Constructional Gradience

Abstract In this chapter I will discuss gradience obtaining either within a particular construction-type (Subsective Constructional Gradience) or between two different syntactic constructions (Intersective Constructional Gradience), including clauses. Before we can sensibly talk about constructional gradience we need to define what is meant by the term ‘construction’, since it is used prolifically in the linguistic literature with very different definitions. In the next section I will give a bird’s-eye overview of the history of the notion. As we will see, in the Chomskyan paradigm constructions are regarded as epiphenomena, although more recently they have begun to attract attention again. In Section 7.3 I will attempt to define the notion, while in Section 7.4 I will look at some examples of constructional gradience. Section 7.5 presents some conclusions regarding the notion of constructional gradience.