Title: Phonological elements and Diasystematic Construction Grammar

Running head: Phonological elements and DCxG

Author: Steffen Höder

Affiliation: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel

Address:

Prof. Dr. Steffen Höder

Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel

Institut für Skandinavistik, Frisistik und Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft

Christian-Albrechts-Platz 4

24098 Kiel

Germany

Phone: +49 (431) 880-4587

E-mail: s.hoeder@isfas.uni-kiel.de

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Phonological elements and Diasystematic Construction Grammar1

AbstractUsage-based CxG approaches share the central assumption that any grammar has to be acquiredand organised through input-based abstraction and categorisation. Diasystematic ConstructionGrammar (DCxG) is based on the idea that these processes are not sensitive to language bound-aries. Multilingual input thus results in multilingual grammars which are conceived of as con-structicons containing language-specific as well as language-unspecific constructions. Withinsuch systems, phonological structures play an important part in the identification of schematicconstructions. However, the status of phonology in DCxG, as in CxG in general, yet remains un-clear. This paper presents some arguments for including phonological elements systematically inthe construction-based analysis of (multilingual) constructional systems.

1 Constructions all the way down?

Construction grammar (CxG), as represented by the different constructionist theories that have

developed since the 1980s, still generates a fair amount of debate and controversy among lin-

guists. This is mainly due to its theoretical perspective on the essence of linguistic structures, i.e.

the constructionist ideas on what kind of elements linguistic systems consist of, how linguistic

knowledge is acquired and organised, and whether or not grammatical organisation needs to be

modular.

The most far-reaching claim of CxG is the “idea that the network of constructions captures our

grammatical knowledge of language in toto, i.e. it’s constructions all the way down”, as phrased by

Goldberg (2006: 18; emphasis original). This is in line with standard definitions of the notion of

‘constructions’ as pairings of form and meaning, whether these definitions are strictly non-com-

positional as the one in (1) or also assume compositional constructions resulting from cognitive

entrenchment as the one in (2):

(1) Goldberg’s (1995: 4) definition

[A] distinct construction is defined to exist if one or more of its properties are notstrictly predictable from knowledge of other constructions existing in the grammar: C

1 I thank Martin Hilpert, Jan-Ola Östman and Miriam Fried for their helpful comments. I am also grateful to severalcolleagues that I have had the opportunity to discuss various aspects of DCxG with: Kurt Braunmüller, Hans Boas,Adele Goldberg, Karoline Kühl, John Peterson, and Helmut Spiekermann.

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is a construction iffdef C is a form-meaning pair <Fi, Si> such that some aspect of Fi orsome aspect of Si is not strictly predictable from C’s component parts or from otherpreviously established constructions.

(2) Goldberg’s (2006: 5) definition

Any linguistic pattern is recognized as a construction as long as some aspect of itsform or function is not strictly predictable from its component parts or from otherconstructions recognized to exist. In addition, patterns are stored as constructionseven if they are fully predictable as long as they occur with sufficient frequency […].

Generally, and particularly in the frameworks of Cognitive Construction Grammar (CCxG;

Goldberg 1995, 2006) and Radical Construction Grammar (RCxG; Croft 2001), constructions are

considered to be the uniform representations of all types of linguistic structures at least within the

so-called syntax-lexicon continuum, allowing for different degrees of schematicity/specificity.

This is illustrated by lexical (the English bread Construction, maximally specific: [bread]), mor-

phological (the English Regular Plural, partially schematic: [NOUN-s]), and syntactic constructions

(the English Ditransitive Construction, maximally schematic: [SBJ V OBJ1 OBJ2]).2

The syntax-lexicon continuum – to be more precise: the monolingual, synchronic syntax-lex-

icon continuum – has indeed been the main focus of study within the CxG framework. At the

same time, however, there has also been a centrifugal (in a manner of speaking) expansion of

constructionist thinking into other fields, such as diachronic change and grammaticalisation

(Traugott 2003; Diewald 2006, 2007; Noël 2007; Bergs & Diewald 2008; Hilpert 2008, 2011, 2013),

interaction and discourse (Östman 2005; Günthner & Imo 2006; Wide 2009), linguistic variability

(Leino & Östman 2008), language acquisition (Tomasello 2005), and language contact (Pietsch

2010; Höder 2012), in addition to the (centripetal) development and refinement of CxG ap-

proaches to the lexicon-syntax continuum itself (such as the work on constructional morphology

by Booij 2010 or Diewald 2009).

The one thing that CxG apparently has steered clear of until now is phonology (cf. Boas 2013:

239). To be sure, CxG in principle assumes a phonological form for all specific, i.e. filled, con-

structions or constructional components such as lexemes or morphemes, and particularly intona-

2 Here I am following Croft’s (2001) convention of using capitalised construction labels along with glottonyms to in-dicate that the constructions are not universal, but (at least) language-specific (see, however, the discussion on lan-guage-specificity in Section 3.2).

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tional patterns are often mentioned explicitly as parts of the phonological form of, say, utterance-

level idiomatic constructions such as the English Mad Magazine Construction (Lambrecht 1990:

217; cf. Fried & Östman 2004: 20). Still, the phonological form of constructions is often treated in

an unsatisfactory way if addressed at all (see Section 2). Ideas developed in CxG have also been

applied to phonological structures. One example is Vihman & Croft’s (2007) Radical Templatic

Phonology, which parallels Croft’s RCxG in the bottom-up, non-reductionist way it derives syl-

lable and segment categories from phonotactic schemas as basic units (cf. also Croft 2001: 62).

Phonological elements themselves are, however, normally not thought of as constructions or in-

cluded in constructional analysis.

There are at least two reasons for the (as yet) low interest in phonology. One is historical: an

original aim of CxG was to demonstrate that there are no clear-cut boundaries between a lan-

guage’s lexicon, morphology, and syntax, and that there is more to gain than to lose if the tradi-

tional distinction is abandoned (hence the focus of early CxG studies on idiomatic, i.e. partially

filled and partially schematic, structures such as [what’s X doing Y?] or [the Xer … the Yer]);

phonology simply has not played a significant role in this scheme. Another reason is that phono-

logical elements are generally taken to be purely formal features that are not associated with a

particular lexical or grammatical meaning. Thus they do not qualify as constructions in the sense

of definitions (1) and (2). Moreover, CCxG stipulates that constructions are motivated, whereas

phonological elements are taken to lack motivation (with the rare exception of onomatopoeic

sounds).

When it comes to language contact, however, phonological elements do play a more significant

role. Diasystematic Construction Grammar (DCxG; cf. Höder 2012; 2014a), approaches language

contact situations from a CxG perspective. According to DCxG, multilingual3 speakers and com-

munities organise their grammars in terms of multilingual systems, based on inheritance links

between language-specific and common constructions, which in turn are based on formal and

functional similarities. Formal similarities between lexically filled constructions depend on inter-

lingual phonological correspondences, and language-specific phonological structures thus have a

3 In this paper, ‘multilingualism’/‘multilectalism’ are not distinguished from ‘bilingualism’/‘bilectalism’, as the differ-ences are ones of quantity, not of quality.

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function of their own as markers of language specificity. In DCxG, this type of function is regu-

larly analysed as pragmatic meaning. As a consequence, phonological elements as parts of the

multilingual constructicon have to be included into the description of multilingual systems in

some way.

The following sections argue that if it is really constructions all the way down, i.e. if construc-

tions are indeed the basic units of all grammatical knowledge, then the categorical exclusion of

phonological elements from the grammar and from CxG is untenable. More specifically, it will be

argued (a) that the phonological description of constructional form should be taken more seri-

ously, (b) that phonological elements play a major role within multilingual grammars, and (c) that

certain types of phonological elements that normally are viewed as pure form indeed qualify as

constructions of a specific type when forming part of multilingual grammars. Section 2 discusses

the place of phonology in CxG in general, while the following sections focus on DCxG: section 3

gives a brief outline of the diasystematic approach, and section 4 zooms in on the function of

phonological elements in multilingual constructional networks, before reaching the conclusion in

section 5.

2 The place of phonology in construction grammar

The following sections discuss the potential relevance of phonology to CxG from two different

angles. Section 2.1 argues that the current practice of equating the domain of (construction)

grammar with (by and large) the traditional fields of morphology and syntax while wholesale ex-

cluding phonology does not follow from central assumptions in CxG, but is rather inherited from

earlier theories. Section 2.2 discusses how phonological aspects can be integrated into the de-

scription of constructional form.

2.1 Meaningful vs. distinctive elements

The categorical exclusion of phonological structures from the domain of (construction) grammar

rests on the assumption that phonology is concerned with distinctive elements within the lan-

guage system, whereas grammar is concerned with the combination of meaningful elements into

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complex utterances. Indeed, what Martinet (1949) famously dubs the ‘double articulation’ of lan-

guage is one of the most salient semiotic features of human language as compared to other sys-

tems of symbolic communication: Utterances are composed of meaningful units, which in turn

are composed of units which by themselves are meaningless, but rather distinguish different

meanings. For instance, the utterance in (3) consists of several words with different meanings,

such as cat ‘animal of the species Felis catus’, which can be subdivided into three distinctive units

(/k/, /æ/, and /t/).

(3) The cat caught a fish./ðə kæt kɔːt ə fɪʃ/4

The distinction between the two types of elements is reflected in the classic structuralist defini-

tions of the ‘phoneme’ and the ‘morpheme’ as the smallest contrastive and the smallest meaning-

ful unit in a language system, respectively.

However, the observation that double articulation is a characteristic feature of human language

does not imply that all types of utterances or structures actually are doubly articulated. Further-

more, despite the classic definitions of the phoneme and the morpheme as central notions in

phonology and morphology, the traditional boundary between the two fields (or, in CxG terms,

between phonology and the syntax-lexicon continuum) does not necessarily coincide with the

distinction between meaningful and merely contrastive units. Two cases may illustrate this point.

Firstly, there are submorphemic elements (i.e., elements that are not traditionally analysed as

morphemes in their own right) which nevertheless can be associated with discernible semantic

properties, such as the word-initial sound sequence /ɡl/ in English words such as glance, glare,

glaze, gleam etc., all of which encode meanings that are related to (specific types of) visual per-

ception, or word-initial /sn/ in, say, snack, snort, sniff, sneeze, i.e. elements that relate to (actions

involving) the nose and mouth. Bergen’s (2004) experimental psycholinguistic study of such

‘phonaesthemes’ shows that these play a significant role in the acquisition and organisation of lex-

ical knowledge into formally and functionally coherent categories, and that the frequency of

phonaesthemes affects their cognitive entrenchment. In other words, in spite of their traditional

4 The exact phonemic analysis and transcription is a matter of debate and controversy for any language. This is, how -ever, irrelevant in the light of the more general arguments discussed in this article.

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analysis as being non-morphemic elements, phonaesthemes seem to qualify as constructions

which are instantiated in the individual lexemes, thus forming a network as in Figure 1.

Figure 1. English phonaestheme gl-

Secondly, there are linguistic elements which do not exhibit double, but indeed single articula-

tion. This is the case when conventional meaningful elements cannot be (fully) subdivided into

meaningless distinctive units, as they consist of (or contain) sounds that do not occur in phonem-

ically regular words in that language and hence do not form part of its phoneme inventory. For

instance, the dental click [ǀ] is used in English to express a negative affective meaning (sometimes

written as tut or tsk), whereas it does not occur in other English constructions (unlike in lan-

guages like Zulu, where it is a perfectly regular consonantal phoneme, as in icici /iːǀíːǀi/ ‘earring’).

In Hebrew, in contrast, [ǀ] has an affirmative logical meaning (Gil 2011). This functional differ-

ence indicates that the meaning of [ǀ] has to be learned by speakers of either language during lan-

guage acquisition, and that the association of [ǀ] with either affective or logical meanings is arbit-

rary and, hence, conventional. While such non-phonemic word-like utterances such as English [|]and Hebrew [|] are exceptional in terms of the traditional distinction between phonology and

morphology and indeed are most likely to be treated as non-linguistic or para-linguistic elements

in traditional analyses, they qualify as ordinary constructions from a CxG perspective, even

though it is pointless to distinguish between a phonological and a morphological level on the

formal side of such constructions.

The existence of (perhaps not-so-atypical) borderline cases such as phonaesthemes and non-

phonemic constructions suggests that the boundary between phonology and the syntax-lexicon

continuum is not as clear-cut and impermeable as is traditionally assumed. At any rate, the cat-

egorical exclusion of phonology from the domain of CxG seems unmotivated; phonological ele-

ments do not disqualify a priori as constructional units. Rather, the status of phonological ele-

ments depends on their constructional (i.e. phonological, grammatical, pragmatic, lexical) con-

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ω[ˈɡl-‘vision, light’

glance glare glaze gleam glimmer glimpse glow …

text, and hence any such context deserves individual scrutiny. As a consequence, it might be

worthwhile also to reconsider the place of phonology in CxG and also to investigate the possibil-

ity of phonological elements within the constructicon.

2.2 Phonological form: simple and more complex cases

It is generally accepted that constructions, defined as form-meaning pairs, include information

on their phonological form, at least as far as spoken language is concerned (as opposed to other

modalities such as written language or sign language). However, descriptions and analyses in CxG

seldom actually specify the phonological form of the constructions they deal with, or if they do,

they rarely do so in a manner that meets the demands of, say, traditional phono-lexicography. In-

stead, the phonological forms of constructions are often given – or rather hinted at – via their or-

thographic representation. In practice, this means that phonological details are usually omitted

from the description of phonological forms, and that the complexities arising from a more de-

tailed description are not taken into account at all.

While we meet this problem at all levels of constructional (and phonological) complexity, it

becomes more essential when we move from phonologically filled to more schematic construc-

tions. In lexical constructions, the differences between phonological forms and their orthographic

representations tend to be few. For example, basic knowledge of phoneme-grapheme correspond-

ence rules in Standard German is sufficient to predict the phonological form from the ortho-

graphic form in (4).

(4) Standard German word[Wort /vɔrt/ ‘word’]

However, predictability is far lower with respect to irregular phoneme-grapheme correspond-

ences and in particular suprasegmental elements, which usually lack orthographic representation.

For instance, the lexical constructions record¹ and record² in (5) differ in that the former has ini-

tial stress and the latter final stress. Stress location cannot be transcribed orthographically, but is

clearly part of the phonological form of these constructions.5

5 Moreover, stress location in English has a more general grammatical function as a suprasegmental word-classmarker (cf. conflict, protest, insult etc., which all follow the pattern discussed here).

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(5) Standard British Englisha. record¹

[record /ˈrekɔːd/ ‘record (noun)’]

b. record²[record /rɪˈkɔːd/ ‘record (verb)’]

Similarly, the orthographic representations of the Danish lexemes mother and murder in (6) erro-

neously suggest a segmental difference (word-final <r> and <rd> both represent /r/), while failing

to indicate the fact that the two phonological forms, while segmentally identical, are nevertheless

distinguished by the presence vs. absence of stød (cf. Basbøll 2003), i.e. a characteristic supraseg-

mental feature of Danish, usually realised as creaky voice on the preceding segment (hence mord

/moːˀr/ [moo̰ːɐɐ̯]). (6) Standard Danish

a. mother[mor /moːr/ ‘mother’]

b. murder[mord /moːˀr/ ‘murder’]

Another example comes from Standard Swedish, a pitch-accent language, where the distinctive

contrast between two different tonal contours (known as accent 1 and 2), cannot be predicted

from the orthographic form, as in the Swedish bolt and rule lexemes in (7).6

(7) Standard Swedish a. bolt

[regel /²reːɡəl/ ‘bolt, latch’]

b. rule[regel /¹reːɡəl/ ‘rule’]

In the case of lexical constructions, orthographically invisible phonological information can quite

easily be added to the description of constructional form by providing a phonemic transcription.

Things are more complex, though, in the case of more schematic constructions such as the Stand-

ard Swedish Infinitive. According to standard grammars, the infinitive (in most inflectional

classes) is formed by adding a suffix -a to the verbal stem. This can easily be formalised as in (8):

6 The exact nature of the Swedish tonal accents and accent assignment is a matter of considerable debate, and quitedifferent analyses have been proposed. At any rate, the phonological form of Swedish constructions will have to in-clude information on the tonal accents somehow, which is the point here.

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(8) Standard Swedish Infinitivea. [VERB-a]

b. kast-athrow-INF

However, if we take the tonal accents into account, it becomes obvious that the formation of the

infinitive includes not only a suffix, but also a suprafix, since infinitives of morphologically

simple verbs (in contrast to other inflectional forms within the verbal paradigm) are assigned ac-

cent 2 (Riad 2009: 127). A fuller description of the constructional form of the infinitive would

have to include this, as well as information on the fact that the whole construction (consisting of

lexical stem, suprafix, and suffix) constitutes a single phonological word (abbreviated as ω in

phonological notation), which is the relevant phonological domain for the tonal accents. This is

shown in (9):7

(9) Standard Swedish Infinitivea. [VERB -a /(²VERB-a)ω/]b. kast-a /(²kasːta)/

throw+INF

The necessity of specifying phonological forms becomes even clearer in the case of non-standard

varieties lacking an orthography of their own or employing one based on a related standard. For

example, in a more formal register of Standard Danish, the infinitive of most verbs is formed by

adding the suffix /ə/ to the stem. This is reflected in the orthography, as illustrated in (10). In a

more colloquial style (as in many dialects), though, corresponding infinitives are often formed by

lengthening an element in the rhyme of the stem-final syllable (either the nucleus or the coda

consonant, depending on the phonological context; cf. Schachtenhaufen 2010). (In phonological

terms, this suprafix is usually interpreted as compensatory lengthening resulting from /ə/ dele-

tion.)

(10) Standard Danish infinitivea. skrige [ˈsɡɡ̊ʁiːə, sɡɡ̊ʁiːː]

‘scream-INF’

b. flyve [ˈflyːuɐ̯ə, ˈflyːu]‘fly-INF’

7 Plus signs (+) are used to indicate non-segmentability, as opposed to hyphens (-) between adjacent segmentableunits.

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c. komme [ˈkʰʌʌʌ̞̈mə, kʰʌʌʌ̞̈mː]‘come-INF’

Here, the standard orthography misleadingly suggests a constructional analysis in terms of seg-

mental affixation ([VERB-/ə/]), whereas a phonological transcription of the non-standard form ex-

poses the morphological structure as suprafixation ([VERB+/ː/]).

Phonological form can be filled (as in lexemes or affixes, including suprafixes), but can be also

quite schematic. Many clause-level constructions include schematic phonological patterns. Con-

structions in European languages signalling illocutionary force are typical examples, such as the

German Polar Question in (11), which combines verb-initial word order with particular types of

intonation, or the French Intonation Question in (12), which is solely expressed by specific inton-

ational patterns.

(11) German Polar Question a. [VFIN₁ …, intonational patterns8]

b. Sprecht ihr Deutsch?speak.IND.PRS-2PL 2PL.NOM German‘Do you speak German?’

(12) French Intonation Questiona. [intonational patterns]

b. Vous parlez français?2PL speak-IND.PRS.2PL French‘Do you speak French?’

An example from the domain of information structure is found in the English Contrastive Focus

construction in (13) (also cf. the remarks on prosodic patterns in Fried & Östman’s [2005] discus-

sion of pragmatic particles in Czech and Finland Swedish dialects).

(13) English Contrastive Focusa. [stress on contrastive element]

b. He’s done ˈthat.‘He’s done that, whereas he hasn’t done other things.’

It is, however, remarkable that phonologically schematic forms can also encode quite specific

grammatical functions. For instance, there are several ways of nominal compounding in Standard

8 These can be formalised in various ways. The prototypical pattern includes an utterance-final f0 rise which can beinterpreted in formal terms as an H-^H% boundary tone (for the GToBI system of intonational notation, see Grice,Baumann & Benzmüller 2005).

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Swedish, all of which combine two nouns, either with our without one of different available (seg-

mental) interfixes. However, all of them also include a schematic phonological pattern which

(iconically) integrates both components into one phonological word and assigns accent 2 to the

whole compound, regardless of the tonal accents of its components (Riad 2009: 215ff.). This is il-

lustrated in the examples in (14).

(14) Standard Swedish nominal compoundsa. bokmanus /²buːkmaːnʉs/

book-manuscript < bok /¹buːk/, manus /¹maːnʉs/‘book manuscript’

b. universitetsbibliotek /ʉniversi²teːtsbibliuteːk/university-INTERFIX-library < universitet /ʉniversi¹teːt/, bibliotek /bibliu¹teːk/‘university library’

c. kungahus /²kʉŋːahʉːs/king-INTERFIX-house < kung /¹kʉŋː/, hus /¹hʉːs/‘royal house’

d. kvinnonamn /²kvinːunamːn/woman-INTERFIX-name < kvinna /²kvinːa/, namn /¹namːn/‘female name’

e. familjeliv /fa²milːjəliːv/family-INTERFIX-life < familj /fa¹milːj/, liv /¹liːv/‘family life’

f. gatukök /²ɡaːtʉɕøːk/street-INTERFIX-kitchen < gata /²ɡaːta/, kök /¹ɕøːk/‘snack bar’

The corresponding nominal compound constructions can be arranged in a constructional net-

work such as the one in Figure 2 which relates the maximally schematic form [²(NOUN NOUN)ω] to

more specific and partially filled constructions such as [²(NOUN-a-NOUN)ω] with a vocalic interfix

or [²(NOUN-NOUN)ω]; this construction only specifies immediate adjacency of the two components

in addition to the maximally schematic form.

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Figure 2. Standard Swedish Nominal Compound Constructions

While basic segmental and suprasegmental features of constructional form can, after all, easily

be described phonologically (even if, in current practice, they seldom are), the description of

more complex non-concatenative form within a non-derivational framework such as construc-

tion grammar faces more serious obstacles. How, for instance, can the relation between the singu-

lar and plural forms of the Standard German lexeme hat in (15) be expressed in constructional

terms? The plural is formed by – as traditional analysis puts is – the substitution of /y/ for the

stem vowel /u/ (in addition to adding the suffix /ə/). (Similar patterns affect a large number of

nouns and are marginally productive in Standard German.)

(15) Standard German nominal number a. Hut /huːt/

hat.SG

b. Hüte /ˈhyːtə/hat\PL-PL

Analogously, how can we account for the systematic vowel alternations (‘ablaut’) between present,

past and supine forms in Standard Swedish strong verbs as in (16)?

(16) Standard Swedish verbal tensea. dricker /¹drikːər/

drink\PRS-PRS

b. drack /drakː/drink\PST

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²(NOUN NOUN)ω

²(NOUN-NOUN)ω

bok-manus‘book manuscript’

²(NOUN-s-NOUN)ω

universitet-s-bibliotek‘university library’

²(NOUN-V-NOUN)ω

²(NOUN-a-NOUN)ω

kung-a-hus‘royal house’

²(NOUN-e-NOUN)ω

familj-e-liv‘family life’

²(NOUN-u-NOUN)ω

gat-u-kök‘snack bar’

²(NOUN-o-NOUN)ω

kvinn-o-namn‘female name’

c. druckit /²drʉkːit/drink\PRF-PRF

The traditional analysis of such phenomena relies on morphological derivations, often involving

phonological processes, such as replacing one sound or sound sequence by another. In such a

view, Standard German plural forms such as Hüte ‘hats’ in (15) are formed by means of umlaut,

i.e. a vowel fronting process that operates in specific morphological contexts:

(17) Standard German Umlaut[+vowel, +back] → [–back]

Such a derivational analysis, however, is irreconcilable with the claim in CxG that all proper-

ties of constructions should be formalisable in terms of non-derived elements (“what you see is

what you get”). A more suitable solution can be found in the study of the highly non-linear root-

and-pattern structures found in Semitic languages. In these languages, many inflectional and de-

rivational forms are formed by combining different discontinuous morphemes, more precisely a

lexical polyconsonantal root with a grammatical polyvocalic pattern (sometimes labelled a ‘trans-

fix’), as in the Classical Arabic verb forms in (18) which extend the root ktb:

(18) Classical Arabica. katabtu

write<PST.ACT>-1SG

‘I wrote’

b. uktubīIMP-write<NPST.ACT>-SG.F‘write! (addressing a female)’

The most influential way of analysing this type of non-concatenative morphology describes roots

and patterns in a way that is reminiscent of (and inspired by) Autosegmental Phonology (Gold-

smith 1976; the earliest form of this analysis of root-and-pattern morphology is introduced by

McCarthy [1981]). Roots and patterns are represented as partially schematic sequences occupying

different tiers, each specifying slots that have to be filled by matching templates. For instance, the

triconsonantal root kVtVb ‘write’ specifies two vocalic slots, which can be filled by the vowels in

the bivocalic pattern CaCaC marking past tense and active voice when these two templates are

combined such as in the past-tense stem katab (Figure 3).

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Figure 3. Classical Arabic root-and-pattern morphology

Analyses along these lines approach the non-linear combination of discontinuous morphological

elements in a non-derivational way which is perfectly suitable for the description of non-concat-

enative forms in CxG.9 For example, the constructions and their instantiation in (18) can be rep-

resented in a simplified way as shown in Figure 4. The lexical root is modelled as a construction

with a partially schematic phonological form containing two vowel slots ([k_V1t_V2b] ‘write’). The

grammatical patterns specify the vowels that fill these slots in the formation of the past and non-

past stems katab ([VERB(V1:a, V2:a)] ‘PST.ACT’) and ktub ([VERB(V1:Ø, V2:u)] ‘NPST.ACT’); additional construc-

tions provide the segmental affixes used in mood, person, number, and gender inflection.

Figure 4. Root-and-pattern morphology (constructional analysis)

A similar approach can also be applied to similar, if less complex, types of non-concatenative

morphology such as German umlaut or Swedish ablaut, which typically involve polyconsonantal

roots that are combined with monovocalic patterns. The vowel alternation between /u/ and /y/ as

in Standard German Hut ‘hat’ vs. Hüte ‘hats’ (as in (15)) can be modelled by means of a lexical

template [/h_V[u,y]ːt/ ‘hat’], which specifies the consonantal onset and coda as well as a pair of vow-

els that can fill the nucleus slot10. The singular and plural constructions then specify the actual

vowels and additional segmental affixes, where necessary (Figure 5).

9 Indeed, Rubba (1993) adopts a Cognitive Grammar approach in her analysis of root-and-pattern schemas in Mod-ern Aramaic, including partially schematic phonological forms and constructional networks.10 Of course, one could also argue for specifying one or more phonological features in order to define the vowel sets,such as [+high, +rounded] for the lexical root and [±back] for singular and plural, respectively.

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polyconsonantal root

polyvocalic pattern

k V t V b

C a C a C

k a t a b

VERB-tu<1SG>

VERB(V1:a, V2:a)

<PST.ACT>k__V1t__V2b

‘write’VERB(V1:Ø, V2:u)

<NPST.ACT>

u-VERB

<IMP>VERB-ī

<F>

… … katabtu‘I wrote’

… uktubī‘write!’

… … …

Figure 5. Standard German Umlaut Plural (constructional analysis)

This general discussion of various aspects of phonological form in CxG basically leads to two

conclusions. Firstly, it is important to be more accurate in the phonological description of con-

structions in general, especially since some phonological elements such as suprasegmentals are

not represented orthographically, but nevertheless can be an essential part of a construction’s

form. Secondly, phonological schematicity should be handled in a non-derivational way, i.e.

rather by means of phonological templates than via phonological processes. This is particularly

relevant with respect to complex morphological constructions such as non-concatenative affixa-

tion which include phonological alternations within schematic forms. This also implies that CxG

cannot maintain a neutral stance as to the way phonological form is analysed, but must prefer

template-based over process-based descriptions.

3 Diasystematic Construction Grammar: a brief sketch

Diasystematic Construction Grammar (DCxG)11 is a usage-based CxG approach which focuses

on the role of constructions in situations that are traditionally described as ‘multilingual’. Or,

rather, one could say that DCxG is usage-based CxG as applied to such situations. Croft (2005:

277) famously states that RCxG is what he calls “[v]anilla construction grammar, with no top-

pings”, i.e. it is not substantially different from the basic framework which all constructionist ap-

proaches have in common, but the key feature of RCxG is its rejection of any additional assump-

tion (no atomic schematic units, no syntactic relations, and no universal constructions). Using a

similar metaphor, DCxG could be described as vanilla CxG without a cornet, the cornet being the

notion of pre-existing ‘languages’ in the sense of distinct language systems. DCxG rejects this no-

11 ‘DCxG’ is also used as an abbreviation for ‘Diachronic Construction Grammar’, which is conceptually unrelated. –The use of the term ‘diasystem’ was inspired by Weinreich’s (1954) work on phonological relations between differentdialects. Weinreich (1954: 390) states that ‘diasystems’ are not only scientific abstractions, but are “experienced in avery real way by bilingual (including ‘bidialectal’) speakers” – a notion that is central to DCxG.

16

/h__V[u,y]ːt/‘hat’

NOUN(V[u,y]: u)

<SG>NOUN(V[u,y]: y)-/ə/

<PL>

/huːt/‘hat’

… …/ˈhyːtə/‘hats’

tion on the basis of current contact-linguistic insights, and, consequently, aims at a socio-cognit-

ively more realistic model of constructions and constructional networks in language contact situ-

ations. The following sections give a brief overview of DCxG.

3.1 Multilingualism and socio-cognitive realism

The dominant linguistic frameworks of the 20th century, structuralism and generative grammar,

identify the coherent, static, homogeneous language system as the object of linguistic investiga-

tion and grammatical theory. If speakers or communities use more than one language according

to their regular communicative needs, then this is usually described by means of coexisting sys-

tems which are accessed and used by the individual speakers. This view lives on at least implicitly

in present-day grammatical theory.

Contact linguistics, on the other hand, emphasises

(a) that multilingual speakers, psycholinguistically speaking, are not multiple monolinguals,

i.e. their linguistic knowledge cannot be modelled simply as the sum of several monolingual com-

petences (Grosjean 1989, 2008: 9ff.), and they do not process their different languages in isolation

from each other (cf. Bialystok et al. 2009: 92ff.);

(b) that multilinguals tend to associate different languages with different domains and use

them for different purposes, either by implementing a community-wide polyglossic distribution

of several languages which fulfil different functions in society, or by establishing particular con-

ventions within smaller speaker groups;

(c) that, given enough time, languages in contact tend to influence one another, often to a

rather substantial degree, leading to what is traditionally called convergence, i.e. an increase in

structural similarity between the languages at the expense of interlingual differences.

These facts indicate that language systems in contact situations are not wholly isolated from, but

rather systematically related to each other, at least in some sense and to some degree.

Moreover, multilingualism is far more widespread globally than monolingualism (Lüdi 1996:

234ff.), the most prevalent form being community-level multilingualism. Contrary to popular

misconceptions, multilingualism as such is by no means a typical result of recent developments

17

such as economic globalisation, globalised media or migration. Rather, most historical societies

in most parts of the world – including the greater part of Europe until quite recently – have al-

ways been (and in many regions still are) multilingual to some degree. This does not necessarily

mean that in such societies the entire population consists of full-fledged multilingual individuals

sensu Bloomfield (1965 [1933]: 56). It does, however, imply that many individual speakers across

the world are able to a certain extent to use different languages for different communicative pur-

poses (cf. Oksaar 1980: 43; Grosjean 2008: 22ff.). Furthermore, even individuals that are normally

thought of as monolingual do not only use one variety of their language, but have, as a rule, at

least some knowledge of different lects, i.e. varieties (e.g. dialects, social dialects) and registers.

Therefore, if we take the term ‘multilingualism’ to include ‘multilectalism’, i.e. the command of

more than one variety of a single language, then we can indeed say that multilingualism is ubi-

quitous: virtually everybody is multilingual (at least in the sense of ‘multilectal’) to some degree.

This pervasiveness of multilingualism makes the idea of a systematic interconnection between

different languages even more relevant for grammatical theory in general.

An increasing number of contact linguists, such as Matras (2009: 208f.), go so far as to claim

that multilinguals make no categorical distinction between different language systems at all.

Rather, they have access to one linguistic ‘repertoire’, i.e. a set of structures from which they

choose the ones they consider appropriate for each communicative context. DCxG fully sub-

scribes to this view. Linguistic elements do not belong to a given language a priori. Rather, they

are associated pragmatically with specific communicative contexts, and this association – in cases

of stable, long-term multilingualism – can eventually result in a more permanent restriction of

certain structures to specific contexts. This, then, is language-specificity – a conventional prag-

matic property of specific elements that speakers have to acquire along with the constructions it is

associated with.

DCxG takes the view that the traditional, pre-theoretical notion of ‘language’ in the sense of a

distinct, independent and clearly identifiable system of verbal communication has to be rejected

as a concept that is, at least with respect to multilingual situations, socio-cognitively unrealistic.

Rather than a pre-existing fact of human language, this concept is a historical-cultural product

(reinforced, of course, by standardisation and similar developments), paralleled and reflected by

18

the highly idealised scientific notion of the discrete language system. From this perspective, what

really can be analysed in a socio-cognitively realistic way is the system of linguistic structures

used by individual speakers and speaker groups who share a substantial set of conventionalised

common structures. However, this system can, and indeed often will, include structures from dif-

ferent ‘languages’.

3.2 Diaconstructions and idioconstructions

Aiming at a higher degree of socio-cognitive realism, DCxG focuses on linguistic structures that

represent (a) the linguistic knowledge of speakers within a given multilingual community and (b)

the linguistic conventions of that community, as observable in consistent communicative beha-

viour. The central assumption is that multilingual speakers organise their linguistic system and,

hence, their constructional network on the basis of the available input by means of abstraction

and categorisation, irrespectively of ‘language boundaries’ (Höder 2012: 247), thus integrating

elements from different languages into one common system.

At the heart of the organisation of such a system is a process known in contact linguistics as

‘interlingual identification’ (Weinreich 1967: 7), i.e. the establishment of interlingual relations

between two languages in contact. It is crucial, though, that elements in different languages are

not equivalent per se. Rather, they are perceived, used, and gradually conventionalised as equival-

ents in a socio-cognitive process that is at least partly arbitrary and, hence, creative, although it is

guided by formal or functional similarities (cf. Heine & Kuteva 2005: 222ff.). Interlingual identi-

fication thus results in the emergence of a network of socio-cognitively embedded equivalence re-

lations which cover variable portions of the individual language systems (Figure 6).

19

Figure 6. Monolingual elements and interlingual links

This translates into DCxG in the following fashion: Just as in the organisation of monolingual

constructional networks, speakers identify equivalent structures in different contexts and inter-

pret them as instances of more schematic constructions. Provided multilingual input and the ex-

istence of interlingual similarities, this leads to the eventual establishment and social convention-

alisation of ‘diaconstructions’ (diasystematic constructions), i.e. constructions which are unspe-

cified for language while sharing inheritance links with the individual ‘idioconstructions’ (idio-

syncratic, i.e. language-specific, constructions). Since the choice of language in multilingual com-

munities is determined by contextual factors (such as communicative domain, topic, specific

pragmatic functions, etc.) language specificity in idiosyncratic constructions is interpreted as part

of their pragmatic meaning (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Diaconstructions and idioconstructions

For instance, Danish and German, as spoken in bilingual speaker groups on both sides of the

Danish-German border, share verb-initial word order as a formal feature of polar questions, in

addition to language-specific formal features such as the employment of different intonation pat-

20

A B

monolingual elements

interlingual links

A B

idiosyncratic constructions

diaconstructions inheritance link

terns to mark this type of illocutionary force. This is reflected in a Polar Interrogative Diacon-

struction which specifies verb-initial word order, while the additional language-specific features

(such as intonation patterns) are specified by idioconstructions in both languages (cf. Höder

2012: 248).

Diaconstructions need not be that schematic, though, but can also be quite specific, both

formally and functionally, such as in Standard German/Low German12, where the house diacon-

struction specifies at least a semantically identical lexical concept (‘house’) along with some mor-

phological properties (such as word class and gender) and the plural diaconstruction specifies

that the nominal plural is expressed by affixation although the actual affixes differ (Figure 8). (For

the phonological form of the lexical diaconstruction, see Section 4.)

Figure 8. Standard German/Low German house and Plural Diaconstructions

Diaconstructions are, per definition, not language-specific. However, they are nowhere near uni-

versal either. Therefore, while DCxG evidently agrees with the anti-universalist view shared by

usage-based approaches, it disagrees with the RCxG position that all constructions are language-

specific (Croft 2005: 277). A ‘language’, from a diasystematic perspective, represents a subset from

the whole constructional network of a specific community including both idio- and diaconstruc-

tions that are appropriate in communicative contexts of a certain type (cf. Figure 7). In DCxG, the

12 All Low German forms cited in this article are from North Low German as spoken in the vicinity of Hamburg.

21

/h__s/‘house’

/haʊɐ̯s/‘house’

/hus/‘house’

/ˈhɔɪ ɐ̯zər/‘house’, <plural>

/hŷs/‘house’, <plural>

(NOUN+UMLAUT)-/ər/<…, plural>

NOUN+UMLAUT+/VV /<…, plural>

NOUN, AFFIX

<…, plural>

StG

StG

StG

LG

LG

LG

diaconstruction

diaconstruction

non-universality of constructions can thus be better captured by saying that they are community-

specific.

It is apparent that any set of languages in contact situations share at least some formal or func-

tional similarities that can potentially be analysed in terms of (often quite abstract) diaconstruc-

tions. As with other constructions, this inevitably raises questions about possible degrees of

schematicity and redundancy, which boil down to the issue of division of labour between schem-

atic and filled constructions. From a usage-based perspective, language-specific knowledge can,

but need not be stored and processed independently. Many forms will indeed be processed on-

line, i.e. on the basis of productive schematic diaconstructions, with language-specific construc-

tions providing little more than phonological form. Conversely, other forms will be processed via

idioconstructions that are stored in the constructicon independently or in addition to a diacon-

struction. According to Goldberg’s definition (2), the main criterion for this is a sufficient level of

frequency, in multilingual as in monolingual systems.

In establishing diaconstructions and diasystematic networks, different types of empirical evid-

ence are conceivable. First of all, as DCxG is CxG, any kind of evidence that can be used in estab-

lishing normal, i.e. monolingual, constructions is also applicable, mutatis mutandis, in multilin-

gual contexts (for an overview see Hilpert 2014: 130ff.). There are also, however, some types of

evidence that specifically support the existence of diaconstructions in language contact situations.

(a) Interlingual productivity. Diaconstructions, as schematic constructions in general, are ex-

pected to be productive. For example, Standard German and Low German, as very closely related

languages, share the following diaconstructions:

(19) a. Lexical mouse Diaconstruction StG [Maus ‘mouse’], LG [Muus ‘mouse’]

b. Lexical point DiaconstructionStG [zeig- ‘point’], LG [wies- ‘point’]

c. Agentive Suffix DiaconstructionStG/LG [VERB-er]

d. Determinative Compound DiaconstructionStG [NOUN-NOUN <determinative compound>]

Using these diaconstructions, bilingual speakers can spontaneously both construct and decode

the innovative Low German form Muuswieser (Höder 2014b: 49), which is structurally iso-

22

morphic to StG Mauszeiger ‘mouse cursor’, whether or not they have acquired it or even en-

countered it before.13 Bilingual speakers will frequently produce such hapaxes in normal conver-

sation, even substituting diasystematic formations for established idiosyncratic elements, such as

LG Footbodden ‘floor’ (instantiating the Determinative Compound Diaconstruction and two lex-

ical diaconstructions: StG [Fuß ‘foot’], LG [Foot ‘foot’]; StG [Boden ‘ground’, LG Bodden ‘ground’];

cf. StG Fußboden ‘floor’) instead of genuine LG Eer ‘floor, earth’. Such forms may be evaluated as

incorrect by linguistic purists, but they are undeniably intelligible for all bilingual speakers with

access to the relevant diaconstructions. Without these diaconstructions, it would be impossible

for speakers to produce or comprehend such innovative formations, and hapaxes in particular.

(b) Pro-diasystematic change. In cases of long-term, stable language contact, languages tend to

become gradually more similar to each other. In DCxG, this type of diachronic change can be

modelled as a reduction of the overall number of language-specific idiosyncrasies and, corres-

pondingly, an increase in the number of diaconstructions within the multilingual system, as less

idioconstructions are needed in order to account for all existing constructions within a particular

speaker group.14 For example, the establishment of pronominal relative clauses in Written Old

Swedish, an innovative variety emerging within a group of Swedish-Latin bilinguals during the

14th to 16th century, can be modelled as a case of pro-diasystematic change. Höder’s (2012: 253ff.)

analysis shows how the emergence of relative pronouns simplifies the bilingual system: While in

pre-change Swedish, adnominal relative clauses are typically marked by clause-initial subjunc-

tions (sum, þär) that carry no additional grammatical meaning, the innovative construction is

structurally very similar to the relativisation strategy used in Latin; both employ clause-initial

pronouns (hviliken, þän) that are inflected for gender and number (in agreement with the ante-

cedent) as well as case (depending on the role of the pronoun within the relative clause itself). It is

evident that in a pre-change bilingual system, the formation of adnominal relative clauses abso-

lutely requires idioconstructions in each language; a possible diaconstruction could at most (if at

13 Low German is normally restricted to the domains of everyday life and scarcely used in, say, technical domains.There is, however, an active community of language enthusiasts, and there is some legal and political support for thelanguage.14 Typically, this corresponds to the traditional notion of ‘convergence’, although pro-diasystematic change is concep-tually different and may even include some types of divergence; for a more detailed discussion, see Höder (2014b).

23

all) capture the basic structure of adnominal relativisation itself (cf. Figure 9). For Latin-Swedish

bilinguals using the post-change relative pronouns, on the other hand, a Pronominal Relativisa-

tion Diaconstruction can do most of the job for either language, leaving only the lexical filling of

the relative pronouns to the idioconstructions (cf. Figure 10).

Figure 9. Old Swedish/Latin Pronominal Relativisation Constructions (pre-change)

Figure 10. Old Swedish/Latin Pronominal Relativisation Constructions (post-change)

Summing up: DCxG models the constructional knowledge of multilingual speakers in stably

multilingual communities in terms of interdependent language-specific idioconstructions and

language-unspecific diaconstructions. There is, however, no fundamental difference between the

two types; both are constructions in the ordinary sense, set apart only by their association with

different communicative contexts. As a consequence, constructions within multilingual systems

are not treated differently from others. By rejecting the idea of language boundaries as an a priori

given, DCxG provides useful insights into the possibilities of constructional organisation in lan-

guage contact situations.

24

NOUN, REL …<adnominal relativisation>

OSw Lat

diaconstruction

NOUNgender:i, number: j, REL.PRONgender:i, number: j, case: k ...

sum, þär

NOUN, REL.SUBJ ...<adnominal relativisation>

qui

<adnominal relativisation (reference, role)>

OSw Lat

diaconstruction

NOUNgender:i, number: j, REL.PRONgender:i, number: j, case: k ...

sum, þär qui

<adnominal relativisation (reference, role)>

4 Phonological Language Markers

As any construction, diaconstructions pair form and meaning. While many diaconstructions are

schematic in form as well as in function, others are at least partially filled and, thus, have a phon-

ological form of their own. The Standard German/Low German house diaconstruction discussed

above (cf. Figure 8) does not only define a common lexical concept in Standard German and Low

German, but also specifies a schematic phonological form, consisting of the onset and coda con-

sonants (/h/ and /s/, respectively), which can be established by means of abstraction and general-

isation from the actual forms in Standard German (/haʊɐ̯s/) and Low German (/hus/), and a vowel

slot that can be filled by either /aʊɐ̯/ or /u/. The individual idioconstructions specify the stem vow-

els that fill this vowel slot in either language, as shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11. Phonologically schematic diaconstruction

The synchronic sound correspondence between the two vowels (/aʊɐ̯/~/uː/) is not coincidental.

Diachronically, it is one result of a sound change known as Early High German Diphthongisation,

which affected Early High German (the predecessor of Modern High German, of which Standard

German is a variety), but not Low German. Since the diphthongisation, as a regular (‘Neogram-

marian’) sound change, affected a great number of lexemes, there are today numerous Standard

German/Low German ‘diamorphs’ (in Haugen’s [1956: 46f.] terminology) where the two vowels

correspond to each other in otherwise similar phonological contexts; cf. the examples in (20).15

(20) Standard German, Low GermanDaumen, Dumen ‘thumb’Haut, Huut ‘skin’

15 The same goes for other vowel pairs in cognates which stem from the same sound change, namely /aɪ ɐ̯/~/iː/ (as inStG beißen/LG bieten ‘bite’, Deich/Diek ‘dike, levee’, mein/mien ‘my’) and /ɔɪ ɐ̯/~/yː/ (as in StG deutsch/LG düütsch ‘Ger-man’, Feuer/Füür ‘fire’, Leute/Lüüd ‘people’), or consonantal pairs such as /pf/~/p/ or /ts/~/t/, which originate from theOld High German Consonant Shift (cf. StG Apfel/LG Appel ‘apple’, Pferd/Peerd ‘horse’, zwei/twee ‘two’, Herz/Hart‘heart’); examples are legion.

25

/h__V[aʊɐ̯,u]s/‘house’

diaconstruction

/haʊɐ̯s/‘house’

/hus/‘house’

StG LG

laut, luut ‘loud’Maus, Muus ‘mouse’saugen, sugen ‘suck’tauschen, tuschen ‘exchange’aus, ut ‘out (of)’

From a diasystematic perspective, frequent sound correspondences such as this one raise the

question whether the choice of stem vowels in itself (rather than the choice of the construction in

which it occurs) can be analysed as carrying pragmatic meaning. Returning to the earlier discus-

sion of non-concatenative morphology, we see that the Standard German Umlaut Plural can be

analysed as involving (a) a phonologically schematic lexical root and (b) grammatical patterns

that specify the nucleus vowel for the singular and plural forms (see Figure 5). In this analysis, the

choice of stem vowel is interpreted as carrying grammatical meaning. The same kind of analysis is

also applicable to the idiosyncratic filling of schematic diaconstructional form, thus introducing a

specific kind of phonologically filled idioconstruction whose sole function is to mark language

specificity (Figure 12). Such idioconstructions can be labelled Phonological Language Markers.

Figure 12. Phonological Language Marker constructions

It may seem exaggerated to assume that this rather complex interplay of diaconstructions and

Phonological Language Markers is at work whenever there are sound correspondences between

lexemes in different languages. Indeed, as far as the core lexicon is concerned, it is certainly reas-

onable that constructions such as the house lexemes, given their frequency in both languages, are

stored and processed via lexical idioconstructions (independently or in addition to a lexical dia-

construction and Phonological Language Markers). It is, however, likely that phonological dia-

constructions are relevant when it comes to lower-frequency items such as specialist or archaic

vocabulary such as StG Daune/LG Duun ‘down, feather’ or StG Haube/LG Huuv ‘bonnet’.

Evidence for the existence of Phonological Language Markers also comes from cases of inter-

lingual productivity, as bilinguals use them in forming and decoding innovative forms. In some

26

/h__V[aʊɐ̯,u]s/‘house’

diaconstruction

/haʊɐ̯s/‘house’

/hus/‘house’

StG LG

V([aʊɐ̯,u]: aʊɐ̯)

StGV([aʊɐ̯,u]: u)

LG

… … … …

cases this appears as the phonological integration of loanwords. For example, Standard German

mid-close long vowels very frequently correspond to Low German diphthongs, such as /eː/~/ɛɪ ɐ̯/(as in StG See /zeː/, LG See /zɛɪ ɐ̯/ ‘sea’) or /oː/~/ɛoɐ̯/ (as in StG groß /ɡroːs/, LG groot /ɡrɛoɐ̯t/ ‘big,

great’). Originally a result of Modern Low German Diphthongisation, this correspondence even

occurs in mutual loanwords, both older, established loans such as StG Reep /reːp/ ‘rope [nautical

term]’ (from LG Reep /rɛɪ ɐ̯p/ ‘rope’) and more recent innovations such as LG Systeem /zɪˈstɛɪ ɐ̯m/‘system’ (from StG System /zyˈsteːm/)16 or ad hoc formations such as LG Phonoloog /fʊnʊˈlɛVoɐ̯x/‘phonologist’ (from StG Phonologe /fonoˈloːɡə/). Such innovations are produced whenever needed

and do not pose a problem for intelligibility; indeed, they usually go unnoticed in normal conver-

sation. The same process can, however, also result in diasystematically constructed phonological

forms that are evaluated as incorrect by other speakers. For example, an ad hoc formation like LG

Ruum ‘room’, diasystematically based on StG Raum and the Phonological Language Marker /uː/,will be understood (though maybe commented on or corrected) by bilingual speakers, although

the genuine form Stuuv is preferred.17

In the long run, pro-diasystematic change may lead to a further simplification of the sound

correspondences between the bilingual speakers’ languages. Part of that process is simply a matter

of mathematics: the increasing number of loanwords causes a decrease in the proportion of idio-

syncrasies; the more constructions within the multilingual system can be stored and processed via

diaconstructions and Phonological Language Markers, the more marginal the residual non-dia-

morphic forms become. In that process, however, it is likely that forms which are not sufficiently

frequent to be stored independently (or which feature infrequent sound correspondences) un-

dergo diasystematic regularisation. Höder (2014b: 54ff.) discusses several recent cases of such

processes in Low German, one of which, paradoxically as it seems, involves interlingual homo-

phones splitting up into idiosyncratic forms for each language; these, however, are linked via reg-

16 This is, in a way, remarkable: Low German does have a monophthong /e/ which is phonetically identical to Stand-ard German [eː], cf. LG leev [lêːf] ‘live.PSR.1SG’ as opposed to leev [lɛɪ ɐ̯f] ‘dear’). A possible explanation is that by choos-ing /ɛɪ ɐ̯/ the lexical innovation is more explicitly marked as Low German, as Standard German does not have the diph-thong, whereas a hypothetical form containing /e/ is perceived as language-unspecific (see Höder 2014b: 54ff.).17 From a diasystematic perspective, non-diamorphic forms are similar to irregular or suppletive forms in monolin-gual morphology in that speakers not only have to know (and acquire) the irregular forms as such, but must alsoknow not to use the regular form (cf. Boyd & Goldberg 2011).

27

ular sound correspondences (or, in DCxG terms, Phonological Language Markers). For instance,

some bilinguals use innovative forms such as LG Ee /ɛɪ ɐ̯/ ‘egg’ instead of the genuine form Ei /ɑi ɐ̯/which is near-homophonous with StG Ei, or LG Arbeet /aːbɛɪ ɐ̯t/ ‘work’ (for genuine Arbeit /aːbɑɪ ɐ̯t/;StG Arbeit). The innovative forms are supported by the well-established sound correspondence

between StG /ai ɐ̯/ and LG /ɛɪ ɐ̯/ (a synchronic reflex of older monophthongisations and subsequent

re-diphthongisations in Low German), whereas correspondences between StG /ai ɐ̯/ and genuine

LG /ɑi ɐ̯/ in cognates are extremely rare.

In addition to simple sound sequences, even more complex phonological structures can be

analysed as diasystematic and modelled by means of Phonological Language Markers. For in-

stance, Low German has a suprasegmental phoneme (‘Knick’, transcribed with a circumflex) that

is often described as a tonal feature or an extra degree of quantity (for a comprehensive discus-

sion, see Höder 2014c: 318ff.), whereas Standard German does not have anything similar. How-

ever, LG Knick, which mainly occurs on stressed vowels, often corresponds to word-final StG /ə/in cognates (such as LG Lüüd /lŷt/, StG Leute /ˈlɔɪ ɐ̯tə/ ‘people’) and appears as a regular equivalent

to word-final StG /ə/ in the formation of innovative or ad hoc loanwords from Standard German

(such as LG Sireen /ziˈrɛVɪ ɐ̯n/ ‘siren, horn’, from StG Sirene /ziˈreːnə/, or LG Phonoloog /fʊnʊˈlɛVoɐ̯x/‘phonologist’, from StG Phonologe /fonoˈloːɡə/). This correspondence can be formalised in DCxG

as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13. Complex Phonological Language Markers

The examples discussed in this section show that phonological elements (including more com-

plex phonological structures) can carry pragmatic meaning in language contact situations, if they

28

/ziˈr__V[eː,ɛɪ ɐ̯]n__[ˈV…ə,ˈVV ]/‘siren’

/ziˈreːnə/‘siren’

diaconstruction

__ω([ˈV…ə,ˈVV ]: ˈV…ə)

StG__ω([ˈV…ə,ˈVV ]: ˈVV )

LG

/ziˈrɛɪ ɐ̯n/‘siren’

V([eː,ɛɪ ɐ̯]: eː)

StGV([eː,ɛɪ ɐ̯]: ɛɪ ɐ̯)

LG

form part of socially conventionalised and cognitively embedded interlingual correspondences.

From the perspective of DCxG, they then qualify as straightforward constructions, whose func-

tion it is to mark language specificity within a multilingual system. The productivity of phonolo-

gically schematic diaconstructions, if combined with phonological language markers, results in

regular (or in cases of innovative forms, regularised) patterns of corresponding forms in different

languages. The phonological form of language-specific constructions is therefore motivated by

the existence of diasystematic sound correspondences. This conclusion is primarily relevant to

the further development of DCxG itself. However, it also implies more generally that the defini-

tion of constructions as form-meaning pairs does not categorically exclude phonology from the

domain of CxG.

5 Concluding remarks

CxG is a comparatively young theoretical framework. At the same time it is still highly, and per-

haps even increasingly, diverse and developing in different directions, which can loosely be cat-

egorised as ‘centripetal’ and ‘centrifugal’ (cf. Section 1). This contribution attempts to demon-

strate that combining both directions, viz. research in phonology and contact linguistics, can lead

to results that are interesting in themselves, but also relevant to the further advancement of the

field as a whole. The place of phonology in CxG has certainly not received all the attention it de-

serves, neither has the status of Phonological Language Markers or, for that matter, diaconstruc-

tions in DCxG been settled once and for all. It seems evident, however, that a socio-cognitively

realistic model of linguistic systems in language contact situations cannot possibly exclude phon-

ological aspects, and, in return, that the role of phonological form in the organisation of multilin-

gual systems puts the importance of phonology in perspective.

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