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General productivity: how become waxed and wax became a copula
Petré, Peter
2010
 

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Keywords :
Productivity; Copulas; Syntax; Multiple source constructions; Construction grammar
Abstract :
[en] This paper shows how general productivity in the schematic Copular Construction for the verbs become (‘become’, developed from an original sense ‘arrive’) and wax (‘become’, from an original sense ‘grow’) abruptly followed when a pre-copular stage had reached a threshold value. It is argued that the presence of such a threshold itself, or the abrupt switch to general productivity rather than a gradual increase in productivity, results from the fact that the Copular Constructions featuring become and wax are not the end result of a single diachronic lineage of constructions, but that this switch has to be seen as the result of an interaction between lineages of constructions, which belong to two groups: (i) constructions involving a certain lexeme, which gradually change and interact with each other; (ii) constructions involving already existing copulas, notably weorðan ‘become’, which provided a template of general productivity upon which the newly emerging copulas could graft. The paper also contributes to the diachronic research on the largely ignored area of copulas denoting change of state, and in effect provides the first analysis of the development of become, which is surprising given its importance in the English language.
Research center :
Functional Linguistics Leuven (FLL)
Disciplines :
Languages & linguistics
Author, co-author :
Petré, Peter ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des langues et littératures modernes > Département des langues et littératures modernes
Language :
English
Title :
General productivity: how become waxed and wax became a copula
Publication date :
2010
Publisher :
Department of Linguistics, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Report number :
279
Number of pages :
32
Collection name :
Preprints of the Department of Linguistics 279.
Funders :
FWO - Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen [BE]
Available on ORBi :
since 23 December 2010

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