A Theoretical and Empirical Study of UG-compliance in Non-standard 'Sloppy' Constructions in English

2023 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

• Project/Area Number: 21K00580
• Research Institution: Tokyo Gakugei University
• Principal Investigator: 鈴木 猛 東京学芸大学, 教育学部, 教授 (00187741)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-04-01 – 2025-03-31
• Keywords: English ‘of’ binominals / ‘of’ mononominals / Construction Grammar / constructional extension / Spellout / virtual synonymy / the Adjective Condition / the Coda Condition

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

This study aims to propose an analysis of a construction such as those in (a-c), based on COCA and COHA, adopting the CxG framework, supplemented by a framework of constructional extension.
a. It’s too big of a deal to be true.
b. This is so small of a problem that we can ignore it.
c. How hard of a job is it?
Its mysterious inclusion of ‘of’ is accounted for by a communicative force of Spellout of a frequent implicit meaning, the meaning equivalent to that of [Deg much of a N]. This is a constructional extension triggered by pairs of already existing virtually synonymous forms, in this case, [Deg much of a N] and [Deg Adj a N]. The analysis accounts for another condition in which the adjective in this construction is overwhelmingly ‘big’ and only a few more such as ‘good’, ‘bad’, and ‘hard’ are attested while those such as ‘strange’, ‘famous’ and ‘interesting’ are not just unfound but make the construction ill-formed. The reason for this may be that the construction is limited to expressing what [Deg much of a N] can mean. This is theoretically significant because these conditions can be properly characterized only through a link to another construction [Deg much of a N].

Current Status of Research Progress

3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.

Reason

概要通りの結果が得られたと考えられたため国際ジャーナルに応募したが、referencesが不十分である点等の指摘を受け、残念ながら不採用。

Strategy for Future Research Activity

応募したジャーナルのreviewersからの詳細なreviewを吟味し、紹介された文献を読み、原稿の修正を行う。再投稿または別の形で発表を目指す。