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ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Triggering Blends: A Construction Grammar Account of Hortatory Force in Rhetorical Uses of 'What Are You Waiting For? '

Biggs, Eric
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1559860888861911

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Arts, Case Western Reserve University, Cognitive Linguistics.
The expression What are you waiting for? elicits two different meanings, either a request for information or a hortatory command. When the ground carries one of three triggers the hortatory meaning is achieved. These triggers are: conditional sentence, imperative sentence, and situational sentence. Each of these triggers sets up a mental space carrying an activity that can be acted upon. The emergent property of conceptual integration between the present speech act and the future mental space is a mental space carrying concepts of start and stop. The progressive construction is profiled by the blended mental space evoking a hortatory meaning. Therefore, the hortatory meaning of this expression is to stop waiting and start doing. This thesis presents a construction grammar analysis of What are you waiting for? as a special interest star case of the Wh+Progressive construction. To that end, the Wh+Progressive construction is presented in the analysis and triggers that prompt the hortatory meaning are delineated.
Mark Turner, PhD (Committee Chair)
Vera Tobin, PhD (Committee Member)
Todd Oakley, PhD (Committee Member)
30 p.
Linguistics
Construction Grammar; Conceptual Integration; Interrogative Questions

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Citations

  • Biggs, E. (2019). Triggering Blends: A Construction Grammar Account of Hortatory Force in Rhetorical Uses of 'What Are You Waiting For? ' [Master's thesis, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1559860888861911

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Biggs, Eric. Triggering Blends: A Construction Grammar Account of Hortatory Force in Rhetorical Uses of 'What Are You Waiting For? '. 2019. Case Western Reserve University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1559860888861911.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Biggs, Eric. "Triggering Blends: A Construction Grammar Account of Hortatory Force in Rhetorical Uses of 'What Are You Waiting For? '." Master's thesis, Case Western Reserve University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1559860888861911

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1559860888861911
368
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This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.