Accounting for Variability in the Linearization of Ditransitive Constructions in English among Native Speakers
Loading...
Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Argumentum
Abstract
In order to account for the variability in the linearization of ditransitive constructions in English, semantic and
syntactic as well as pragmatic motives have been proposed. Of recent, gradience grammar has been proposed (cf.
Bresnan & Ford 2010), whereby categorical semantic constraints have been discounted and probabilistic
tendencies advanced. While the current study subscribes to all those criteria, it intends to focus on two auxiliary
properties that have so far not received enough attention as regards their role in the variability in the linearization
of ditransitive constructions, namely diachronic factors and analogical leveling. This complementary account will
thus fill up the lacuna posed by the fact that despite the role of the multifactorial predictors advanced so far, these
do not fully answer, for example, the question as to why some speakers or speech communities accept, while
others reject, constructions in which these very predictors are at work.
Description
Keywords
Variability, Ditransitive verbs, Double object construction, Prepositional phrase construction, Diachronic factors, Analogical levelling
Citation
Isingoma, B. (2018). Accounting for variability in the linearization of Ditransitive Constructions in English among Native Speakers. Argumentum, 14, 383-399.