Understanding Relative Clauses - A Usage-Based View on the Processing of Complex Constructions

The book offers a usage-based account of how humans comprehend complex linguistic structures. The author proposes a theory of constructional access, which treats syntactic patterns as complex and abstract signs. In this view, syntactic processing is subject to the very same dynamics as lexical processing and should yield the same type of frequency effects.

About the author

Daniel Wiechmann, geboren 1974, ist in Berlin aufgewachsen. Er besuchte die Journalistenschule in München und wurde dort zum Redakteur ausgebildet. Seither lebt er als freier Journalist und Autor in München und ist für verschiedene Verlage und Werbeagenturen tätig.

Report

"Daniel Wiechmann's Understanding Relative Clauses presents an extremely detailed and methodologically interesting quantitative corpus analysis of one of the most debated syntactic structures in the field of (psycho)linguistics, namely, relative clause constructions (RCCs). [...] To sum up, Understanding Relative Clauses reports an interesting analysis of these constructions and suggests a compelling hypothesis of language processing, making it an essential read for scholars working on RCC5 and related constructions, as well as in the fields of corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics more generally."
Minna Kirjavainen in: Cagnitive Linguistics 2017; 28(1): 203-208

Product details

• Authors: Daniel Wiechmann
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.12.2014
• EAN: 9783110339383
• ISBN: 978-3-11-033938-3
• No. of pages: 259
• Dimensions: 162 mm x 20 mm x 236 mm
• Weight: 508 g
• Series: Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs; Mouton de Gruyter; Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs (TiLSM); De Gruyter Mouton; Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM]; ISSN
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies