Hendrik De Smet
Biographic Data
| ID | 516489 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hendrik De Smet |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hendrik |
| FAMILY NAME | De Smet |
| SIGNATURE | DE SMET H |
| AFFILIATIONS | KU Leuven |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9849-6918 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 84 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
When does semantic change lead to semantic loss
Semantic change proceeds via an A > A/B (> B) trajectory ( Traugott & Dasher 2002 ). While semantic extension (i.e., A > A/B) is now relatively well-understood, semantic loss (i.e., A/B (>B)) is not. This article argues that the mechanism of semantic extension is a determinant of the likelihood of loss. Specifically, loss is more likely following extension through inference-driven metonymy than following metaphorical extension. This is because me…
Tied together, fried together
Semantic extensibility captures the semantic side of productivity. It is the likelihood that a given sense of a linguistic expression will support extension to new senses. Even though linguistic expressions are naturally polysemous, semantic extensibility is constrained. In previous literature, it has been argued that semantic extensions are motivated by mostly one-directional conceptual operations such as metaphor and metonymy, and that in any p…
Are categories’ cores more isomorphic than their peripheries
Isomorphism holds that, ideally, a single meaning is expressed by a single form. However, despite long-standing support, the theoretical viability of the isomorphic principle has been called into question. There is widespread recognition that the coexistence of (near-) synonymous expressions—variation—is actually very common in language. In this study, we explore a possible path toward reconciling the theoretical notion of isomorphism with the ob…
In alternations, not all semantic motivation comes from semantic contrast
Functional explanations of alternations often invoke semantic contrast between alternates. In some cases, however, new alternations may arise not to code contrast but simply because the grammar supports multiple roughly equivalent solutions to the same coding problem. Our study illustrates this by exploring the history of English prepositional phrase complements (PPCs) to mental predicates, with a special focus on about and at (as in everyone was…
Missing link
When words are transferred from a source language into a target language, they may become conventionalized and appear to fully adopt target-language morphosyntactic behavior. Such words are traditionally regarded as borrowings. Even borrowings, however, are subject to probabilistic usage constraints, which we refer to as “accommodation biases” and which distinguish borrowings from native vocabulary. A case study is presented on accommodation bias…
Loan Word Accommodation Biases
One way or another, loan words have to be grammatically integrated in the grammar of their recipient language. For verbs, Wohlgemuth (2009) finds that direct insertion , where native inflections are added directly onto the borrowed stem, is cross‐linguistically the most frequent accommodation strategy. He concludes from this that the borrowing of loan verbs is not constrained by inflection. Based on a two‐fold corpus study on the integration of E…
Are changes transmitted mistakes
One view of language change sees changes as originating in erroneous deviations from the linguistic norm and diffusing through social transmission. An alternative is to see changes as originating in speakers’ problem-solving activities and spreading in response to system pressures that reflect speakers’ recurrent communicative needs and shared resources. It is argued here that the latter may well be the dominant scenario
What predicts productivity? Theory meets individuals
Because they involve individual-level cognitive processes, psychological explanations of linguistic phenomena are in principle testable against individual behaviour. The present study draws on patterns of individual variation in corpus data to test explanations of productivity. Linguistic patterns are predicted to become more productive with higher type frequencies and lower token frequencies. This is because the formation of abstract mental repr…
Asymmetries, mismatches and construction grammar
In the early 20th century, Ferdinand de Saussure considered the sign, which is defined as the union of an acoustic image (Fr. signifiant; E. signifier) and a concept (Fr. signifié; E. signified), as the cornerstone of linguistic theory and he laid the foundation for the contemporary discussion of the relationship between form and meaning. In most of the theoretical developments that followed, it has been implicitly and explicitly assumed that the…
Meaning in a changing paradigm
The changing functions of competing forms
The relation between functionally similar forms is often described in terms of competition. This leads to the expectation that over time only one form can survive (substitution) or each form must find its unique niche in functional space (differentiation). However, competition cannot easily explain what causes functional overlap or how form-function mappings will be reorganized. It is argued here that the changes which competing forms undergo are…
The root of ruthless
Linguistic variation between individuals must be linked to how linguistic material is mentally represented. Therefore, by examining individual variation, light can be shed on the nature of mental representation itself. This paper presents an individual differences study of semi-opaque derivations (e.g. ruthless ) to establish whether their representations are mentally associated to those of fully segmentable forms with the same suffix (e.g. sight…
How gradual change progresses
This paper hypothesizes that as an expression becomes more frequent in one grammatical context, its mental retrievability improves, which in turn makes it more easily available in different yet closely related (analogous) grammatical contexts. Such a mechanism can account for the progression of gradual change. The hypothesis generates two testable predictions. First, innovative constructions should be more likely to emerge if their analogical mod…
Participle clauses between adverbial and complement
The present paper offers a synchronic and diachronic analysis of integrated participle clauses or IPCs in English, as found in constructions such as the mayor is busy washing his car or many students had trouble finding the correct answer. Typically, IPCs have developed from adverbial participle clauses into complement clauses. Given their adverbial origins, they can occur as complements to predicates that do not normally take nominal direct obje…
Between subordinate and insubordinate. Paths toward complementizer-initial main clauses
Serving two masters
This paper examines two cases of so-called syntactic amalgams . In syntactic amalgams a particular string that is shared by two constructions is exploited to combine them, in such a way that one of the constructions functions as a modifier of the other. Typical examples are after God knows how many years (< after many years + God knows how many years ) and a big enough house (< a big house + big enough ). In formal theories, these kinds of constr…
On multiple source constructions in language change
peer reviewed
Change through recombination
The course of actualization
Actualization is traditionally seen as the process following syntactic reanalysis whereby an item's new syntactic status manifests itself in new syntactic behavior. The process is gradual in that some new uses of the reanalyzed item appear earlier or more readily than others. This article accounts for the order in which new uses appear during actualization. Five corpus-based case studies are presented involving reanalysis and actualization in dif…
English -ing-clauses and their problems
This paper addresses the analysis of English ing-clauses and discusses its theoretical significance with respect to the architecture of grammatical categories. English ing-clauses pose two major descriptive issues: first, whether the two historically distinct clause-types of gerunds and participles can be collapsed into a single category, and second, whether ing-clauses still relate to their phrasal origins as (historical) noun phrases and adject…
Analysing reanalysis
Nominal gerunds in 16th-century English. The function of the definite article
This paper addresses the variation between two nominal gerund constructions in 16th-century English: definite gerunds on the one hand (the eating of the apple) and bare gerunds on the other (eating of the apple). Although the two constructions are highly characteristic of the period and have played a role in the further development of the gerund, the factors that govern their use are still poorly understood. It is proposed here that the essential…
Coming to terms with subjectivity
In this study, we argue that the increasingly popular concept of subjectivity is in need of a more fine-grained analysis, and we make an attempt to set up a typology of distinct sub-categories. We first discuss a number of problems that emerge from the literature, such as the conflicting views on the nature of subjectivity, and the general vagueness of the way speaker-involvement is defined in order to detect subjectivity. On the basis of two cas…
The course of actualization
Actualization is traditionally seen as the process following syntactic reanalysis whereby an item's new syntactic status manifests itself in new syntactic behavior. The process is gradual in that some new uses of the reanalyzed item appear earlier or more readily than others. This article accounts for the order in which new uses appear during actualization. Five corpus-based case studies are presented involving reanalysis and actualization in dif…
The changing functions of competing forms
The relation between functionally similar forms is often described in terms of competition. This leads to the expectation that over time only one form can survive (substitution) or each form must find its unique niche in functional space (differentiation). However, competition cannot easily explain what causes functional overlap or how form-function mappings will be reorganized. It is argued here that the changes which competing forms undergo are…
Analysing reanalysis
Between subordinate and insubordinate. Paths toward complementizer-initial main clauses
Coming to terms with subjectivity
In this study, we argue that the increasingly popular concept of subjectivity is in need of a more fine-grained analysis, and we make an attempt to set up a typology of distinct sub-categories. We first discuss a number of problems that emerge from the literature, such as the conflicting views on the nature of subjectivity, and the general vagueness of the way speaker-involvement is defined in order to detect subjectivity. On the basis of two cas…
How gradual change progresses
This paper hypothesizes that as an expression becomes more frequent in one grammatical context, its mental retrievability improves, which in turn makes it more easily available in different yet closely related (analogous) grammatical contexts. Such a mechanism can account for the progression of gradual change. The hypothesis generates two testable predictions. First, innovative constructions should be more likely to emerge if their analogical mod…
What predicts productivity? Theory meets individuals
Because they involve individual-level cognitive processes, psychological explanations of linguistic phenomena are in principle testable against individual behaviour. The present study draws on patterns of individual variation in corpus data to test explanations of productivity. Linguistic patterns are predicted to become more productive with higher type frequencies and lower token frequencies. This is because the formation of abstract mental repr…
Change through recombination
English -ing-clauses and their problems
This paper addresses the analysis of English ing-clauses and discusses its theoretical significance with respect to the architecture of grammatical categories. English ing-clauses pose two major descriptive issues: first, whether the two historically distinct clause-types of gerunds and participles can be collapsed into a single category, and second, whether ing-clauses still relate to their phrasal origins as (historical) noun phrases and adject…
The root of ruthless
Linguistic variation between individuals must be linked to how linguistic material is mentally represented. Therefore, by examining individual variation, light can be shed on the nature of mental representation itself. This paper presents an individual differences study of semi-opaque derivations (e.g. ruthless ) to establish whether their representations are mentally associated to those of fully segmentable forms with the same suffix (e.g. sight…
Participle clauses between adverbial and complement
The present paper offers a synchronic and diachronic analysis of integrated participle clauses or IPCs in English, as found in constructions such as the mayor is busy washing his car or many students had trouble finding the correct answer. Typically, IPCs have developed from adverbial participle clauses into complement clauses. Given their adverbial origins, they can occur as complements to predicates that do not normally take nominal direct obje…
Coming to terms with subjectivity
In this study, we argue that the increasingly popular concept of subjectivity is in need of a more fine-grained analysis, and we make an attempt to set up a typology of distinct sub-categories. We first discuss a number of problems that emerge from the literature, such as the conflicting views on the nature of subjectivity, and the general vagueness of the way speaker-involvement is defined in order to detect subjectivity. On the basis of two cas…
Nominal gerunds in 16th-century English. The function of the definite article
This paper addresses the variation between two nominal gerund constructions in 16th-century English: definite gerunds on the one hand (the eating of the apple) and bare gerunds on the other (eating of the apple). Although the two constructions are highly characteristic of the period and have played a role in the further development of the gerund, the factors that govern their use are still poorly understood. It is proposed here that the essential…
Analysing reanalysis
English -ing-clauses and their problems
This paper addresses the analysis of English ing-clauses and discusses its theoretical significance with respect to the architecture of grammatical categories. English ing-clauses pose two major descriptive issues: first, whether the two historically distinct clause-types of gerunds and participles can be collapsed into a single category, and second, whether ing-clauses still relate to their phrasal origins as (historical) noun phrases and adject…
The course of actualization
Actualization is traditionally seen as the process following syntactic reanalysis whereby an item's new syntactic status manifests itself in new syntactic behavior. The process is gradual in that some new uses of the reanalyzed item appear earlier or more readily than others. This article accounts for the order in which new uses appear during actualization. Five corpus-based case studies are presented involving reanalysis and actualization in dif…
Serving two masters
This paper examines two cases of so-called syntactic amalgams . In syntactic amalgams a particular string that is shared by two constructions is exploited to combine them, in such a way that one of the constructions functions as a modifier of the other. Typical examples are after God knows how many years (< after many years + God knows how many years ) and a big enough house (< a big house + big enough ). In formal theories, these kinds of constr…
On multiple source constructions in language change
peer reviewed
Change through recombination
Participle clauses between adverbial and complement
The present paper offers a synchronic and diachronic analysis of integrated participle clauses or IPCs in English, as found in constructions such as the mayor is busy washing his car or many students had trouble finding the correct answer. Typically, IPCs have developed from adverbial participle clauses into complement clauses. Given their adverbial origins, they can occur as complements to predicates that do not normally take nominal direct obje…
Between subordinate and insubordinate. Paths toward complementizer-initial main clauses
The root of ruthless
Linguistic variation between individuals must be linked to how linguistic material is mentally represented. Therefore, by examining individual variation, light can be shed on the nature of mental representation itself. This paper presents an individual differences study of semi-opaque derivations (e.g. ruthless ) to establish whether their representations are mentally associated to those of fully segmentable forms with the same suffix (e.g. sight…
How gradual change progresses
This paper hypothesizes that as an expression becomes more frequent in one grammatical context, its mental retrievability improves, which in turn makes it more easily available in different yet closely related (analogous) grammatical contexts. Such a mechanism can account for the progression of gradual change. The hypothesis generates two testable predictions. First, innovative constructions should be more likely to emerge if their analogical mod…
Asymmetries, mismatches and construction grammar
In the early 20th century, Ferdinand de Saussure considered the sign, which is defined as the union of an acoustic image (Fr. signifiant; E. signifier) and a concept (Fr. signifié; E. signified), as the cornerstone of linguistic theory and he laid the foundation for the contemporary discussion of the relationship between form and meaning. In most of the theoretical developments that followed, it has been implicitly and explicitly assumed that the…
Meaning in a changing paradigm
The changing functions of competing forms
The relation between functionally similar forms is often described in terms of competition. This leads to the expectation that over time only one form can survive (substitution) or each form must find its unique niche in functional space (differentiation). However, competition cannot easily explain what causes functional overlap or how form-function mappings will be reorganized. It is argued here that the changes which competing forms undergo are…
Are changes transmitted mistakes
One view of language change sees changes as originating in erroneous deviations from the linguistic norm and diffusing through social transmission. An alternative is to see changes as originating in speakers’ problem-solving activities and spreading in response to system pressures that reflect speakers’ recurrent communicative needs and shared resources. It is argued here that the latter may well be the dominant scenario
What predicts productivity? Theory meets individuals
Because they involve individual-level cognitive processes, psychological explanations of linguistic phenomena are in principle testable against individual behaviour. The present study draws on patterns of individual variation in corpus data to test explanations of productivity. Linguistic patterns are predicted to become more productive with higher type frequencies and lower token frequencies. This is because the formation of abstract mental repr…
Loan Word Accommodation Biases
One way or another, loan words have to be grammatically integrated in the grammar of their recipient language. For verbs, Wohlgemuth (2009) finds that direct insertion , where native inflections are added directly onto the borrowed stem, is cross‐linguistically the most frequent accommodation strategy. He concludes from this that the borrowing of loan verbs is not constrained by inflection. Based on a two‐fold corpus study on the integration of E…
Are categories’ cores more isomorphic than their peripheries
Isomorphism holds that, ideally, a single meaning is expressed by a single form. However, despite long-standing support, the theoretical viability of the isomorphic principle has been called into question. There is widespread recognition that the coexistence of (near-) synonymous expressions—variation—is actually very common in language. In this study, we explore a possible path toward reconciling the theoretical notion of isomorphism with the ob…
In alternations, not all semantic motivation comes from semantic contrast
Functional explanations of alternations often invoke semantic contrast between alternates. In some cases, however, new alternations may arise not to code contrast but simply because the grammar supports multiple roughly equivalent solutions to the same coding problem. Our study illustrates this by exploring the history of English prepositional phrase complements (PPCs) to mental predicates, with a special focus on about and at (as in everyone was…
Missing link
When words are transferred from a source language into a target language, they may become conventionalized and appear to fully adopt target-language morphosyntactic behavior. Such words are traditionally regarded as borrowings. Even borrowings, however, are subject to probabilistic usage constraints, which we refer to as “accommodation biases” and which distinguish borrowings from native vocabulary. A case study is presented on accommodation bias…
Tied together, fried together
Semantic extensibility captures the semantic side of productivity. It is the likelihood that a given sense of a linguistic expression will support extension to new senses. Even though linguistic expressions are naturally polysemous, semantic extensibility is constrained. In previous literature, it has been argued that semantic extensions are motivated by mostly one-directional conceptual operations such as metaphor and metonymy, and that in any p…
When does semantic change lead to semantic loss
Semantic change proceeds via an A > A/B (> B) trajectory ( Traugott & Dasher 2002 ). While semantic extension (i.e., A > A/B) is now relatively well-understood, semantic loss (i.e., A/B (>B)) is not. This article argues that the mechanism of semantic extension is a determinant of the likelihood of loss. Specifically, loss is more likely following extension through inference-driven metonymy than following metaphorical extension. This is because me…
Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (21 works) · Linguistics (19 works) · Philosophy (18 works) · Computer Science (15 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (13 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (5 works)