Comment ne pas être très intrigué par ce phénomène ? Réexamen de la porosité entre participe passé verbal et adjectival
In this paper, we reconsider the boundary between verbal and adjectival past participles. The sequence very Xed by (he was very moved by the tone of her voice) seems to be situated halfway between the adjectival end (very) and the verbal end (by) of the spectrum, which raises several questions which...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3
2023-12-01
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| Series: | Lexis: Journal in English Lexicology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/lexis/7481 |
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| Summary: | In this paper, we reconsider the boundary between verbal and adjectival past participles. The sequence very Xed by (he was very moved by the tone of her voice) seems to be situated halfway between the adjectival end (very) and the verbal end (by) of the spectrum, which raises several questions which traditional approaches cannot always address in a satisfactory manner. The present study lies within the framework of Construction Grammars and is an attempt at solving some of these issues, especially those pertaining to the categorial flexibility of the constituents which instantiate very Xed by. A diachronic perspective, which deals with the development of the construction, suggests that the construction under study has progressively opened to the semantic class that might be called “affectoids”, i.e. affects per se, as well as the processes underlying affects. As a result, it licensed more and more verbal past participles. In line with the coercion principle, this study shows therefore how the construction very Xed by transcends traditional syntactic categories, which cannot always reflect how speakers’ internal grammar works. |
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| ISSN: | 1951-6215 |