “digressive” topic shift
8.1 Introduction
8.2 By the way
8.3 Three relatively unproductive markers of digression
8.3.1 By the by
8.3.2 Incidentally and parenthetically
8.4 Some other alleged digressives
8.5 Summary
Chapter 9. The development of markers of return to a prior topic
9. 1 Introduction
9.2 To return to X point
9.3 Back to X point
9.4 Back to X topic
9.5 Discussion
9.6 Summary
Chapter 10. The development of combinations of DMs
10.1 Introduction
10.2 DM combinations with also
10.2.1 And + also
10.2.2 So + also
10.2.3 Combinations of two DMs with also
10.3 The combination now then
10.4 The rise of the combination Oh, by the way
10.4.1 OBTW1
10.4.2 OBTW2
10.5 Oh combined with other DMs
10.6 Discussion
10.7 Conclusion
Part III. Three open issues for a historical constructionalist perspective on pragmatics
Chapter 11. Subjectification, intersubjectification and the rise of DSMs
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Characterizing subjectivity and intersubjectivity
11.3 Characterizing subjectification and intersubjectification
11.4 The relationship of textualization and (inter)subjectification in the development of DSMs
11.4.1 Some generalizations
11.4.2 Digressive markers, textualization, subjectification and intersubjectification
11.5 Default features of a DSM construction
11.6 Summary
Chapter 12. Clausal positions of DMs
12.1 Introduction
12.2 The main positions with respect to the clausal host
12.2.1 Pre-clausal position
12.2.2 Post-clausal position
12.2.3 Clause-medial position
12.3 A hypothesis about the relationship between subjectivity, intersubjectivity and position
12.4 Two case studies revisited with position in focus
12.4.1 Positions in which elaborative and contrastive after all is used
12.4.2 Positions in which digressive by the way is used
12.5 Conclusion
Chapter 13. Changes in networks and nodes
13.1 Introduction
13.2 The network metaphor
13.2.1 “Vertical” inheritance networks
13.2.2 “Horizontal” networks
13.3 Networks and change
13.3.1 Vertical inheritance networks and change
13.3.2 Horizontal networks and change
13.4 Representing changing networks
13.5 Incorporating context into network models
13.6 Conclusion
Chapter 14. Conclusion and prospects
14.1 Introduction
14.2 Summary of main points
14.3 Some suggestions for further work
References
Data resources and corpora
List of references
Names index
Subject index