Alexander Berg

Biographic Data

ID4499709
NAMEAlexander Berg
GIVEN NAMESAlexander
FAMILY NAMEBerg
SIGNATUREBERG A
AFFILIATIONSOsnabrück University
ORCID0000-0002-6328-7745
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS17
TOTAL CITATIONS0
WORKS AS AUTHOR16
WORKS AS EDITOR1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2002
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX0

  • Extravagant much? Syntactic creativity because Wayne’s World

    Open AccessAlexander Berg, Meike PentrelARTICLEEnglish Language and Linguistics2025

    This article is a theoretically oriented discussion of noticeable creative syntactic innovations. On the basis of three case studies (the ‘X- much ’ construction ( racist much? ), the ‘extrasentential not ’ construction ( I like this movie. Not. ) and the ‘ because X’ construction ( Can’t come to the party, because headache. )), we explore the idea that language users may deliberately create novel syntactic constructions by recycling and creative…

  • From constructional innovation to linguistic change

    Open AccessAlexander Berg, Alexander BergsARTICLEFunctions of Language2025References: 27

    On the basis of Present-day English corpus data, this paper investigates deliberate, adaptive linguistic innovations from a constructional perspective. The concrete phenomena addressed include the XYZ construction (“Copenhagen is the Paris of Denmark”), the X be not the Y- est Z in the Q construction (“He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed”), extrasentential not (“This is nice. Not.”), X much (“racist much?”), and the because X construction (“be…

  • Lynn Anthonissen

    Open AccessAlexander Berg, Alexander BergsARTICLEFolia Linguistica2023

    Language is a tricky thing.On the one hand, it's a matter of convention, of speech communities and their shared communicative systems.On the other hand, it's a cognitive activity of individual speakers, and no two people talk alike.How do these two levels interact?What is the relationship between the macro speech community and its language, and the micro level of individual speakers and their language?For a long time, linguists have shunned that …

  • Language change across a lifetime

    Alexander Berg, Alexander BergsARTICLELinguistics Vanguard2021

    This paper focuses on the micro-analysis of historical data, which allows us to investigate language use across the lifetime of individual speakers. Certain concepts, such as social network analysis or communities of practice, put individual speakers and their social embeddedness and dynamicity at the center of attention. This means that intra-speaker variation can be described and analyzed in quite some detail in certain historical data sets. Th…

  • As if irony was in stock

    Open AccessClaudia Lehmann, Alexander Berg et al.ARTICLEConstructions and Frames2021

    The linguistic treatment of verbal irony 1 has more often than not focused on novel, ad hoc ironies. Research in the last decade, however, suggests that there is a considerable number of utterances that are either schematic or lexically filled and interpreted as ironic by convention. By analyzing three of these, i.e. Tell me about it, XP pro BE not ( A Michelangelo he is not ) and stand-alone insubordinate as if ( As if anyone could pronounce tha…

  • Wittgensteins Hegel

    Alexander Berg, Reiner RoosBOOKWittgensteins Hegel2021

    Was wusste Wittgenstein von Hegels Philosophie und wie verhält sich sein Denken zu demjenigen Hegels? Antwort auf diese Fragen sucht die vorliegende Studie in einer aufmerksamen Rekonstruktion der verschiedenen Bemerkungen Wittgensteins zu Hegel. »Mir scheint, Hegel will immer sagen, daß Dinge, die verschieden aussehen, in Wirklichkeit gleich sind, während es mir um den Nachweis geht, daß Dinge, die gleich aussehen, in Wirklichkeit verschieden si…

  • Learning formulaic creativity

    Alexander BergARTICLECognitive Semiotics2020

    This response to the paper by Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas argues that wide-learning networks might actually be useful in the description and analysis of phonology and morphology, but it is less than clear that the same applies to syntax or text. Phenomena such as proverbs and oral poetic formulae are probably better understood in a traditional Construction Grammar framework with mid-level abstract units based on compositionality

  • Creativity within and outside the linguistic system

    Alexander Berg, Nikola Anna KompaARTICLECognitive Semiotics2020

    In this paper, we distinguish two types of creativity (F-creativity and E-creativity; Sampson 2016) and briefly address the question of language change and linguistic innovation in language acquisition. Cognitively speaking, the two types of creativity may impose different cognitive demands on a speaker. But the most pressing question, from our point of view, is the question whether E-creativity itself is constrained or forces us to ‘transcend’ t…

  • On historical language contact in English and its types

    Nikolaos Lavidas, Alexander Berg et al.ARTICLELinguistics Vanguard2020

    This article presents the state of the art of current research on the different types of language contact in early English. The article’s main aim is to show what kinds of phenomena have been investigated until now as possible areas of transfer/borrowing from other languages. We examine the main contact scenarios in Old and Middle English, which involve Latin, Celtic, French and Old Norse. We locate unanswered questions and underexamined hypothes…

  • Wittgenstein and Hegel

    Wittgenstein and Hegel: Reevaluation of Difference Dresden, Jakub Mácha et al.EDITORBOOKWittgenstein and Hegel2019

  • Russi, Cinzia

    Alexander Berg, Alexander BergsARTICLEJournal of Historical Sociolinguist…2017

  • Multimodality and construction grammar

    Elisabeth Zima, Alexander Berg et al.ARTICLELinguistics Vanguard2017

    The meaning-making process in face-to-face interaction relies on the integration of meaningful information being conveyed by speech as well as the tone of voice, facial expressions, hand and head gestures, body postures and movements (McNeill 1992; Kendon 2004). Hence, it is inherently multimodal. Usage-based linguistics attributes language use a fundamental role in linguistic theorizing by positing that the language system is grounded in and abs…

  • Response to Traugott

    Alexander Berg, Alexander BergsARTICLEConstructions and Frames2016

    Preview this article: Response to Traugott, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/cf.8.1.08ber-1.gif

  • Constructions and Language Change

    Alexander Berg, Alexander Bergs et al.BOOKConstructions and Language Change2008

  • Letters

    Alexander Berg, Alexander BergsARTICLEJournal of Historical Pragmatics2004

    This paper explores the question how far “letters” as one specific text type can be subdivided into smaller groups of texts (i.e. subtypes such as “requests”, “orders”, or “reports”) on the basis of socio-psychological and pragmatic dimensions and factors, including speech act and accommodation theory. This paper argues that this differentiation into socio-pragmatic subtypes actually can be made and that these subtypes materialize in significant …

  • What if One Man's Lexicon Were Another Man's Syntax? A New Approach to the History of Relative Who

    Alexander Berg, Alexander T BergsARTICLEFolia Linguistica Historica2003

    Article WHAT IF ONE MAN'S LEXICON WERE ANOTHER MAN'S SYNTAX? A NEW APPROACH TO THE HISTORY OF RELATIVE WHO was published on January 1, 2003 in the journal Folia Linguistica (volume 37, issue Historica-vol-24-1-2)

  • Soziale Netzwerke und Massenmedien Untersuchungen zum Einfluß der persönlichen Kommunikation, by Michael Schenk

    Alexander Berg, Alexander T BergsARTICLEInternational Journal of the…2002

    Article Soziale Netzwerke und Massenmedien Untersuchungen zum Einfluß der persönlichen Kommunikation, by Michael Schenk was published on February 28, 2002 in the journal International Journal of the Sociology of Language (volume 2002, issue 153)