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A Construction Grammar of the English Language: CASA – a constructionist approach to syntactic analysis
Thomas Herbst and Thomas Hoffmann
[Cognitive Linguistics in Practice 5] 2024
► pp. 70–131

Chapter 5
Who does what to whom?

Argument structure constructions

Article outline
  • 5.1General introduction
    • 5.1.1Ways of looking at argument structure
    • 5.1.2The emergence of argument structure constructions
    • 5.1.3Argument structure constructions at different levels of abstraction
      • 5.1.3.1Valency constructions and pre-emption
      • 5.1.3.2Participant roles and argument roles
      • 5.1.3.3Levels of knowledge associated with argument structure constructions
      • 5.1.3.4Summary
  • 5.2The CASA framework of argument structure constructions
    • 5.2.1Specification of argument structure constructions in CASA
    • 5.2.2Specification of argument slots: Subj-, Obj- and Attr-arguments
    • 5.2.3Why Subj does not automatically mean SUBJ
    • 5.2.4Argument roles
    • 5.2.5Names of constructions
    • 5.2.6Subj-arguments
  • 5.3A one-argument construction: The English intransitive construction
  • 5.4æffector and æffected: Monotransitive constructions
    • 5.4.1Monotransitive constructions
      • 5.4.1.1The monotransitive construction with ObjNP
      • 5.4.1.2Monotransitive constructions with clausal objects
    • 5.4.2Introducing a recipient: Ditransitive constructions
      • 5.4.2.1The ditransitive construction with ObjNP
      • 5.4.2.2Ditransitive constructions with clausal objects
  • 5.5Motion constructions
    • 5.5.1Self-motion and caused-motion
    • 5.5.2caused-motion and to-recipient constructions
  • 5.6Attribute and resultative constructions
    • 5.6.1subject-attribute constructions
    • 5.6.2object-attribute constructions
    • 5.6.3A note on resultative constructions
  • 5.7Constructions with prepositional objects
    • 5.7.1General characterization
    • 5.7.2change-of-state and into-causative constructions
    • 5.7.3general-issue and specific-issue: ObjPP:about and ObjPP:on
    • 5.7.4Communication partners: to-recipient/goal and with-partner
    • 5.7.5Instrument and emotion
    • 5.7.6The English conative construction
    • 5.7.7desired-thing constructions
    • 5.7.8The nature of prepositional objects
  • 5.8Perspectivization of arguments
    • 5.8.1Actives and passives
    • 5.8.2Discrepancies between active and passive expressions of arguments
    • 5.8.3Perspectivization
    • 5.8.4The mediopassive construction
  • 5.9Combining argument structure constructions with sentence type constructions
  • 5.10Adjectival argument structure constructions
    • 5.10.1Argument structure constructions across word classes
    • 5.10.2General design of adjective argument structure constructions
    • 5.10.3Adjectival argument structure constructions with prepositional phrases
    • 5.10.4Adjectival argument structure constructions with that- and wh-clauses
    • 5.10.5Different types of infinitive constructions with adjectives
      • 5.10.5.1difficultetc-to-infinitive construction
      • 5.10.5.2willingetc-to-infinitive construction
      • 5.10.5.3braveetc-to-infinitive construction
      • 5.10.5.4The surprisedetc-to-infinitive construction
      • 5.10.5.5Adjective+infinitive constructions with quasi-modal meanings
    • 5.10.6Impersonal constructions with adjectives
      • 5.10.6.1it-that-clause construction
      • 5.10.6.2The it-be-importantetc-for-x-to-infinitive construction
      • 5.10.6.3The it-be-importantetc-for-beneficiary-to-infinitive construction
      • 5.10.6.4The niceetc-of-x-to-infinitive construction
      • 5.10.6.5Impersonal adjective construction without PPs
  • 5.11Nominal argument structure constructions
  • 5.12A network of argument structure constructions
  • 5.13Argument structure in CASA and other approaches
  • Notes
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