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Languages and Linguistics
Syntax

Construction Grammar

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Abstract

In Construction Grammar, grammatical patterns are conventional pairings of form and meaning that are analogous to words. This article contrasts Construction Grammar with competing syntactic theories that are based on universal constraints and the projection properties of words. It reviews arguments for construction-based syntax derived from the following linguistic phenomena: semantic and syntactic variability of verbs, coercion, idiomatic patterns and ‘family resemblances’ among idioms, paradigm-based constraints on form and meaning, exceptions to cross-constructional generalizations, and the inadequacy of derivational rules. Verbal and nominal syntax are used to exemplify the formal mechanism that combines constructions and words, unification grammar. A concluding section outlines connections between Construction Grammar and use-based models of grammar, acquisition and sentence processing.

Key takeaways
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  1. Construction Grammar posits grammatical constructions as form-meaning pairings, challenging projection-based theories.
  2. The article aims to contrast Construction Grammar with traditional syntactic theories based on universal constraints.
  3. Type shifting demonstrates that context influences the meaning of words within constructions, contrary to lexical projection.
  4. Arguments for Construction Grammar include idiomatic patterns, coercion effects, and the inadequacy of derivational rules.
  5. Exceptions to cross-constructional generalizations illustrate the limitations of traditional syntactic models in explaining grammar.
Figures (3)
both the nominal type and existential quantification. In the latter frame, the ontological index c is the variable bound by the quantifier and the nominal type is the restriction (RESTR) of the quantifier. In other words, bare mass nouns are ‘self-quantifying.’ Since mass nouns can also unify with various deter- mination constructions, Fillmore et al. (in press: Chap. 2) propose a derivational rule, called quantifier pumping, which relates the lexical entries of mass nouns that require a specifier - and thereby a quanti- fier — to the lexical entries of those mass nouns that do not. article, is a specifier of its nominal sister, while it also invokes its nominal sister, as an argument of its se- mantic frame, the EXIST frame. This frame repre- sents the quantificational force of the indefinite article: it is an existential quantifier, and the variable that it binds is the semantic index of the nominal daughter. The restriction (RESTR) on this quantifier is the semantic type of the nominal daughter. In ac- cordance with Fillmore ez al. (in press), the index 7 is used to indicate that the ontological type of the nom- inal is that of an individual. This semantic type has a parallel grammatical type, the count type; this type appears as a value of the head feature in both of the construction’s daughters, representing the gram- matical concord relationship that exists between the indefinite article and its count noun sister within the NP.
both the nominal type and existential quantification. In the latter frame, the ontological index c is the variable bound by the quantifier and the nominal type is the restriction (RESTR) of the quantifier. In other words, bare mass nouns are ‘self-quantifying.’ Since mass nouns can also unify with various deter- mination constructions, Fillmore et al. (in press: Chap. 2) propose a derivational rule, called quantifier pumping, which relates the lexical entries of mass nouns that require a specifier - and thereby a quanti- fier — to the lexical entries of those mass nouns that do not. article, is a specifier of its nominal sister, while it also invokes its nominal sister, as an argument of its se- mantic frame, the EXIST frame. This frame repre- sents the quantificational force of the indefinite article: it is an existential quantifier, and the variable that it binds is the semantic index of the nominal daughter. The restriction (RESTR) on this quantifier is the semantic type of the nominal daughter. In ac- cordance with Fillmore ez al. (in press), the index 7 is used to indicate that the ontological type of the nom- inal is that of an individual. This semantic type has a parallel grammatical type, the count type; this type appears as a value of the head feature in both of the construction’s daughters, representing the gram- matical concord relationship that exists between the indefinite article and its count noun sister within the NP.

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Semantics and pragmatics in Construction Grammar
Benoît Leclercq

Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 2020

This squib provides a theoretical discussion on the use of the terms semantics and pragmatics in Construction Grammar. In the literature, the difference between semantics and pragmatics is often conceptualized either in terms of conventionality or in terms of truth-conditionality (Huang 2014, 299). It will be shown that, even though constructionists claim that there is no semantics-pragmatics distinction, both these underlying concepts are central to the study of constructions. Therefore, the aim is twofold. First, in keeping with Cappelle (2017), it will be argued that constructionists should make more explicit the distinction between the two types of (encoded) meaning. Second, it will be shown that constructionists need to be more terminologically consistent and agree on how to use the terms semantics and pragmatics. Following Depraetere (2019), I will argue that the terms semantics and pragmatics are most explanatory when defined in truth-conditional terms. In this way, finer-grained understanding of the meaning of constructions can be achieved.

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Making the Case for Construction Grammar
Laura A Michaelis

Sign Based Construction Grammar, 2012

Few published articles in Construction Grammar (CxG) actually talk about the theory, and fewer still about its formal and logical foundations. This information vacuum has allowed misconceptions about CxG to thrive, including the claim that it is designed only to model minor idiomatic phenomena. In this chapter, I try to remedy this situation by laying out the case for CxG, or, more specifically, the formal version of CxG known as Sign- Based Construction Grammar (SBCG; Sag this volume, 2010). In doing so, I will touch on four major topics: foundations, functionality, facts and falsehoods. In describing the foundations of CxG, I will explain what it means to adopt a licensing-based view of syntax rather than one based on negative constraints (Zwicky 1994, Malouf 2003). The focus on functionality arises from the recognition that working syntacticians need a robust and elegant formalism. I will argue that SBCG provides such a formalism, by describing three benefits that it offers to practitioners of construction-based syntax: it is localist, it allows for variable-grain description and it captures shared properties of constructions without requiring stipulations about constructional inheritance relations. The facts include three major lines of evidence for construction- based syntax: the constructional basis of meaning composition, the role of constructions in the licensing of complements and the interleaving of core and periphery during production. Finally, I will attempt to counter six entrenched falsehoods about CxG: that it is nonrigorous, that it does not offer generalizations, that it is a theory of linguistic marginalia, that it is opposed to compositional semantics, that it is not constrained and that it does not provide a universal framework for syntax.

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Usage-based construction grammar
Holger Diessel

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Construction Grammar and its application to English
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Data in Construction Grammar
Stefan Th. Gries

2012

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

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...

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Current Schools of Construction Grammar: Theoretical and Methodological Architecture
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The review presents the most prominent issues of convergence and divergence within each model, focusing, inter alia, on a universal status of linguistic constructions, their quantity and types, issues of constructional compositionality and semantics, reliance on language use data, and specificity of notation systems. The presented study has demonstrated that construction grammar is a thriving field of grammatical theorizing. Over the past two decades, the framework has become part of the mainstream linguistics, a sophisticated linguistic theory based on a solid cognitive and functional basis, with welldeveloped theoretical and methodological principles. By filling in the gaps in both traditional and formalist descriptions of language, construction grammar blurs the boundaries between vocabulary and grammar, semantics and pragmatics, meaning and use and represents language as a holistic organism. The holistic approach to language units aptly reflects the reality of mental activity, based on uniform cognitive mechanisms and carried out on a single language substrate. All of linguistic knowledge is a network of form-meaning pairsconstructions and nothing else in addition M. Hilpert (2021, p. 6) Сучасна філологічна наука: актуальні питання та вектори розвитку

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Construction grammars: Cognitive grounding and theoretical extensions (review)
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Constructions in Cognitive Grammar
Ronald Langacker

ENGLISH LINGUISTICS, 2003

Cognitive Grammar claims that grammatical structure is symbolic in nature and that constructions are the primary objects of description. A construction is an assembly of symbolic structures (form-meaning pairings) linked by correspondences. While constructions have certain characteristic features, various kinds of departure from this prototype are also common. Grammatical patterns are captured by constructional schemas (schematic symbolic assemblies). Grammatical dependencies reside in correspondences between semantic elements, with the consequence that constituency is non-essential and often variable. The symbolic view of grammar offers a viable alternative to the autonomy thesis.

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Constraints on syntactic alternation:lexical-constructional subsumption in the Lexical Constructional Model
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Related papers

Construction Grammars
Thomas Hoffmann

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)).

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The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Cognitive Linguistics.

This entry investigates the concept of the syntax-lexicon continuum in Construction Grammar. This concept challenges the traditional Generative Grammar distinction between lexicon and syntax, proposing instead that these two components are interconnected. The paper emphasizes the importance of phrasemes, such as idioms and constructional idioms, due to their frequency and relevance in language. The study highlights the theoretical and practical implications of this continuum, particularly in language description, language teaching and natural language processing, arguing that the continuum provides a more integrated understanding of linguistic competence and revealing the deep interconnections between meaning and form in language. It concludes with new research perspectives, underscoring the significance of this continuum for a comprehensive linguistic theory.

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Past and future in Construction Grammar(s) and the limits of constructions
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The term Construction Grammar alludes to a diverse set of linguistic theories that have emerged over the past forty years as alternatives to the then-dominant generative approach to the study of language and grammar, especially in dealing with idiosyncratic patterns and idiomatic expressions. Rather than Qf Lingüístics * This research was carried out within the framework of: (i) the research project Construction Grammar and Phraseology. German and Spanish Constructional Idioms through Corpora (PID2019-108783RB-100), and (ii) the European COST-Action CA22115/Building a Multilingual Repository of Phraseme Constructions.

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Related topics

  • Cognitive Linguistics
  • Syntax-Semantics Interface
  • Construction Grammar
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