Force Dynamics in English Infinitive Constructions

Talmy (۲۰۰۰) describes force dynamics as a conceptual category that captures how entities interact with respect to applying force, resisting or overcoming force, blocking force, or removing blockage. In language, force dynamics manifests itself in both lexical elements and grammatical structures. Widely discussed examples of the latter include causative constructions and modal auxiliaries. This paper argues that force-dynamic meanings are present in several syntactic constructions in English that have, to this point, received little or no attention regarding this conceptual category. Based on corpus data from the COCA (Davies ۲۰۰۸) and collostructional analysis (Stefanowitsch and Gries ۲۰۰۳), it is shown that force dynamics characterize the constructional meaning of English object-to-subject raising (Mair ۱۹۸۷, Langacker ۱۹۹۵), subject complement clauses with ing-forms (Hilpert ۲۰۱۰), and the split infinitive construction (Huddleston and Pullum ۲۰۰۲, Perales-Escudero ۲۰۱۰). Collostructional analyses indicate that the three construction types are systematically associated with networks of force-dynamic scenarios that are organized in a semantic map. In addition, the three constructions exhibit coercion effects, imposing their meanings on lexical elements that are not inherently force-dynamic. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for current usage-based network models of language (Diessel ۲۰۱۹, ۲۰۲۳, Schmid ۲۰۲۰).

کلیدواژه ها:

Force dynamics ، Infinitive constructions ، Construction grammar