Licensing of Constructions by Analogy and Its Mechanisms

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This study aims to analyze in terms of analogy constructionsthat are considered ungrammatical or non-canonical but are actually used (at least bysome people). Such constructions include the Just because of X doesn’t mean Y construction (e.g. Just because of his dumb mistake doesn’t mean you’re going to have lights out in the city.) and the NP-Adverb Clause construction (i.e. the modification of a noun phrase by an adverb clause, e.g. his destruction of the fortune cookie before he read the fortune) in English. In particular, this study made clear (i) that the former construction is licensed by analogies based on its similarities to other grammaticalconstructions existing independently, and (ii) that the latter construction is licensed by coercion.