GradEast > Courses > Summer School in Grammaticalization > Abstracts > Lecturers' abstracts > Abstract Lars Heltoft

The role of paradigmatic structure in constructional change 

Lars Heltoft

In our work on grammaticalisation theory Lene Schøsler, Jens Nørgård-Sørensen and I assume that grammatical structure is organised according to similar principles independent of the traditional divisions of morphology, syntax and semantics. We suggest that a revival of the concept of a paradigm on a semantic basis will be a fruitful tool across the levels of complexity in grammar. Not only morphology, but also word order and constructional syntax can be approached in terms of content based paradigms. My focus will be on constructional syntax and its paradigmatic organisation, and the major empirical example studied will be the semantic change of ditransitive constructions (indirect object constructions). Danish indirect objects change semantically from the time of the Reformation to the present day. The expression system remains the same, but the content frame changes towards increasing specification, leading again to a reduction of the range of constructions that allow an indirect object.

We need this extended concept of paradigmatisation in order to clarify especially the relation between usage processes that lead to lexical change and those that lead to grammatical change. Not any bleaching process or subjectification process will count as an instance of grammaticalisation, but only those that combine with paradigmatic innovations. Many instances of changes in the distribution and range of constructions: extensions, restrictions and even their withering away, can be understood as adaptations to content changes at the structural level.

References 

Heltoft, Lars (1996). Paradigms, word order, and grammaticalization. Engberg-Pedersen, E. et al. (eds). Content, expression, and structure. Studies in Danish functional grammar Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 464-494.

Nørgård-Sørensen, Jens, Lars Heltoft & Lene Schøsler (to appear). Connecting grammaticalisation. III Constructions. Pdf-file.

The alternative (synchronic) view of constructions discussed in my lecture is represented by the positions of  Goldberg and Croft, as in:

Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar. Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Goldberg, Adele. 1998. Patterns of experience in patterns of language. In Tomasello (ed.), 203-220.

Taylor, John R. 1998. Syntactic Constructions as Prototype Categories. In Tomasello (ed.), 177-202.

Tomasello, Michael (ed.). 1998. The New Psychology of Language. Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language Structure. Mahwah N.J. and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.