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Abstract:

Contagious morphosyntax Constructions can be morphosyntactically contaminated by neighbouring constructions that either bear a structural or merely a superficial resemblance (see Van de Velde, De Smet & Ghesquière 2013, De Smet & Van de Velde 2013, Van de Velde & Van der Horst 2013, Van de Velde & Weerman 2014, Pijpops & Van de Velde 2014, Van de Velde 2014, De Smet & Van de Velde 2014 for recent joint work). In this talk, I’ll discuss a number of such cases in different languages (French, English, and esp. Dutch) where grammatical features are ‘laterally transferred’ from one construction to another, to use a metaphor from evolutionary biology. This type of transfer, working on local analogies, is quite common in language and may be a major source of unwarranted morphological patterns in which constructions take on morphosyntactic behaviour that is not indigenous to their ancestral lineage. De Smet, H. & F. Van de Velde. 2013. ‘Serving two masters. Form-function friction in syntactic amalgams’. Studies in Language 37(3): 534-565. De Smet, H. & F. Van de Velde. 2014. ‘Travelling features: multiple sources, multiple destinations’. Paper at the The 8th International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG8). Osnabrück, 2-6 September 2014. Pijpops, Dirk & Freek Van de Velde. 2014. ‘A multivariate analysis of the partitive genitive in Dutch. Bringing quantitative data into a theoretical discussion’. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Van de Velde, F. 2014 (forthc.). ‘Schijnbare syntactische feniksen’. Nederlandse Taalkunde. Van de Velde, F., H. De Smet & L. Ghesquière. 2013. ‘On multiple source constructions in language change’. Studies in Language 37(3): 473-489. Van de Velde, F. & J.M. Van der Horst. 2013. ‘Homoplasy in diachronic grammar’. Language Sciences 36: 66-77. Van de Velde, F. & F. Weerman. 2014. ‘The resilient nature of adjectival inflection in Dutch’. In: P. Sleeman, F. Van de Velde & H. Perridon (eds.), Adjectives in Germanic and Romance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 113-145.