Variation and Grammaticalization in Verbal Scene Constructions

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The project investigates constructional variation in the verbs bekommen, kriegen (both: get, obtain, manage to do) verdienen (earn, deserve) and lassen (let, allow, make) in Present-day German with regard to the respective structures of the verbal scene and the degrees of grammaticalization. This complex object of investigation is dubbed verbal scene construction to emphasize that the focus is not only on argument structure or parts of the proposition. Instead, the complete semantic-cognitive pattern of a sentence is looked at as a constructional entity. Though the verbs are used as naming labels for their constructions, the meaning and function of the latter is investigated in an integrative manner. This includes features concerning the relational composition of the verbal scene, its argument structure and aspectuality. The verbs investigated display a high degree of polyfunctionality between lexical, idiomatic and grammaticalized usages as well as great constructional variation. This is shown in the examples with bekommen. (1) shows the grammaticalized usage as bekommen-passive; (2) and (3) are semi-auxiliary usages with modal and aspectual values; (4) and (5) show fully lexical verbs with their divergent argument structures and verbal meanings. (1) Sie bekommt die Haare geschnitten. She gets her hair cut. (2) In diesem Job bekommt sie furchtbare Dinge zu sehen. In this job, she gets to see horrible things. (3) Sie bekommt das bis heute Abend geregelt. She will manage to get this done by tonight. (4) Soviel Milch bekommt einer Katze nicht. This much milk is not tolerated by / is not good for a cat. (5) Sie bekommt das Mineralwasser. She gets the mineral water. The aim is to elucidate the interdependency of the variation and grammaticalization of verbal scene constructions and the degrees of auxiliarization in the verbs involved, and to establish grammaticalization paths of a new type with verbal scene constructions, i.e. holistic entities, as the primary content of the scales. The known linear ordering of scales is seen to be not sufficient for representing verbal scene constructions, instead, it is necessary to work with network-like, multidimensional structures to represent polygrammaticalization and lexicalization likewise. The empirical foundation is a corpus-based study of all constructions containing the four verbs. The theoretical background is composed of grammaticalization research, construction grammar and cognitive linguistics (frame semantics, theory of deixis). The intended outcome is threefold: (i) the focus on the variation of verbal scene constructions and their grammaticalization paths fills a gap in the research of grammaticalization processes, (ii) for the first time, the constructional foundation of language variation is the fundamental starting point (iii) the claim of construction grammar concerning the priority of the concept of construction is applied in an exemplary way in the field researched here.