Regularity and Idiomaticity in Grammatical Constructions: The Case of Let Alone

Charles J. Fillmore, Paul Kay, Mary Catherine O’Connor1988

Report for Syntax Course2008.12.30

The purpose of this paper

• This what is called ‘idiomatic’ is a very large repository

• To prove that it is necessary to describe the idiomatic expressions from different angles, not only the syntactic one

• Create a model of linguistic competence, in which idiomatic expressions are included

Constructions

• Like nuclear family they spread to the ‘wider ranges of the sentential tree’

• Constructions provide syntactic, lexical, semantic and pragmatic information

• Lexical items may be viewed as constructions themselves

• Constructions may be idiomatic

Linguistic competence

• The speakers of the language posses the knowledge of the words, i.e. information about their function in phrases, in what context they appear, what they mean and what their pronunciation is.

• Speakers know one or more grammatical rules, according to which they construct simple phrases

• Speakers know the basic semantic interpretation principles by which the meanings of the phrases and sentences can be constructed out of the meanings of their constituent words and phrases

• Speakers are able to make connection between sentences and particular types of situations (they have pragmatic knowledge).

What is idiomatic?

• An idiomatic expression or construction is something that a speaker could fail to know.

Idioms

• Decoding idioms: expressions, which the language user couldn’t interpret with complete confidence, if they hadn’t learned it separately.

• Encoding idioms: expressions, which language users may not understand without prior experience.

Idioms

• Every decoding idiom is an encoding idiom, but not every encoding idiom is the decoding one.

• Both decoding and encoding idioms: kick the bucket, pull a fast one

• Only encoding idioms: answer the door, wide awake, bright red

Idioms

• Grammatical idioms: words that fill in proper and familiar grammatical structures: kick the bucket, spill the beans, blow one’s nose (verbs and nouns show at the predicted places)

• Extragrammatical idioms: have anomalous structure: first off, sight unseen, all of a sudden, by and large, so far so good

Idioms

• Substantive idioms: all previous examples belong to this group, idioms which are lexically specified.

• Formal idioms: syntactic patterns dedicated to semantic and pragmatic purposes. Formal idioms can serve as a host to substantive idioms.

• The more careful you do your work, the easier it will get.

• The bigger they come, the harder they fall.

Idioms

• Idioms with pragmatic point: expressions that have special pragmatic purpose:

• How do you do?, Once upon a time• Idioms without special pragmatic purpose: all

of a sudden, by and large

Idioms

• Formal idioms, eg. X-er the Y-er type can be more or less free of pragmatic purpose. Unlike the sentence: Him be a doctor? – serves the pragmatic and rhetorical purposes.