Core-grammatical innovation in real time: radical and rapid constructionalization in Chinese

Abstract

Abstract Recent research in Diachronic Construction Grammar and Creative Construction Grammar has begun to uncover nongradual cases of linguistic creativity. Two gaps nevertheless remain: the scarcity of documented cases of radical and rapid innovation in core grammar, and the need to specify the converging mechanisms by which such innovation arises and spreads in real time. This study addresses both through the Anticanonical Passive Construction (APC) in Chinese, in the form [ bèi X], where X violates conventional passivization constraints. As a form-meaning innovation in core grammar, the APC radically retools the canonical passive into a resource for the satirical construal of subjects as undergoing coercion, loss of agency, and distortion of truth. Combining corpus and survey data, we show that the APC spread rapidly, admitted a wide range of canonically non-passivizable predicates, and is represented in native-speaker knowledge as both interpretable and productively extendable. We explain this development through three converging mechanisms: cognitive biases, including anomaly-triggered grammatical surprise and heightened attention to negative events; joint affect, which facilitates interpretive uptake; and platform amplification, whereby digital affordances and incentives accelerate diffusion. The study expands current accounts of constructionalization by documenting and explaining a core-grammatical innovation in real time.