English mediopassive constructions : a cognitive, corpus-based study of their origin, spread, and current status / / Marianne Hundt

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910823843803321
• Autore: Hundt Marianne
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Amsterdam, : Rodopi, 2007
• ISBN: 94-012-0378-4; 1-4294-8129-3
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (239 p.)
• Collana: Language and computers ; ; no. 58
• Disciplina: 425
• Soggetti: Computational linguistics; English language - Data processing - Research; English language - Verb phrase; English language - Voice
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. [181]-193) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Preliminary material / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- Introduction / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- Defining the object of study / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- Previous studies / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- Theoretical background / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- The mediopassive in Present Day English / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- The history of mediopassives / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- Conclusion / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- References / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- Primary material / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- Sample pages from the Sears and Roebucks catalogues / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- Additional tables and figures / Editors English mediopassive constructions -- Index / Editors English mediopassive constructions.
• Sommario/riassunto: This book provides the first empirical study of the history and spread of mediopassive constructions. It investigates the productivity of the pattern, the spread of the construction in Modern English, and looks into text type-specific preferences for the construction. On a more abstract level, it combines the corpus-based description of ; mediopassive constructions with cognitive linguistic models, drawing largely on notions such as ‘prototype’, ‘family resemblances’, ‘patch’ and ‘construction’. The theoretical modelling is largely based on data from real texts. These come from publicly available machine-readable corpora, text-databases and a single-register ‘corpus’ (American mail-order catalogues). The study combines the corpus-based approach with cognitive theories and is therefore of interest to both empirical and theoretical linguists.