Adjustment and Motivation
ISSN: 0211-5913
Any de publicació: 2001
Títol de l'exemplar: Challenges and developments in functional grammar
Número: 42
Pàgines: 167-186
Tipus: Article
Altres publicacions en: Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses
Resum
This paper bears on formal and semantic adjustment as devised by Dik (1989, 1997) and puts forward a proposal of motivation of derived constructions based on the notions of semantic prototypicality and syntactic markedness. After revising the topics of cross-domain generalization, computation and monostratal representation, the Principle of Literal Linking is formulated, which stipulates that the lower the impact of metaphor on the linking between semantics and syntax, the more iconic syntax is. The conclusion is reached that quantitatively or qualitatively non-iconic syntax provides the functional motivation of adjustment. As regards the cognitive motivation of adjustment, it is very tentatively suggested that it lies in the general cognitive abilities of inclusion and correspondence.