Domain-specific intensifying constructions and/in weather-related proverbs. A case study based on Dutch dialects in Flanders.
Résumé
[Introduction] There are few things so rigorously present in human consciousness and communication as the subject of the weather. Nevertheless, both in formal (weather forecasts) and informal contexts (daily conversations), this “weather discourse” remains understudied within linguistics (Liégeois 2019). This kind of discourse (Koch & Oesterreicher 1985), however, appears very interesting to different constructionist approaches (Gautier 2018), such as frame semantics and (cognitive) construction grammar.
[Research question] In this context, this proposal looks from a constructionist perspective into what could be called “weather sayings” in the dialects of Flanders; that is, popular sayings about the condition of the weather – like “it’s raining cats and dogs” in English. Such formulae are present in all languages, but research on it has mostly been restricted to their cultural background – e.g. religious ideas present in them (Eriksen et al. 2010) –, although the relationships between fixed formulae and constructions have been at the core of CxG research since the seminal paper by Fillmore & Kay (1988).
We therefore propose a cognitivist constructional approach to look into the syntax and semantics underlying a vast majority of these sayings. Of particular interest to us is the question to which extent syntax and non-compositional semantics are intertwined in these constructions and might even cause historical syntactic change in them. Furthermore, we will also demonstrate the presence of patterns within this type of formulae confirming their Cx status.
[Examples] For this paper, we will limit ourselves to the following constructions in Flemish, Brabantic and Limburgian:
(1)Het VP dat het VP
a. ’t rint da’t ziek (Ypres, West Flemish)
b. Tvries tottet krok (Munsterbilzen, Limburgian)
(2)Het regent (+AP) + NP
a. ’t regent mollejoegen (Veurne, West Flemish)
b. ’t vriest stejenen öt de groond (Geel, Brabantic)
(3)Het is kermis in de hel
a. ’t Es Kirmesse in d’helle (Lovendegem, East Flemish)
b. ’t es kërmes èn de hël en de dievele daase en staeke met de rik (Munsterbilzen, Limburgian)
[Discussion] Based on a corpus of 124 tokens, we will discuss the stability of these constructions by showing how the syntactic structure and restricted lexical fillers of these slots are in fact means of expression for intensity/intensification of the corresponding weather phenomena – alongside with an expressive component. In doing so, we will also discuss the links between traditional phraseology research and construction grammars (Dobrovols’kij 2011, Stathi 2011, Dalmas & Gautier 2018).
References
Dalmas, Martine & Gautier, Laurent. 2018. Zur idiomatischen Komponente auffälliger kausativer Konstruktionen im Deutschen. Linguistik Online. Bern: Bern Open Publishing. 145-162.
Dobrovol’skij, Dmitrij. 2011. Phraseologie und Konstruktionsgrammatik. In Alexander Lasch & Alexander Ziem (eds.), Konstruktionsgrammatik III: Aktuelle Fragen und Lösungs-ansätze (Stauffenburg Linguistik 58), 111–130. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
Eriksen Pål, Kittilä Seppo & Kolehmainen Leena. 2010. Linguistics of weather: Crosslinguistic patterns of meteorological expressions. Studies in Language 34(3). 565-601.
Fillmore Charles J., Kay Paul & O’Connor Mary C. 1988. Regularity and Idiomaticity in Grammatical Constructions: The Case of Let Alone. Language (64) 3. 501-538.
Gautier, Laurent. 2018. The pressure of specialized knowledge structures on the lexicon-grammar continuum: The expression of aspectuality in weather forecasts (GE-FR). Paper presented at the Workshop Weather & Language in Innsbruck. 26-27 October 2018.
Liégeois, Vince. 2019. The perception variable in syntax-semantics modelling: On language ecology and the use of non-neutral weather terms. Paper presented at the conference La Perception – Langue, Discours, Cognition in Paris. 6-7 December 2019.
Koch, Peter & Oesterreicher, Wulf. 1985. Sprache der Nähe – Sprache der Distanz: Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit im Spannungsfeld von Sprachtheorie und Sprachgeschichte. In Olaf Deutschmann, Hans Flache, e.a. (eds.), Romanistisches Jahrbuch (36), 15–43. Berlin-New York: De Gruyter.
Stathi, Katharina. 2011. Idiome in der Konstruktionsgrammatik: Im Spannungsfeld zwischen Lexikon und Grammatik. In Alexander Lasch & Alexander Ziem (eds.), Konstruktionsgrammatik III: Aktuelle Fragen und Lösungs-ansätze (Stauffenburg Linguistik 58), 149–164. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
Domaines
Linguistique
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