Abstract
Many researchers seem to think that Construction Grammar posits the existence of only wholly idiosyncratic constructions. However, this misconception betrays a deep misunderstanding of the approach because it glosses over the fact that constructions rarely if ever emerge sui generis. Rather, Construction Grammar aims to balance the fact that some linguistic uses cannot be fully predicted from other well-established uses with the fact that extensions of a construction, while not predictable, are motivated by other senses in the constructional network. This paper illustrates this idea by providing an analysis of the Spanish completive reflexive marker se.
Funding source: Marie Sklodowska-Curie Foundation
Award Identifier / Grant number: H2020-MSCA:IF-2014-658596
Funding source: Spanish State Research Agency
Award Identifier / Grant number: FFI2017–82460–P
Funding source: European FEDER Funds
Acknowledgments
I acknowledge the support of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program grant from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Foundation (H2020-MSCA:IF-2014-658596) and a research grant (FFI2017–82460–P) from the Spanish State Research Agency and the European FEDER Funds. I would like to thank Adele Goldberg and Jaume Mateu for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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