INTERPRETING DETACHED CONSTRUCTIONS WITH EXPLICIT SUBJECT THROUGH THE PRISM OF RELATED TERMS

Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive account of the English detached nonfinite and nonverbal constructions with the explicit subject within the framework of construction grammar. The study overviews the terms utilized in Western grammatical studies to nominate the investigated syntactic structures. Depending on the ontological and gnoseological assumptions of a particular linguistic approach, the analyzed terms highlight specific aspects of the syntactic structures under study (morphosyntactic features, syntactic functions, the subject’s case, coreference with the matrix clause, intonation and punctuation marking), and, therefore, cannot fully reveal the nature of the given syntactic phenomenon. The paper discusses the advantages of the term “detached nonfinite and nonverbal constructions with the explicit subject” for cognitive and quantitative operationalization and theoretical substantiation of the examined structures. The component construction is used in the interpretation of the cognitive construction grammar and defined as a noncompositional language sign, a complex pairing of form and meaning, where some aspects of the forms or the meanings cannot be derived from the form and the meaning of its components or from other existing constructions. In present-day English detached [aug/øaug[SubjNP] [PredNF/VL]] constructions constitute a taxonomic constructional network represented through a multiple hierarchy of adjunct clauses combined with the plane of detachment. The network of the analyzed constructions is developed around the constructional schema, represented by the construction of the highest degree of schematicity and abstraction (macro-construction). The features of the macro-construction are inherited by the constructions of a lower level – meso-constructions and individual micro-constructions and are reflected in the specific realized constructions – constructs.