A Corpus-based Study of the Grammaticalization Paths of the a NOUN of Construction

Huiqing Huang, Qingshun He

Abstract


In this article a corpus-based study was conducted to investigate the grammaticalization paths of complex quantifiers with the a NOUN of construction in English. The nouns within the a NOUN of constructions in English were classified into two broad types, quantifiers and non-quantifiers, and complex quantifiers were recategorized into two types: definite complex quantifiers and indefinite complex quantifiers. According to the characteristics of nouns within complex quantifiers, two different grammaticalization paths were identified, one being from definite to indefinite, the other being from less indefinite to more indefinite. The research also indicated that the types of nouns following the complex quantifiers change with the process of grammaticalization.  


Keywords


corpus-based, grammaticalization, complex quantifier, a NOUN of construction

Full Text:

PDF

References


Brems, L. (2011). Layering of Size and Type Noun Constructions in English. Berlin: De ‎Gruyter Mouton.‎

Davies, M. (2010). Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). http://davies-‎linguistics.byu.edu/personal/‎

Delbecque, N., & Verveckken, K. (2014). Conceptually-driven analogy in the ‎grammaticalization of Spanish binominal quantifiers. Linguistics, 52(3), 637–684. ‎

Heine, B. & Kuteva, T (2002). World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: ‎Cambridge University Press.‎

Herda, D. (2017). On metonymically motivated delexicalization of quantifying nouns in ‎English and Polish: A corpus investigation. Studies in Polish Linguistics, 12(4), 199-‎‎219.‎

Hopper, P. J., & Traugott, E. C. (2003). Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge ‎University Press.‎

Huang, H. & He, Q. (2019). A corpus-based study of the grammaticalization of partitive ‎a body of. Language, Literature and Culture, 2(2), 1-7.‎

Hunston, S. (2002). Corpora in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University ‎Press.‎

Langacker, R. W. (1991). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar (Volume II): Descriptive ‎application. Stanford: Stanford University Press.‎

Verveckken, K. (2012). Towards a constructional account of high and low frequency ‎binominal quantifiers in Spanish. Cognitive Linguistics, 2, 421-478.‎


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2019 Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research