Productivity of French and Dutch (semi-)copular constructions and the adverse impact of high token frequency

Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines the productivity of the subject complement slot in a set of French and Dutch (semi-)copular micro-constructions. The presumed counterpart of productivity, conventionalization in the form of high token frequency, will also be taken into account in the analysis of the productivity complex. On the one hand, it will be shown that prototypical copulas generally have a higher productivity than semi-copulas, although there are some semi-copulas that can rival the productivity of prototypical copulas. On the other hand, it will be demonstrated that high token frequency is in general detrimental to productivity, on the level of the entire subject complement slot and on the level of the different semantic classes. However, the shape of the frequency distribution also seems to play a role: multiple highly frequent types are in my data more detrimental to productivity than one extremely frequent type, although the semantic connectedness of the types in the distribution might also be an explanatory factor.