Incipient Productivity: A Construction-Based Approach to Linguistic Creativity

Author/Contributor(s):	Zeschel, Arne
Publisher:	Walter de Gruyter
Date:	03/15/2012
Binding:	Hardcover
Condition:	NEW

How do speakers vary established patterns of language use and adapt them to novel contexts of application? This study presents a usage-based approach to linguistic creativity: combining detailed qualitative with large-scale quantitative analyses of corpus data, it traces the emergence of partial productivity in clusters of conventional collocations. Synthesising insights from research on language acquisition, variation and change, it is argued that creative extensions of linguistic conventions are intrinsically bound up with aspects of memory and repetition.