Testing ‘constructionhood’ and the cognitive plausibility of mid-level abstractions in English possessive constructions
Blumenthal-Dramé A, Sommerer L (2026)
Publication Type: Journal article
Publication year: 2026
Journal
DOI: 10.1515/cog-2025-0064
Abstract
This study investigates the processing relevance of mid-level constructions, partially schematic form–meaning pairings with semantically constrained slots, in English possessives. Drawing on usage-based Construction Grammar, we ask whether patterns such as [my Nkinship] or [her Nbodypart] give rise to processing effects not fully explained by semantic category membership or broader schemas like [POSS N] or [my/her N]. We introduce mid-level chunk priming as a real-time diagnostic of constructional influence. In two primed lexical decision experiments (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony [SOA] = 200/300 ms, N = 646), primes varied by frame (bare noun, my-N, her-N) and semantic field (kinship, body part, furniture, abstract quality), followed by related or unrelated targets. We tested whether primes instantiating a hypothesized mid-level construction (e.g., my niece) facilitated recognition of targets from the same construction-internal category (e.g., aunt) beyond semantic priming or a general expectation for an upcoming noun. At 300 ms, [my Nkinship] and [her Nbodypart] yielded selective facilitation; no comparable effects appeared for furniture or abstract quality nouns, nor at 200 ms. These findings suggest that such mid-level patterns differ in processing relevance and that their effects take time to unfold during prime–target processing, consistent with a role for certain construction-specific generalizations in real-time use.
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APA:
Blumenthal-Dramé, A., & Sommerer, L. (2026). Testing ‘constructionhood’ and the cognitive plausibility of mid-level abstractions in English possessive constructions. Cognitive Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2025-0064
MLA:
Blumenthal-Dramé, Alice, and Lotte Sommerer. "Testing ‘constructionhood’ and the cognitive plausibility of mid-level abstractions in English possessive constructions." Cognitive Linguistics (2026).
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