Asymmetries, mismatches and construction grammar. An introduction
(2018) Constructions and Frames — Vol. 10, n° 2, p. 123-146 (2018)
Files
Koutsoukosetal_2018_intro_final.pdf
postprint
Open Access - Adobe PDF
- 842.08 KB
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- In the early 20th century, Ferdinand de Saussure considered the sign, which is defined as the union of an acoustic image (Fr. signifiant; E. signifier) and a concept (Fr. signifié; E. signified), as the cornerstone of linguistic theory and he laid the foundation for the contemporary discussion of the relationship between form and meaning. In most of the theoretical developments that followed, it has been implicitly and explicitly assumed that there exists an ideal correspondence between form and meaning in any given sign at two levels; first, one form should express one meaning, and second, the way in which the form of a complex whole (be it a complex word or a syntactic structure) is made up of its parts is paralleled by the way in which its meaning is derived (concatenation of discrete units). However, many exceptions can be adduced to this idea of ideal correspondence between form and meaning. The present paper presents a typology of ‘distortions’ between form and meaning in morphological and syntactic constructions and proposes a distinction between asymmetry, which describes lack of form-meaning correspondence at the numerical level, and mismatch, which refers to all types of structural lack of form-meaning correspondence. We also discuss the notion of sign within the framework of Construction Grammar and why a construction-based model can account for these distortions.
- Affiliations
Citations
Koutsoukos, N., Van Goethem, K., & De Smet, H. (2018). Asymmetries, mismatches and construction grammar. An introduction. Constructions and Frames, 10(2), 123-146. https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.00016.kou (Original work published 2018)