This paper explores the added value of studying intra- and interspeaker
variation in grammaticalisation based on idiolect corpora. It analyses
the usage patterns of the English let alone construction in a self-compiled
William Faulkner corpus against the backdrop of aggregated community data.
Vast individual differences (early Faulkner vs. late Faulkner vs. peers) in frequencies
of use are observed, and these frequency differences correlate with
different degrees of grammaticalisation as measured in terms of host-class and
syntactic context expansion. The corpus findings inform general issues in current
cognitive-functional research, such as the from-corpus-to-cognition issue
and the cause/consequence issue of frequency. They lend support to the usagebased
view of grammaticalisation as a lifelong, frequency-sensitive process of
cognitive automation. To substantiate this view, this paper proposes a selffeeding
cycle of constructional generalisation that is driven by the interplay of
frequency, entrenchment, partial sanction and habituation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:93174 |
| Date | 09 August 2024 |
| Creators | Neels, Jakob |
| Publisher | Mouton de Gruyter |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 0936-5907, 1613-3641, 10.1515/cog-2019-0020 |
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