Or constructions, argumentative direction and disappearing ‘alternativity’

Publication date: Available online 1 October 2018Source: Language SciencesAuthor(s): Mira ArielAbstractThe essence of X or Y constructions is the verbalization of multiple alternatives. It is a puzzling finding, then, that the most frequent reading associated with or constructions is Higher-level category (Ariel, 2015), where the speaker introduces into the discourse only a single concept. The goal of this paper is to explain why this is not so puzzling after all, and how such a "non-alternativity" reading could come about for a construction whose initial function is 'alternativity' between multiple, distinct options. The idea is that in order to constitute relevant alternatives, 'X' and 'Y' must in effect be construable as members of a single higher-level category. By defi...

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