What is it about?
"The X itself", as in "the computer itself" or "the arm itself", serves to select some kind of core in a larger whole. The question is: how is this construction actually used and is it used in the same way in different domains of language use? Applying a range of quantitative analytical techniques, this article explores various aspect of the use of this construction across different domains.
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Why is it important?
"The X itself" has only received limited attention despite the fact that it seems to have some quite interesting communicative functions. This article, then, provides one of the first systematic treatments of the construction.
Perspectives
I have been interested in this construction since, as a student, I saw it mentioned in Croft & Cruse's textbook on cognitive linguistics. I have previously published an article in which I formulate a hypothesis about the construction. However, I do not address variation in that article, and variation is arguably an important feature of any linguistic unit. Seeing that I have an interest in varieties based on use (i.e. registers), the motivation behind the research that this article builds on was a combined interest in the construction and in register variation.
Kim Ebensgaard Jensen
University of Copenhagen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Cross-domain variation in the X itself as a grammatical construction, Cognitive Linguistic Studies, December 2016, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/cogls.3.2.01ebe.
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