In this chapter, we will explore constructionist approaches to language variation and change in English. As part of this, we will see how classic sociolinguistic studies can be accounted for by a usage-based constructionist perspective. Then, we will look at how Construction Grammar offers a cognitive explanation of the evolution of new first and second language varieties of English around the world. Finally, you will learn how Construction Grammar approaches analyse diachronic linguistic change.

In Chapter 2, we discussed evidence supporting a Usage-based Construction Grammar approach. Now, we move on to looking at the various types of constructions needed for a full analysis of Present-day English. We start with what is normally considered to be the smallest types of FORM-MEANING pairings, morphemes, and investigate the various parameters according to which these can be classified. In particular, we will see to what degree the classic Structuralist distinction between grammatical and lexical morphemes makes sense from a Construction Grammar point of view. Then we will look at the various ways in which Present-day English can outlinine a Construction Grammar approach to word-formation.

Language is arguably the most important cultural tool that humans have ever invented. In this book, using English as our specific object of choice, we will look at the cognitive basis of language and discover how all aspects of it, from inventing new words to uttering full sentences, rest on one central cognitive unit: the construction. As we will see in this chapter, a core property of languages is that they are complex sign systems. I will first introduce the classic definition of words as linguistic signs, that is, as arbitrary pairings of form and meaning. Next, we shall see that even morphemes or abstract syntactic patterns are best analysed as form-meaning pairings. All of these different types of signs will be captured by the notion of the construction. Besides, instead of a strict dichotomy of words and rules, we will treat language as a system that ranges from simple word constructions to complex syntactic constructions. Finally, we will explore the basic assumptions shared by all approaches that consider the construction the basic notion of syntactic analysis (so-called Construction Grammars) and outline how these differ from Chomskyan Mainstream Generative Grammar.

The present chapter strives to elaborate simple heuristics that might further the elaboration of p-solutions or p-resolutions of p-inconsistencies. We will take Moravcsik’s () typology of the treatment of conflicts as our starting point and we will attempt to integrate it into the p-model. After the brief Introduction (), inwe will present the examples given in Moravcsik (). Starting from her analyses, we will re-analyse the examples with the help of the p-model’s categories and will provide a new approach to the resolution strategies. Finally, in , we will summarise the main components of the heuristics we have revealed.

After we have seen how the p-model works, this chapter evaluates the p-model’s methodology with respect to current tendencies in the history and philosophy of science.sketches four interrelated processes. First, the fall of the analytical philosophy of science was accompanied by the historical turn that yielded the emergence of the discipline ‘the history and philosophy of science’. Second, as opposed to the earlier programme of unified science, by now the philosophy of science has acknowledged the pluralism of scientific inquiry. Third, there is also a process that has led to the simultaneous presence of the general philosophy of science and the discipline-specific histories and philosophies of science. Finally, there is a pluralism of the specific histories and philosophies of science within the discipline as well. The p-model fits into these processes.reflects on the basic method applied by the history and philosophy of science, namely, case studies. It outlines the p-model’s answer to the question of why the results of single case studies may be generalised and how they can be selected without bias.is devoted to the question of whether our results can be applied to other fields of linguistic research than those mainstream grammatical approaches that the case studies have focused on.

The present chapter applies the p-model to two stages of the development of German phonology in order to exemplify the role of inconsistency in theory change. It focuses on a detailed case study on the Basic Inconsistency of German Affricates. After the problem and its subproblems have been raised in , in , our analyses will show why Wurzel’s () eclectic framework, applying both terms of structuralist phonology and of Chomsky and Halle’s The Sound Pattern of English, yields a p-inconsistency without an acceptable p-resolution. In , we will examine whether Prinz and Wiese’s () CV phonology could avoid the shortcomings of this approach. In , we will draw conclusions from the case study that suggest generalisable methodological guidelines for the future treatment of inconsistency in linguistic theorising. Finally, in , we will answer the question of how the permanent interplay of the emergence and the resolution of inconsistencies shapes the development of linguistic inquiry.

This chapter overviews those contexts in which in theoretical linguistics the problem of inconsistency has been touched on. After the problem has been raised in ,summarises the main tenets of the standard view of linguistic data (SVLD), which will serve as a reference point in delineating recent trends related to the emergence and the treatment of inconsistencies in linguistic theorising. Sections 3.3 and 3.4 will be devoted to two case studies each of which analyses a particular controversy focusing on the acceptability of introspective and corpus data. We will try to reveal the close relationship between (SVLD) and the standard view of inconsistency (SVI) as presented inand show how giving up elements of (SVLD) leads to an at least partial break with (SVI) in these two controversies. In , we will discuss approaches to the nature of ‘exceptions’, which are commonly thought to be the most frequent manifestations of inconsistencies in linguistic theorising. Then,will summarise the tendencies thus revealed.

of the final chapter recapitulates the Main Problem, its subdivision into the Problems (P1)–(P8), and motivates the steps that lead from the solution of one problem to raising and solving the next one. In this way, the reader may get a comprehensive look at our whole line of reasoning.infers our solution to the Main Problem from the solutions of the Problems (P1)–(P8), highlights the way in which the aims of the book have been reached, and paves the way for future research.

This chapter outlines the ways in which the philosophy of science handles the problem of inconsistency in scientific theorising. After raising this problem in ,will summarise the standard view of inconsistency in the analytical philosophy of science (SVI). In , we will touch on the break with the standard view of inconsistency in the analytical philosophy of science as initiated by Kuhn and continued by Lakatos and Laudan.will discuss the most recent trends that re-evaluate the emergence and the presence of inconsistencies in scientific theorising.will draw the conclusions that serve as guidelines for the next steps of our train of thought.

This chapter provides a survey of the most frequent methods of the treatment of inconsistencies in Optimality Theory (OT).raises the problem of whether our findings in the preceding chapters can be supported by the analysis of a linguistic theory that makes conscious and deliberate use of inconsistencies.will provide a brief overview of the basic ideas of OT. In , we will reveal the types of inconsistency in Optimality Theory with the help of an instructive case study without applying the terminology and the notation of the p-model. Some passages of René Kager’s argumentation in connection with the introduction of two correspondence constraints will be presented, which are quite simple but seem to be especially illuminating concerning the emergence and the treatment of inconsistencies in OT. In , we will analyse the structure and the treatment of these inconsistencies with the help of the p-model.will infer the solution to the problem mentioned.