Constructions as grammatical objects (original) (raw)

Construction Grammars

To appear in: Barbara Dancygier, ed. The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 2017

To appear in: Barbara Dancygier, ed. The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The previous chapter gave an overview of the renaissance of constructions in grammatical theory and the rise of Construction Grammar approaches. Yet, while all constructionist approaches share many important tenets concerning the nature of human language, the various individual approaches nevertheless differ from each other in non-trivial ways. In this chapter, I will first provide the common theoretical assumptions shared by all constructionist approaches. After that, I will outline the major differences between non-usage-based (such as Berkley Construction Grammar and Sign-Based Construction Grammar) and usage-based approaches (Cognitive Construction Grammar, Embodied Construction Grammar, Fluid Construction Grammar and Radical Construction Grammar). Moreover, I will discuss the controversial issue of what counts as a construction (from Kay's conservative competence-based notion to the usage-based interpretation of constructions as exemplar-based clouds) and the ontological status of meaningless constructions. In addition to that, I will also touch upon the nature of the structured inventory of constructions, the constructicon, and explore the advantage and limits of constructional inheritance in taxonomic networks. Finally, the chapter will also address the question as to how the meaning pole of constructions is analysed in the various approaches (which ranges from semantic paraphrases (Cognitive Construction Grammar) over first-order predicate logic (Fluid Construction Grammar) to Frame-based approaches (Sign-based Construction Grammar)).

CONSTRUCTIONS AND LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY

Anton Zimmerling, Ekaterina Lyutikova. Constructions and Linguistic Typology // Typology of Morphosyntactic Parameters. 2023. Vol. 6, Iss. 2, 13-30., 2023

This paper reconsiders the notion of construction and its applications in linguistic typology. Constructions are language-specific parts of morphosyntax. Claims about mental lexicon and mental grammar are orthogonal to the typology of constructions. The claims that all constructions are language-specific and all constructions are idiomatic are potentially conflicting. If one accepts the hypothesis that there is no variation in logical structure, the meaning of most constructions can be decomposed into the universal component directly or indirectly based on logical categories, for example, the meaning of yes-no question, the meaning of verification, the meaning of goal, the meaning of concession, and the non-universal component resulting from language-specific partition of semantic structure. Typology provides the diagnostics for classes of comparable constructions, while cross-linguistic comparison of isolated constructions explores the idea that they can belong to the same class if they are derived the same way.

The Renaissance of constructions: From constructions to Construction Grammars

to appear in: Barbara Dancygier, ed. The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 2017

Draft chapter to appear in: Barbara Dancygier, ed. The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. For a long time, constructions played an important role in traditional grammar. During the 20 th century, however, focus in Mainstream Generative Grammar shifted to a universal mentalistic view of language that relegated constructions to the status of mere epiphenomena. The present chapter outlines the historical renaissance of constructions in cognitive linguistics. It discusses various major linguistic phenomena that led some researchers to claim that form-meaning pairings, i.e. constructions, are, in fact, the fundamental units of the human language capacity – a view of language that is now known as Construction Grammar. The various Construction Grammar approaches, their shared assumptions as well as differences are then the topic of the next chapter.

Language use and the architecture of grammar: a Construction Morphology perspective

2014

This article motivates a usage–based account of morphological knowledge, and its place in the architecture of grammar. I–language, the abstract linguistic competence, and E–language, that is, actual language use, stand in a dialogic relationship. Morphology must be usage– based in order to understand the knowledge and creation of complex words. Construction Morphology is a theory about the place of morphology in the architecture of grammar that assumes a hierarchical lexicon, with various degrees of schematicity that do justice to actual language use in the domain of word formation. Since there are productive phrasal lexical constructions as well, and word formation may be based on paradigmatic relationships with such phrasal lexical units, there is no sharp divide between lexicon and grammar, although the formal distinction between syntactic and morphological constructs must be preserved. Arguments are given for second order schemas. They represent a multi–dimensional network of re...

THE RETURN OF THE ACTOR: EFFECTS OF CONSTRUCTION-LEVEL GRAMMATICALISATION

Linguistic theory and practice: description, …, 2004

Dublin, Ireland at the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown, to the north of Dublin city. The conference on 'Linguistic theory and practice: description, implementation and processing' welcomed papers on the themes of: o The lexicon and lexical decomposition in RRG. o The RRG approach to morphology o RRG and neurocognitive models of language processing o Computational approaches to RRG o Celtic Linguistics o Diachronic syntax

Constructions in Role and Reference Grammar: The case of the English resultative

Linking Constructions into Functional Linguistics: The Role of Constructions in Grammar [Studies in Language Companion Series 145], B. Nolan and E. Diedrichsen (eds.), 2013

This is a contribution from Linking Constructions into Functional Linguistics: The Role of Constructions in Grammar [Studies in Language Companion Series 145], B. Nolan and E. Diedrichsen (eds.), 179-204. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. The object of this chapter is to present an RRG account of one of the most widely studied constructions: the English resultative. In order to provide a finer-nuanced description of the resultative than the one currently posited by Van Valin (2005: 239), our study mainly draws on the work on constructional schemas recently carried out by some RRG scholars (i.e. Cortés 2009; Diedrichsen 2010, 2011; Nolan 2011ab; Van Valin 2011, 2012, inter alios). Additionally, it also takes into consideration part of the semantic and syntactic analyses developed within the family of Construction Grammars (CxG(s)) by Gonzálvez-García (2009, 2011), Goldberg (1995), Godlberg & Jackendoff (2004), and Luzondo (2011), to name but a few, and some of the insights from the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM; Ruiz de Mendoza & Mairal 2008, 2011; Mairal & Ruiz de Mendoza 2009; see Butler 2009 for a critical overview). The structure of this paper is as follows. In section (2), a brief overview of the status of the notion of construction throughout RRG in general, and the account of the resultative construction in particular, is furnished. Section (3) presents a preliminary proposal of an RRG constructional schema for the property English resultative (e.g. The blacksmith hammered the metal flat), which enhances its constructional meaning and its relation with verb meaning. We sustain, with Diedrichsen (2010, 2011) and Nolan (2011ab), that RRG schemas should become more constructional and incorporate, among others, the construction signature, its constraints, its workspace, and its input and output strings. Furthermore, due to the fundamental role played by metaphor and metonymy in order to explain the data under scrutiny, we advance the addition of two new features to the proposed English resultative schema, namely, the motivation of the construction and the family resemblance connection. This stance on enriching RRG constructional schemas has immediate and direct consequences for our second goal in this work: what are the connections that the property English resultative establishes with the motion resultative construction (e.g. He hammered the metal into the shape of a heart), which we also posit could further be extended to other closely related constructions such as the motion resultative, the caused-motion, the way construction, etc. Section (4) explores this particularly interesting issue that still remains open in RRG (Van Valin 2011) but where we believe the theoretical apparatus of the LCM, a model which already integrates RRG in its lexical descriptions, could shed some light on. Finally, section (5) offers some concluding remarks.