An Investigation of Syntactic, Semantic and Pragmatic Aspects of ‘VinflVinfl’ on the Basis of Construction Grammar

Abstract

The current study attempted to investigate ‘VinflVinfl’ construction in Persian based on construction grammar (Lakoff, 1987; Goldberg, 1995; 2003; 2006) and distinguish it from similar constructions. Since construction grammar seeks to categorize various constructions prototypically, it uses numerous syntactic-semantic pieces of evidence to differentiate different constructions from each other. The data (around 1300 sentences) were collected from stories, movies and some websites. For each construction a Sem(antic)-Syn(tactic) table was put forward to connect their features together. Furthermore, semantic constraints on these constructions such as negation and kinds of participant verbs were shown clearly. It was found that, in ‘VinflVinfl’, the former verb modifies the latter, which is a verb of movement. Its idiosyncratic feature is that it is not negated and is different from ‘Vinfl & Vinfl’. Moreover, ‘VinflVinfl’ is differentiated from other constructions such as ‘dāštan.infVinf’, ‘dādan.inf1Vinf2’, ‘VimperativeVimperative’ and idiomatic constructions such as ‘Vimperativebebinam’ and ‘zadan.infVinf’. Finally, it was observed that ‘dāštan.inflVinfl’ is a polysemous construction meaning progression, inchoation, and futurity depending on the context.

Keywords

• construction grammar
• serial verb constructions
• cognitive approach
• frame semantics
• causative constructions