Subjects and non-subjects in constructions

21
Originally, prototype categories have only been applied to lexical
concepts (extending beyond the pure linguistic dimension, cf. Hudson 1980).
Subsequently, the prototype category has also been applied to linguistic units at
the grammatical edge of the language realm, cf. Bybee and Moder (1983),
Taylor (1995). In this paper, I will apply the notion of the prototype and the
radial category approach to illustrate the correlation of both semantics and
formal expression, i.e., the more distant a category is compared to the
prototype, the less overlap it shows in both its formal organization and
semantics.
Figure 1 represents the semantico-syntactic organization of different
extensions of the Consequence Construction in terms of a radial category:
Figure 1: Consequence Construction as a Radial Category.
(prototypes are squares; their radial subcategories are round)
As noted in Nesset et al. (2011), subcategories may have several
prototypes (as indicated in Figure 1). This is the case with both G-NTCs and
L-NTCs. I assume that several particular G-NTCs and L-NTCs are
conceptually linked to the transitive-construction prototype as defined in
Lazard (1998), as well (this is rendered by the arrow in Figure 1). Within this
conceptualization, the less salient participant metaphorically acts on the more