Changes <i>in the midst of</i> a construction network: a diachronic construction grammar approach to complex prepositions denoting internal location

Abstract Linguists have debated whether complex prepositions deserve a constituent status, but none proposed dynamic model that can both predict what construal given pattern imposes and account for the emergence of non-spatial readings. This paper reframes debate on constituency as justification constructional status prepositional patterns from historical perspective. It focuses Prep NP IL lm construction, which denotes relation internal location between located entity (a trajector) reference landmark). Four subschemas Internal Location construction are examined: middle cxn ( in ), center in/at heart midst ). All occurrences extracted COHA, along with their co-occurring landmark NPs. Using vocabulary growth curves, all shown to be productive over whole period covered by corpus, although at different levels. word2vec , semantic vector space collocates each is made. Curves indexed association scores plotted see how densely areas been populated across four consecutive periods: 1810s–1860s, 1870s–1910s, 1920s–1970s, 1980s–2000s. Two divisions labor emerged. complementary distribution operate mostly level abstract locations whereas parallel concrete locations.