Interaction and conventionalized expressions create the contexts for bleaching and constructional expansion: the case of GRAB

Abstract

A corpus study of 100+ years of usage of the verb GRAB in American English contributes to the understanding of the way bleaching takes place. The meaning of GRAB as ‘take or seize suddenly or eagerly’ is firmly established in usage from 1910 through 1980, but in the 1990’s many instances of a bleached sense of ‘take or get easily or casually’ begin to occur. The proposed hypothesis that bleaching results from hyperbolic uses is supported by the finding that bleaching occurs within three common contexts: narrative sequences of GRAB followed by another verb; contexts expanding on grab a bite (to eat); and GRAB plus human object, which changes from a sense of ‘take custody of’ to simply ‘capture the attention of’. In addition, the interactional context of requests and offers (often of food and drink) hastens the bleaching of GRAB while also contributing the resulting interpretation of GRAB as ‘get or take easily or casually’. The same conversational actions constitute the contexts in which GRAB is established in the ditransitive construction, as well as the contexts in which it takes on the social meaning of getting or taking in a quick, easy and casual manner.