Construction grammar
Encyclopedia
The term construction grammar (CxG) covers a family of theories, or models, of grammar
that are based on the idea that the primary unit of grammar is the grammatical construction
rather than the atomic syntactic
unit and the rule that combines atomic units, and that the grammar of a language is made up of taxonomies
of families of constructions.
CxG is typically associated with cognitive linguistics
, partly because many of the linguists that are involved in CxG are also involved in cognitive linguistics
, and partly because CxG and cognitive linguistics
share many theoretical and philosophical foundations.
, together with the generative semantic idea of a grammar as a constraint satisfaction system.
George Lakoff
's "Syntactic Amalgams" paper in 1974 (Chicago Linguistics Society, 1974) posed a challenge for the idea of transformational derivation.
CxG was spurred on by the development of Cognitive Semantics, beginning in 1975 and extending through the 1980s. Lakoff's 1977 paper, Linguistic Gestalts (Chicago Linguistic Society, 1977) was an early version of CxG, arguing that the meaning of the whole was not a compositional function of the meaning of the parts put together locally. Instead, he suggested, constructions themselves must have meanings.
CxG was developed in the 1980s by linguists such as Charles Fillmore
, Paul Kay
, and George Lakoff
. CxG was developed in order to handle cases that intrinsically went beyond the capacity of generative grammar
.
The earliest study was "There-Constructions," which appeared as Case Study 3 in George Lakoff's Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. It argued that the meaning of the whole was not a function of the meanings of the parts, that odd grammatical properties of Deictic There-constructions followed from the pragmatic meaning of the construction, and that variations on the central construction could be seen as simple extensions using form-meaning pairs of the central construction.
Fillmore et al.'s (1988) paper on the English let alone construction was a second classic. These two papers propelled cognitive linguists into the study of CxG.
, the grammatical construction
is a pairing of form and content. The formal aspect of a construction is typically described as a syntactic
template, but the form covers more than just syntax
, as it also involves phonological
aspects, such as prosody
and intonation
. The content covers semantic
as well as pragmatic
meaning.
The semantic
meaning of a grammatical construction
is made up of conceptual structures postulated in cognitive semantics: Image-schemas, frames, conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, prototypes of various kinds, mental spaces, and bindings across these (called "blends"). Pragmatics just becomes the cognitive semantics of communication — the modern version of the old Ross
-Lakoff performative hypothesis from the 1960s.
The form and content are symbolically linked in the sense advocated by Langacker
.
Thus a construction
is treated like a sign
in which all structural aspects are integrated parts and not distributed over different modules as they are in the componential model. Consequentially, not only constructions
that are lexically fixed, like many idioms, but also more abstract ones like argument structure schemata, are pairings of form and conventionalized meaning. For instance, the ditransitive schema [S V IO DO] is said to express semantic content X CAUSES Y TO RECEIVE Z, just like kill means X CAUSES Y TO DIE.
In CxG, a grammatical construction
, regardless of its formal or semantic
complexity and make up, is a pairing of form and meaning. Thus words are instances of constructions
. Indeed, construction grammarians argue that all pairings of form and meaning are constructions
including phrase structures, idiom
s, word
s and even morpheme
s.
s and complex constructions
are both pairs of form and meaning and differ only in internal symbolic complexity. Instead of being discrete modules and thus subject to very different processes they form the extremes of a continuum (from regular to idiosyncratic): syntax
>subcategorization frame
>idiom
>morphology
>syntactic category
>word
/lexicon
(these are the traditional terms; construction grammars use a different terminology).
networks of families of constructions, which are based on the same principles as those of the conceptual categories known from cognitive linguistics
, such as inheritance, prototypicality, extensions, and multiple parenting.
Four different models are proposed in relation to how information is stored in the taxonomies
:
-based methodologies of constructional analysis (for example, collostructional analysis
).
, it does not operate with dynamic rules of derivation. Rather, it is monotonic.
Since CxG does not operate with surface derivations from underlying structures, it rejects constructional polysemy and adheres to functionalist linguist Dwight Bolinger
's principle of no synonymy, on which Adele Goldberg
elaborates in her book.
This means that construction grammarians argue, for instance, that active and passive versions of the same proposition are not derived from an underlying structure, but are instances of two different constructions
. As constructions are pairings of form and meaning, active and passive versions of the same proposition are not synonymous, but display differences in content: in this case the pragmatic content.
-based framework for description of syntax, not unlike Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
. Some of its proponents/developers are Charles Fillmore
, Paul Kay
, Laura Michaelis
, and to a certain extent Ivan Sag
.
and Lakoff
looks mainly at the external relations of constructions
and the structure of constructional networks. In terms of form and function, this type of construction grammar puts psychological plausibility as its highest desideratum. It emphasizes experimental results and parallels with general cognitive psychology. It also draws on certain principles of cognitive linguistics
.
's Cognitive grammar
framework is described as a type of construction grammar. Cognitive grammar
deals mainly with the semantic content of constructions
, and its central argument is that conceptual semantics is primary to the degree that form mirrors, or is motivated by, content. Langacker
argues that even abstract grammatical units like part-of-speech classes are semantically motivated and involve certain conceptualizations.
purposes and takes into account cross-linguistic factors. It deals mainly with the internal structure of constructions
. Radical Construction Grammar is totally non-reductionist
, and Croft argues that constructions
are not derived from their parts, but that the parts are derived from the constructions
they appear in. Thus, in Radical Construction Grammar, constructions
are likened to Gestalts. Radical Construction Grammar rejects the idea that syntactic categories, roles, and relations are universal and argues that they are not only language-specific, but also construction specific. Thus, there are no universals that make reference to formal categories, since formal categories are language- and construction-specific. The only universals are to be found in the patterns concerning the mapping of meaning onto form. Radical Construction Grammar rejects the notion of syntactic relations altogether and replaces them with semantic relations. Like Goldbergian/Lakovian construction grammar and Cognitive Grammar, Radical Construction Grammar is closely related to cognitive linguistics
, and like Cognitive Grammar, Radical Construction Grammar appears to be based on the idea that form is semantically motivated.
, but emphasizes the relation of constructional semantic content to embodiment
and sensorimotor experiences. A central claim is that the content of all linguistic signs involve mental simulations and are ultimately dependent on basic image schema
s of the kind advocated by Mark Johnson
and George Lakoff
and so ECG aligns itself with cognitive linguistics
. Like Construction Grammar, Embodied Construction Grammar makes use of a unification-based model of representation. A non-technical introduction to the NTL theory behind Embodied Construction Grammar as well as the theory itself and a variety of applications can be found in Jerome Feldman's From Molecule to Metaphor: A Neural Theory of Language.
(FCG) was designed by Luc Steels
for doing experiments on the origins and development of language. FCG is a fully operational formalism for construction grammars and proposes a uniform mechanism for parsing and production. The Grammar integrates many notions from contemporary computational linguistics
such as feature structure
s and unification-based language processing. Rules are considered bi-directional and hence usable both for parsing and production. Processing is flexible in the sense that it can even cope with partially ungrammatical or incomplete sentences. FCG is called 'fluid' because it acknowledges the premise that language users constantly change and update their grammars. The research on FCG is conducted at Sony CSL in Paris and the AI Lab at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel
.
s and thus in the importation of methods and ideas from grammaticalization studies. Another area of growing interest is the pragmatics
of pragmatic constructions. This is probably one of the reasons why the usage-based model is gaining popularity among construction grammarians. Another area of increasing interest among construction grammarians is that of language acquisition
which is mainly due to Michael Tomasello
's work.
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
that are based on the idea that the primary unit of grammar is the grammatical construction
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
rather than the atomic syntactic
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
unit and the rule that combines atomic units, and that the grammar of a language is made up of taxonomies
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
of families of constructions.
CxG is typically associated with cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...
, partly because many of the linguists that are involved in CxG are also involved in cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...
, and partly because CxG and cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...
share many theoretical and philosophical foundations.
Some history
Historically, the notion of construction grammar developed out of the ideas of "global rules" and "transderivational rules" in generative semanticsGenerative semantics
Generative semantics is the name of a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of various early students of Noam Chomsky: John R. Ross, Paul Postal and later James McCawley...
, together with the generative semantic idea of a grammar as a constraint satisfaction system.
George Lakoff
George Lakoff
George P. Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972...
's "Syntactic Amalgams" paper in 1974 (Chicago Linguistics Society, 1974) posed a challenge for the idea of transformational derivation.
CxG was spurred on by the development of Cognitive Semantics, beginning in 1975 and extending through the 1980s. Lakoff's 1977 paper, Linguistic Gestalts (Chicago Linguistic Society, 1977) was an early version of CxG, arguing that the meaning of the whole was not a compositional function of the meaning of the parts put together locally. Instead, he suggested, constructions themselves must have meanings.
CxG was developed in the 1980s by linguists such as Charles Fillmore
Charles J. Fillmore
Charles J. Fillmore is an American linguist, and an Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Michigan in 1961. Professor Fillmore spent ten years at The Ohio State University before joining Berkeley's...
, Paul Kay
Paul Kay
Paul Kay is an emeritus professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, United States. He joined the University in 1966 as a member of the Department of Anthropology, transferring to the Department of Linguistics in 1982 and now working at the International Computer Science...
, and George Lakoff
George Lakoff
George P. Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972...
. CxG was developed in order to handle cases that intrinsically went beyond the capacity of generative grammar
Generative grammar
In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences...
.
The earliest study was "There-Constructions," which appeared as Case Study 3 in George Lakoff's Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. It argued that the meaning of the whole was not a function of the meanings of the parts, that odd grammatical properties of Deictic There-constructions followed from the pragmatic meaning of the construction, and that variations on the central construction could be seen as simple extensions using form-meaning pairs of the central construction.
Fillmore et al.'s (1988) paper on the English let alone construction was a second classic. These two papers propelled cognitive linguists into the study of CxG.
The grammatical construction in CxG
In CxG, like in general semioticsSemiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
, the grammatical construction
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
is a pairing of form and content. The formal aspect of a construction is typically described as a syntactic
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
template, but the form covers more than just syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
, as it also involves phonological
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
aspects, such as prosody
Prosody (linguistics)
In linguistics, prosody is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance ; the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of...
and intonation
Intonation (linguistics)
In linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch while speaking which is not used to distinguish words. It contrasts with tone, in which pitch variation does distinguish words. Intonation, rhythm, and stress are the three main elements of linguistic prosody...
. The content covers semantic
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
as well as pragmatic
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the...
meaning.
The semantic
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
meaning of a grammatical construction
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
is made up of conceptual structures postulated in cognitive semantics: Image-schemas, frames, conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, prototypes of various kinds, mental spaces, and bindings across these (called "blends"). Pragmatics just becomes the cognitive semantics of communication — the modern version of the old Ross
John R. Ross
John Robert "Haj" Ross is a linguist who played a part in the development of generative semantics along with George Lakoff, James D. McCawley, and Paul Postal...
-Lakoff performative hypothesis from the 1960s.
The form and content are symbolically linked in the sense advocated by Langacker
Ronald Langacker
Ronald Wayne Langacker is an American linguist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. He is best known as one of the founders of the cognitive linguistics movement and the creator of Cognitive Grammar....
.
Thus a construction
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
is treated like a sign
Sign (semiotics)
A sign is understood as a discrete unit of meaning in semiotics. It is defined as "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity" It includes words, images, gestures, scents, tastes, textures, sounds – essentially all of the ways in which information can be...
in which all structural aspects are integrated parts and not distributed over different modules as they are in the componential model. Consequentially, not only constructions
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
that are lexically fixed, like many idioms, but also more abstract ones like argument structure schemata, are pairings of form and conventionalized meaning. For instance, the ditransitive schema [S V IO DO] is said to express semantic content X CAUSES Y TO RECEIVE Z, just like kill means X CAUSES Y TO DIE.
In CxG, a grammatical construction
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
, regardless of its formal or semantic
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
complexity and make up, is a pairing of form and meaning. Thus words are instances of constructions
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
. Indeed, construction grammarians argue that all pairings of form and meaning are constructions
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
including phrase structures, idiom
Idiom
Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...
s, word
Word
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
s and even morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
s.
Syntax-lexicon continuum
Unlike the componential model, CxG denies any strict distinction between the two and proposes a syntax-lexicon continuum. The argument goes that wordWord
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
s and complex constructions
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
are both pairs of form and meaning and differ only in internal symbolic complexity. Instead of being discrete modules and thus subject to very different processes they form the extremes of a continuum (from regular to idiosyncratic): syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
>subcategorization frame
Subcategorization frame
In syntax, a subject within linguistics, the subcategorization frame of a word is defined to be the number and types of syntactic arguments that it co-occurs with...
>idiom
Idiom
Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...
>morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
>syntactic category
Syntactic category
A syntactic category is either a phrasal category, such as noun phrase or verb phrase, which can be decomposed into smaller syntactic categories, or a lexical category, such as noun or verb, which cannot be further decomposed....
>word
Word
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
/lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
(these are the traditional terms; construction grammars use a different terminology).
Grammar as an inventory of constructions
In CxG the grammar of a language is made up of taxonomicTaxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
networks of families of constructions, which are based on the same principles as those of the conceptual categories known from cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...
, such as inheritance, prototypicality, extensions, and multiple parenting.
Four different models are proposed in relation to how information is stored in the taxonomies
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
:
- Full-entry model
- In the full-entry model information is stored redundantly at all relevant levels in the taxonomyTaxonomyTaxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
, which means that it operates, if at all, with minimal generalization.
- In the full-entry model information is stored redundantly at all relevant levels in the taxonomy
- Usage-based model
- The usage-based model is based on inductive learningInductive reasoningInductive reasoning, also known as induction or inductive logic, is a kind of reasoning that constructs or evaluates propositions that are abstractions of observations. It is commonly construed as a form of reasoning that makes generalizations based on individual instances...
, meaning that linguistic knowledge is acquired in a bottom-up manner through use. It allows for redundancy and generalizations, because the language user generalizes over recurring experiences of use.
- The usage-based model is based on inductive learning
- Default inheritance model
- According to the default inheritance model, each network has a default central form-meaning pairing from which all instances inherit their features. It thus operates with a fairly high level of generalization, but does also allow for some redundancy in that it recognizes extensions of different types.
- Complete inheritance model
- In the complete inheritance model, information is stored only once at the most superordinate level of the network. Instances at all other levels inherit features from the superordinate item. The complete inheritance does not allow for redundancy in the networks.
Shift towards usage-based model
All four models are advocated by different construction grammarians, but since the late 1990s there has been a shift towards a general preference for the usage-based model. The shift towards the usage-based approach in CxG has inspired the development of several corpusCorpus linguistics
Corpus linguistics is the study of language as expressed in samples or "real world" text. This method represents a digestive approach to deriving a set of abstract rules by which a natural language is governed or else relates to another language. Originally done by hand, corpora are now largely...
-based methodologies of constructional analysis (for example, collostructional analysis
Collostructional analysis
Collostructional analysis is a family of methods developed by Stefan Th. Gries and...
).
Synonymy and monotony
As CxG is based on schemas and taxonomiesTaxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
, it does not operate with dynamic rules of derivation. Rather, it is monotonic.
Since CxG does not operate with surface derivations from underlying structures, it rejects constructional polysemy and adheres to functionalist linguist Dwight Bolinger
Dwight Bolinger
Dwight Le Merton Bolinger was an American linguist and Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. He began his career as the first editor of the "Among the New Words" feature for American Speech. As an expert in Spanish, he was elected president of the American...
's principle of no synonymy, on which Adele Goldberg
Adele Goldberg (linguist)
Adele Eva Goldberg is a researcher in the field of linguistics. Since 2004, she has been a Professor in Linguistics, and an associated faculty in Psychology at Princeton University. From 1997-2004, she was an Associate Professor of Linguistics and the Beckman Institute at the University of...
elaborates in her book.
This means that construction grammarians argue, for instance, that active and passive versions of the same proposition are not derived from an underlying structure, but are instances of two different constructions
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
. As constructions are pairings of form and meaning, active and passive versions of the same proposition are not synonymous, but display differences in content: in this case the pragmatic content.
Some construction grammars
As mentioned above, CxG is a "family" of theories rather than one unified theory. There are a number of formalized CxG frameworks. Some of these are:Construction Grammar
Construction Grammar (usually in upper case) focuses on the formal aspects of constructions and makes use of a unificationUnification
Unification, in computer science and logic, is an algorithmic process by which one attempts to solve the satisfiability problem. The goal of unification is to find a substitution which demonstrates that two seemingly different terms are in fact either identical or just equal...
-based framework for description of syntax, not unlike Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
Head-driven phrase structure grammar
Head-driven phrase structure grammar is a highly lexicalized, non-derivational generative grammar theory developed by Carl Pollard and Ivan Sag. It is the immediate successor to generalized phrase structure grammar. HPSG draws from other fields such as computer science and uses Ferdinand de...
. Some of its proponents/developers are Charles Fillmore
Charles J. Fillmore
Charles J. Fillmore is an American linguist, and an Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Michigan in 1961. Professor Fillmore spent ten years at The Ohio State University before joining Berkeley's...
, Paul Kay
Paul Kay
Paul Kay is an emeritus professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, United States. He joined the University in 1966 as a member of the Department of Anthropology, transferring to the Department of Linguistics in 1982 and now working at the International Computer Science...
, Laura Michaelis
Laura Michaelis
Laura A. Michaelis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics and a faculty fellow in the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder.- Background and Research :...
, and to a certain extent Ivan Sag
Ivan Sag
Ivan Sag is an American linguist and cognitive scientist. He is the Sadie Dernham Patek Professor in Humanities, Professor of Linguistics, and Director of the Symbolic Systems Program at Stanford University...
.
Goldbergian/Lakovian construction grammar
The type of construction grammar associated with linguists like GoldbergAdele Goldberg (linguist)
Adele Eva Goldberg is a researcher in the field of linguistics. Since 2004, she has been a Professor in Linguistics, and an associated faculty in Psychology at Princeton University. From 1997-2004, she was an Associate Professor of Linguistics and the Beckman Institute at the University of...
and Lakoff
George Lakoff
George P. Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972...
looks mainly at the external relations of constructions
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
and the structure of constructional networks. In terms of form and function, this type of construction grammar puts psychological plausibility as its highest desideratum. It emphasizes experimental results and parallels with general cognitive psychology. It also draws on certain principles of cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...
.
Cognitive Grammar
Sometimes, Ronald LangackerRonald Langacker
Ronald Wayne Langacker is an American linguist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. He is best known as one of the founders of the cognitive linguistics movement and the creator of Cognitive Grammar....
's Cognitive grammar
Cognitive grammar
Cognitive grammar is a cognitive approach to language developed by Ronald Langacker, which considers the basic units of language to be symbols or conventional pairings of a semantic structure with a phonological label. Grammar consists of constraints on how these units can be combined to generate...
framework is described as a type of construction grammar. Cognitive grammar
Cognitive grammar
Cognitive grammar is a cognitive approach to language developed by Ronald Langacker, which considers the basic units of language to be symbols or conventional pairings of a semantic structure with a phonological label. Grammar consists of constraints on how these units can be combined to generate...
deals mainly with the semantic content of constructions
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
, and its central argument is that conceptual semantics is primary to the degree that form mirrors, or is motivated by, content. Langacker
Ronald Langacker
Ronald Wayne Langacker is an American linguist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. He is best known as one of the founders of the cognitive linguistics movement and the creator of Cognitive Grammar....
argues that even abstract grammatical units like part-of-speech classes are semantically motivated and involve certain conceptualizations.
Radical construction grammar
William A. Croft's radical construction grammar is designed for typologicalLinguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
purposes and takes into account cross-linguistic factors. It deals mainly with the internal structure of constructions
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
. Radical Construction Grammar is totally non-reductionist
Reductionism
Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...
, and Croft argues that constructions
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
are not derived from their parts, but that the parts are derived from the constructions
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
they appear in. Thus, in Radical Construction Grammar, constructions
Grammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
are likened to Gestalts. Radical Construction Grammar rejects the idea that syntactic categories, roles, and relations are universal and argues that they are not only language-specific, but also construction specific. Thus, there are no universals that make reference to formal categories, since formal categories are language- and construction-specific. The only universals are to be found in the patterns concerning the mapping of meaning onto form. Radical Construction Grammar rejects the notion of syntactic relations altogether and replaces them with semantic relations. Like Goldbergian/Lakovian construction grammar and Cognitive Grammar, Radical Construction Grammar is closely related to cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...
, and like Cognitive Grammar, Radical Construction Grammar appears to be based on the idea that form is semantically motivated.
Embodied construction grammar
Embodied construction grammar (ECG), which is being developed by the Neural Theory of Language (NTL) group at ICSI, UC Berkeley, and the University of Hawaii, particularly including Benjamin Bergen and Nancy Chang, adopts the basic constructionist definition of a grammatical constructionGrammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
, but emphasizes the relation of constructional semantic content to embodiment
Embodiment
Embodied or embodiment may refer to:in psychology and philosophy,*Embodied cognition , a position in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind emphasizing the role that the body plays in shaping the mind...
and sensorimotor experiences. A central claim is that the content of all linguistic signs involve mental simulations and are ultimately dependent on basic image schema
Image schema
An image schema is a recurring structure within our cognitive processes which establishes patterns of understanding and reasoning. Image schemas are formed from our bodily interactions, from linguistic experience, and from historical context...
s of the kind advocated by Mark Johnson
Mark Johnson (professor)
Mark L. Johnson is Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oregon. He is well-known for contributions to embodied philosophy, cognitive science and cognitive linguistics, some of which he has coauthored with George Lakoff such as...
and George Lakoff
George Lakoff
George P. Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972...
and so ECG aligns itself with cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...
. Like Construction Grammar, Embodied Construction Grammar makes use of a unification-based model of representation. A non-technical introduction to the NTL theory behind Embodied Construction Grammar as well as the theory itself and a variety of applications can be found in Jerome Feldman's From Molecule to Metaphor: A Neural Theory of Language.
Fluid construction grammar
Fluid construction grammarFluid construction grammar
Fluid construction grammar is a construction grammar formalism designed by Luc Steels implementing the notion of emergent grammar and operates from a multi-agent perspective , useful for studies in evolutionary linguistics.FCG is a fully operational formalism for construction grammars and proposes...
(FCG) was designed by Luc Steels
Luc Steels
Luc Steels is a Belgian scientist, and Director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is also heading the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris. Steels, along with Rodney Brooks , was one of the initiators of the behaviour-based robotics approach to...
for doing experiments on the origins and development of language. FCG is a fully operational formalism for construction grammars and proposes a uniform mechanism for parsing and production. The Grammar integrates many notions from contemporary computational linguistics
Computational linguistics
Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective....
such as feature structure
Feature structure
In phrase structure grammars, such as generalised phrase structure grammar, head-driven phrase structure grammar and lexical functional grammar, a feature structure is essentially a set of attribute-value pairs. For example the attribute named number might have the value singular. The value of an...
s and unification-based language processing. Rules are considered bi-directional and hence usable both for parsing and production. Processing is flexible in the sense that it can even cope with partially ungrammatical or incomplete sentences. FCG is called 'fluid' because it acknowledges the premise that language users constantly change and update their grammars. The research on FCG is conducted at Sony CSL in Paris and the AI Lab at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
The Vrije Universiteit Brussel is a Flemish university located in Brussels, Belgium. It has two campuses referred to as Etterbeek and Jette.The university's name is sometimes abbreviated by "VUB" or translated to "Free University of Brussels"...
.
Others
In addition there are several construction grammarians who operate within the general framework of CxG without affiliating themselves with any specific CxG program. There is a growing interest in the diachronic aspect of grammatical constructionGrammatical construction
In linguistics, a grammatical construction is any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes, such as phrasal verbs....
s and thus in the importation of methods and ideas from grammaticalization studies. Another area of growing interest is the pragmatics
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the...
of pragmatic constructions. This is probably one of the reasons why the usage-based model is gaining popularity among construction grammarians. Another area of increasing interest among construction grammarians is that of language acquisition
Language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with...
which is mainly due to Michael Tomasello
Michael Tomasello
Michael Tomasello is an American developmentalpsychologist. He is a co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.-Life:...
's work.