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Collo-Creativity and Blending: Recognizing Creativity Requires Lexical Storage in Constructional Slots

  • Thomas Herbst EMAIL logo

Abstract

This article explores to what extent linguistic creativity can be accounted for by investigating the collocational and collostructional properties of different constructions. A distinction is made between intended creativity and creativity caused by despair. It is argued that while unexpected combinations of constructions (in the sense of lexical items and syntactic constructions) are not the only type of linguistic creativity, they are of particular relevance to linguistic theory because they can only be appropriately accounted for in terms of a model that takes an integrative view of grammar and lexicon and allows for a considerable amount of lexical knowledge concerning the description of constructions.

Appendix

Questionnaire

Are you a native speaker of English? 

yes (22)
no (7) 
female (13)
male (16)

Age group:  

20–30
30–40
40–50
50–60
60–70
over 70

Please tick for each of the following quotations ALL of the labels provided that describe them appropriately. (You can tick more than one box for each item.)

T1She gave him a hug. (COCA 2015 FIC)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
2727000000
T2She explained him the situation. (invented)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
153221252
T3Tonight at noon, America will declare peace on Russia. (Henri 1967/1974)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
602038131013
T4He flung her a furious look. (BNC JYD 3856)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
17351317032
T5“I don’t think you can say that we don’t get it automatically,” Mr. Trump said on CNN’s “New Day.” (COCA 2016 NEWS)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
2110201118
T6Henry VII was very good at answering the Irish Question. (Sellar and Yeatman [1930] 1960, 59)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
229416406
T7I have been prepared to concede him an eternal place among the inexorably tenacious. (BNC B76 1572)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
2226912233
T8Right outside his office was one of his favorites, Mark Rothko’s Untitled 1964, which was on loan from the National Gallery of Art. (COCA 2012 FIC)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
2723001020
T9She puts her soiled breakfast things in the sink, already crammed with the relics of last night’s supper, and hurries upstairs. (BNC ANY 650)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
261511010110
T10September has flung a spray of rooks on the sea-charts of the sky. (Causley 1975)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
180022130011
T11Would you like some more tea? (BNC G0X 2503)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
2928100000
T12He now looks upon me as the dregs of the criminal world – if not public enemy number one, certainly number two or three. (Wodehouse [1938] 1966)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
261214313410
T13Pat sneezed the foam off the cappuccino. (Goldberg 2006)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
25815312002
T14Crucially, all linguists recognize that a wide range of semi-idiosyncratic constructions exists in every language, constructions that cannot be accounted for by general, universal, or innate principles or constraints. (Goldberg 2006)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
2714111111
T15Lord Emsworth ambled off pigwards. (Wodehouse [1929] 1966, 6)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
171156180211
T16Jeannie blinks Tony’s automated plane to Cuba instead of Puerto Rico.
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
1121290918
T17To her son these words conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were settled the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which he had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a night’s darkness and a day’s sail, within touch. (Woolf 1927)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
24601811031
T18He thrust her a diminishing glance. (BNC JY9 1298)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
13445111610
T19I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. (Wodehouse [1938] 1966, 6)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
14624118520
T20Flaubert teaches you to gaze upon the truth and not blink from its consequences; he teaches you, with Montaigne, to sleep on the pillow of doubt; he teaches you to dissect out the constituent parts of reality, and to observe that Nature is always a mixture of genres; he teaches you the most exact use of language; … (BNC G1A 1866)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
23601814011
T21The first daffodils of autumn will appear. (Causley 1975)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
2492233115
T22He conceded me a putt so we’d finish halved. (COCA 2006 MAG)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
1761030713
T23She disappeared the rabbit. (Robenalt and Goldberg 2016)
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
6132101184
T24Could I have some blue crisps? (see example (3a))
correct Englishperfectly normalhumorouspoeticcreativeironicwrong/ungram-maticaldoes not make sense
2616202204

Thank you very much for taking part in this survey.

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Published Online: 2018-09-04
Published in Print: 2018-09-25

©2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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