Constructionalisation / constructional change

Constructionist approaches to language account for linguistic knowledge in terms of constructions, i.e. form-meaning pairs at various levels of abstraction and generality. Constructions are typically considered non-compositional units that have arisen from compositional ones. The process of a unit gradually becoming a construction is called constructionalisation. Once constructionalised, a form-meaning pair can undergo various changes both on the form and on the meaning side, ranging from changes in frequency and combinatorial preferences to significant changes in meaning. This process is referred to as constructional change. Constructionalisation and constructional change go hand in hand: Constructionalisation is the result of constructional changes, and changes in already constructionalised units can give rise to new constructions. A recurrent question that is frequently discussed in the literature, however, is when exactly we can speak of a ‘constructionalised’ unit, i.e. a new construction.