English Adjectival Inflection: A radical Radical Construction Grammar Approach

1. English Adjectival Inflection:A radical Radical Construction Grammar Approach John Newman & Sally Rice University of Alberta CSDL 2006 UC San Diego

2. Bertrand Russell’s Emotive Conjugations I’mtenacious you’restubborn he’spigheaded singular 1 2 3

3. inflection-specific adjectival meaning and behavior in English

4. a radicalRadical Construction Grammar approach language-specific (typologically aware) construction-specific (context sensitive) inflection-specific (lemma sceptical)

5. a radicalRadical Construction Grammar approach language-specific (typologically aware) construction-specific (context sensitive) inflection-specific (lemma sceptical)

6. English Adjectival Inflection inflectional periphrastic suppletive positivetall interesting good comparativetallermore interesting better superlative tallestmost interesting best

7. English Adjectival Inflection –– FACTORS semantics etymology / derivation syllable structure (Quirk & Greenbaum, Kytö & Romaine 1997, Biber et al. 1999 ) phonotactics register / dialect

8. English Adjectival Inflection –– FACTORS semantics etymology / derivation syllable structure (Quirk & Greenbaum, Kytö & Romaine 1997, Biber et al. 1999 ) phonotactics register / dialect inflectional island effects(Rice & Newman 2005)

9. Inflectional Islands Syntactic (constructional), semantic, and collocational properties tend to inhere in individual inflections of a lexical item in a register-specific manner. These properties may not extend across all the inflections (the paradigm) to characterize the lemma as a whole.

10. children tend to use uninflected verb roots before inflected forms verb inflections are mastered on a verb-by-verb basis generalization is gradual initially, particular verbs “strand” inflections adults use particular inflected forms of individual verbs on a register-specific basis verb inflections adhere to verbs on a verb-by-verb basis particularization is gradual eventually, inflections “strand” particular verbs THE VERBISLAND HYPOTHESISTomasello 1992, 2004 THE INFLECTIONAL ISLAND HYPOTHESISRice & Newman 2005 V < < <inflection V> > > inflection

11. DISTRIBUTION OF SOME BASIC VERBS IN THE BNC BASED ON TAM INFLECTION

12. IMPLICATIONS OF USAGE-BASED APPROACHES TO GRAMMAR a new starting point for linguistic analysis put lemmas aside (as done earlier with syntactic rule in favor of constructions) substitute words-in-context or WICs (intersection of genre, register, & inflection) a new (lower) level of linguistic generalization find the “hierarchy of lower-level structures...[that] specify the actual array of subcases and specific instances that support and give rise to the higher-level generalization” RWL, Concept, Image, & Symbol, 1991:281-282

13. WICs locus of lexicalization and grammaticalization active in borrowings and morphological realignment spawn psychological associations, induce priming effects

14. English Inflected Adjectives as WICs uneven distribution alternate marking newer more new double marking bestest most commonest inflectional gaps sheer *-er sheerest inflectional idiosyncracies irregular semantics collocational preferences of WICs constructional properties of WICs

15. English Inflected Adjectives as WICs uneven distribution alternate marking newer more new double marking bestest most commonest inflectional gaps sheer *-er sheerest inflectional idiosyncracies irregular semantics collocational preferences of WICs constructional properties of WICs

16. Our focus here 1. Inflectional idiosyncracies (relative frequencies) 2. N collocates 3. A collocates 4. Constructions

17. 1. Inflectional idiosyncracies of A, Aer, Aest

18. 1. Inflectional idiosyncracies of A, Aer, Aest BEST

19. 1. Inflectional idiosyncracies of A, Aer, Aest

20. 1. Inflectional idiosyncracies of A, Aer, Aest

21. 1. Inflectional idiosyncracies of A, Aer, Aest

22. 1. Inflectional idiosyncracies of A, Aer, Aest

23. 2. N collocates of A, Aer, Aest

24. 2. N collocates of A, Aer, Aest

25. 2. N collocates of A, Aer, Aest

26. 2. N collocates of A, Aer, Aest

27. 2. N collocates of A, Aer, Aest

28. 2. N collocates of A, Aer, Aest

29. 2. N collocates of A, Aer, Aest

30. 3. A collocates of A, Aer, Aest

31. 4. Misc. constructions with A, Aer, Aest It is _____ to...

32. 4. Misc. constructions with A, Aer, Aest It is _____ to...

33. 4. Misc. constructions with A, Aer, Aest It is _____ to...

34. 4. Misc. constructions with A, Aer, Aest A-er than NORM

35. 4. Misc. constructions with A, Aer, Aest A-er than NORM

36. a radical RCG approach to English adjectival inflection A and A A-er and A-er more A and more A A-est and A-est most A and most A even A-er even more A A-er N more A N A-est N most A N N be A-er N be more A N be A-est N be most A

37. A radical RCG approach to allows us to leave the paradigm behind.Paradigms (lemmas) have value for some purposes, but they often end up straight-jacketing an analysis.The conceit of the paradigm tends to dull our interest in looking at the lexical semantics of inflected forms in their own right (cf. the Russellian conjugations).Some items do escape the shackles of the paradigm and actually become lexical items in their own right.

38. A radical RCG approach to allows us to leave the paradigm behind. • Paradigms (lemmas) have value for some purposes, but they often end up straight-jacketing an analysis. • The conceit of the paradigm tends to dull our interest in looking at the lexical semantics of inflected forms in their own right. • Some items do escape the shackles of the paradigm and actually become lexical items in their own right (cf. the Russellian conjugations).

39. a radical RCG approach to English adjectival inflection

40. a radical RCG approach to English adjectival inflection

41. Thank you.