From parts to wholes and back again

Abstract

In this paper, I apply the usage-based conception of linguistic (primarily: semantic) structure (Langacker 1988, 2000) to a number of structurally different phenomena and their development over time. I argue that the same mechanisms are operative in the historical development of some complex conceptual structures that are not formally complex, and of some others where conceptual structure does correspond to formal structure. It is claimed that the usage-based conception—individuals acquire structured knowledge on the basis of an initially holistic, non-analytic understanding of expressions —plays a crucial role in explaining historical processes where the direction is reversed (contextual interpretations derived through inference becoming unitary conventional meanings). Futhermore, in the case of constructions, their ‘local’ properties, related most directly to their functions in usage, appear to be much more important for understanding their linguistic behavior than their general structural properties (such as being transitive or ditransitive, morphological or syntactic, etc.). The overall picture emerging from the discussion is that the coherence of a language (and, a fortiori ,o f language in general) should not be sought in properties of the linguistic system itself, but rather in processes, in individuals and in populations, that shape it.