How Grammar Links Concepts

Download or read book How Grammar Links Concepts written by Friedrich Ungerer and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017-07-26 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The proposed framework of concept linking combines insights of construction grammar with those of traditional functional descriptions to explain particularly challenging but often neglected areas of English grammar such as negation, modality, adverbials and non-finite constructions. To reach this goal the idea of a unified network of constructions is replaced by the triad of verb-mediated constructions, attribution and scope-based perspectivizing, each of them understood as a syntactically effective concept-linking mechanism in its own right, but involved in interfaces with the other mechanisms. In addition, concept linking supplies a novel approach to early child language. It casts fresh light on widely accepted descriptions of early two-word utterances and verb islands in usage-based models of language acquisition and encourages a new view of children’s ‘mistakes’. Intended readership: Constructionist and cognitive linguists; linguists and psychologists interested in language acquisition; teachers and students of English grammar and grammar in general.