Partial sanction
المؤلف:
Vyvyan Evans and Melanie Green
المصدر:
Cognitive Linguistics an Introduction
الجزء والصفحة:
C4P116
2025-12-11
38
Partial sanction
Of course, language use is not a simple case of language users making use of the finite set of symbolic assemblies represented in their grammar. After all, the richness and variety of situations and contexts in which language users find themselves, and the range of meanings that they need to express, far exceed the conventional range of units a language possesses. Although impressive in its vastness, the inventory of constructions available in a single language is nevertheless finite.
One solution to the restrictions imposed on language use by the finiteness of these resources lies in the use of linguistic units in ways that are only partially sanctioned by the range of constructions available in the language. In other words, language use is often partially innovative. For example, consider the word mouse. This word has recently acquired a new meaning: it refers not only to a rodent, but also to a computer ‘mouse’, which has a similar shape. When this new pattern of usage first appeared, it was an innovation, applied by the manufacturers of the computer hardware. This new usage was only partially sanctioned by the existing construction. This is illustrated by the dotted arrow in Figure 4.2. In this diagram, A represents the linguistic unit with the form mouse and the meaning RODENT, while the B has the same form but the meaning PIECE OF COMPUTER HARDWARE USED TO CONTROL THE CURSOR.
As we will see when we discuss language change later in the chapter, partial sanction only results in language change when it is diffused through a linguistic community and becomes established as a conventional unit in its own right.
الاكثر قراءة في Linguistics fields
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