A Construction Grammar Approach to the Phrase

Abstract: This essay adopts a construction grammar approach to the linguistic pattern why don’t you. It argues that the pattern can have two different senses: an interrogative sense and a suggestive sense. Further it argues that the suggestive sense is a construction similar to the definition of a construction described by construction grammar theory. In other words, the linguistic pattern why don’t you can have a specific underlying semantics that cannot be reached by an examination of its formal pattern.