Exploring Construction Grammar in Cognitive Linguistics Symposium

 
35 years of Cognitive Linguistics
Session 9: Construction Grammar
 
Martin Hilpert
 
your questions
 
Some constructions are very abstract, some
are very specific. Can we call all of these
constructions IDIOMATIC?  If not, where does
idiomaticity start and where does it end?
 
Where do we draw the line between
constructions and constructs? Do some
constructs change into constructions?
 
Is coercion involved in the formation of
neologisms?
Example: sauce (n.) -> sauced (v.)
 
Could Construction Grammar explain why it is
easier to acquire a language than to learn it?
 
How does the dictionary and grammar model
defend its position against the arguments of
construction grammar?
 
Are Construction Grammar and Generative
Grammar really that different?
 
How many constructions are there in English?
 
Are there Construction Grammar approaches
to historical linguistics?
 
How are corpora used in the detection and
identification of constructions?
 
 
Construction Grammar
 
What do speakers know when they
know a language?
What speakers have to know:
 
must know words
dog, submarine, probably, you, should, etc.
what they mean, how they sound
must know that there are different kinds of words
red 
is an adjective, 
tasty 
is an adjective as well, 
lobster 
is a noun, etc.
must know how to put words together
red 
can be combined with 
ball
many 
cannot be combined with 
milk
John saw Mary 
is ok, 
John Mary saw
 is not, but 
It’s John Mary saw 
is ok
must be able to put the right endings on words
John walk-s
, 
two dog-s
must be able to understand newly coined words
festive-ness
, 
under-whelm
must know that sometimes more is meant than is said
General Motors were able to increase production in the second quarter
.
I don’t know if that is a good idea.
must know idiomatic expressions
I'm all ears
, 
let’s take a break
, 
we really hit it off
, …
 
 
The dictionary-and-grammar model
 
 
The totality of our knowledge of language is captured
by a network of constructions: a ‘construct-i-con.’
 
         
            Goldberg 2003: 219
 
 
[…] the network of constructions captures our
grammatical 
knowledge of language 
in toto
, i.e.
it’s constructions all the way down
.
 
         
            Goldberg 2006: 18
Constructions
 
words: 
cat
, 
philosophy
, 
sparkling
, 
run
, ...
collocations: 
I don’t know
, 
you bet
, 
see you
, ...
semi-fixed phrases: 
keep V-ing
, 
could you please VP
syntactic patterns: SUBJ BE V-ed, SUBJ V OBJ1 OBJ2
abstract phrase structures: PREP DET NOUN
 
Speakers’ knowledge of language = an associative
network that connects all of these constructions
 
argument structure constructions
 
Goldberg 1995
 
sentence patterns that involve a
verb and several nominal structures
idea: these patterns have meaning
their meanings reflect basic
recurrent types of everyday
experience
argument structure
also called valency
 
yawn
 
send
 
Valency defined
 
T
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b
.
 
Traditional idea of valency
 
It’s in the lexicon!
Each verb is listed in the mental
lexicon.
In the entry it is specifies with what
syntactic contexts the verb can
occur.
SWEEP
intransitive
transitive
transitive plus resultant state adjective
transitive plus path
 
problems with lexically specified valency
 
speakers use verbs ‘creatively’, in syntactic
contexts in which they have not heard a verb
before:
John played the piano to pieces.
He pulled himself free, one leg at a time.
No matter how carefully you lick a spoon clean, some
goo will cling to it.
Are there entries such as the following?
‘play: acting on an object in a violent manner that
triggers a change of state in that object’
 
alternative explanation
 
The syntactic context dictates a certain
interpretation of the verb.
coercion:
If a lexical item is semantically incompatible with
its morphosyntactic context, the meaning of the
lexical item conforms to the meaning of the
structure in which it is embedded.
John plays the piano.
John plays the piano to pieces.
 
coercion at work
 
intransitive verbs: run, sneeze, worry
 
 
resultative uses:
John ran his feet sore.
Fred sneezed his cat soaking wet.
Bob’s mother worried herself sick.
 
the ditransitive construction
 
     
SUBJ     V       OBJ1      OBJ2
 
the ditransitive construction
 
central sense of the construction:
transfer of an object between a volitional agent
and a willing recipient:
John gave Mary a book
several other senses
John denied Mary a cookie (blocked transfer)
John bequeathed Mary a gold watch (future transfer)
several metaphorical meaning extensions:
John gave Mary a kiss.
John gave Mary an idea.
 
Why call this a construction?
 
C is a CONSTRUCTION iff
def
 C is a form-meaning
pair <F
i
, S
i
> such that some aspect of F
i
 or some
aspect of S
i
 is not strictly predictable from C’s
component parts or from other previously
established constructions. (Goldberg 1995: 4)
 
John baked Mary a cake.
Not predictable from the individual word meanings?
 
‘implausible’ verb senses
 
John baked Mary a cake.
bake: intend to cause someone else to receive the
product of applying hot air to an edible substance
John sneezed the napkin off the table.
sneeze: move something by means of exhaling in a
burst from the nose
John talked himself blue in the face.
talk: cause someone to become X by means of
uttering words
 
positing constructional meaning
instead of ad-hoc verb senses
 
SUBJ       V            
  
OBJ1      OBJ2
John     baked      
  
Mary     a cake
 
DITRANSITIVE CX:
MEANING = TRANSFER
 
BAKE:
MEANING = APPLY HOT AIR
 
Semantics of the ditransitive
 
a 
volitional agent 
– the agent needs to carry out the
transfer willingly
John kicked Mary the soccer ball.
John threw the squirrels some peanuts.
John painted Mary a picture.
 
troublesome data
John gave me the flu.
The medicine brought me relief.
 
explanation: CAUSES ARE TRANSFERS
 
Situations of cause and effect are understood
metaphorically as situations in which the
cause ‘brings’ the effect to a recipient:
The report furnished them with all the
information they needed.
The new legislation brought new controversies.
The accident presented us with a large number of
injured workers.
Nothing good ever came from smoking.
 
Semantics of the ditransitive
 
a 
willing recipient 
– the recipient needs to accept the
transfer willingly
John kicked Mary the soccer ball.
John threw the squirrels some peanuts.
* John burned Mary some rice.
* John threw the unconscious patient a blanket.
 
troublesome data
John gave me the flu.
The tabasco sauce gave the dish a spicy flavor.
Again, explanation is the CAUSES ARE TRANSFERS metaphor
 
further metaphorical extensions
 
the conduit metaphor (COMMUNICATION IS
TRANSFER OF INFORMATION)
John told Mary a joke.
John gave Mary his thoughts on the subject.
DIRECTED ACTIONS ARE TRANSFERRED
OBJECTS
John gave Mary a wink.
Mary gave John a kick.
 
further metaphorical extensions
 
FACTS ARE GIVEN OBJECTS
I’ll give you that assumption
I’ll grant you that much of your argument
BENEFICIAL ACTIONS ARE TRANSFERRED
OBJECTS
John offered Mary a ride to the airport
John owes me many favors
 
Constructions = meaningful
symbolic units
 
meaningful units
 
Clear for words and idioms
spill the beans
Some analysis reveals non-compositional
meanings of argument structure
constructions.
SUBJ VERB OBJ1 OBJ2
But very general syntactic patterns such as the
plan for a noun phrase?
DET ADJ NOUN
 
Do all syntactic forms carry meaning?
 
meaningful constructions?
 
John sings.
Bob heard a noise.
One 
sock
 lay on the sofa, the other one under it.
*One sock lay on the sofa, the other one under.
Do all constructions carry meaning?
 
No, there are semantically
empty constructions!
 
All constructions carry meaning.
 
meaningless constructions
 
1.
formal generalizations with fully
compositional meanings
SUBJECT-PREDICATE CX (John sings)
MODIFIER-HEAD CX (red ball, completely full)
 
meaningless constructions
 
2.
formal generalizations associated with a
heterogeneous set of meanings
SUBJECT-AUX INVERSION
Will you come to the party?
Had I known this, I would have stayed at home.
Am I ever hungry!
FILLER-GAP CXNS
What kind of sandwich did you eat?
How many sandwiches he ate!
I couldn’t count all the sandwiches that he ate.
The more sandwiches you eat, the hungrier you get.
 
meaningless constructions
 
3.
ellipsis constructions
GAPPING
One sock lay on the sofa, the other one under it.
STRIPPING
John washed the dishes, and the silverware, too.
SHARED COMPLETION
The South remains distinct from and independent of
the North.
 
If we would like to maintain that
linguistic knowlege is knowledge of
symbolic units, what do we do?
 
two ways out?
 
There are two ways in which this issue can be
approached […]: by a prototype analysis that
takes one [meaning, MH] as basic and finds a
principled way of accounting for all other
[meanings] as extensions from this basic
prototype; or by a schematic analysis that
finds an abstract characterization.
        
Stefanowitsch (2003: 420)
 
solution 1: a prototype approach
 
Would you do that?
 
Never would I leave you.
 
Neither would I.
 
So would I.
 
May he burn in hell!
 
Why would you do that?
 
Does this hurt!
 
Had I known this…
 
He has read more articles than have his classmates.
 
Goldberg 2006: 177
 
solution 2: a schematic approach
 
Langacker 1991: 156
 
The construct-i-con:
a network of interlinked constructions
 
the construct-i-con
 
a large inventory of form-meaning pairs,
representing speakers’ knowledge of language
important addendum
no chaotic ‘bag of constructions’, but instead:
hierarchically structured
links between constructions
In what ways can constructions be linked?
 
inheritance
 
relation between more abstract constructions
and more concrete constructions
 
 
 
 
complete inheritance: lower-level construction do
not redundantly represent information that is
inherited
full entry: low-level constructions have ‘rich’
representations
 
formal inheritance
 
in prison, at school, on vacation, under water
 
the PREP - BARE NOUN construction inherits the linear
order of P and N from the prepositional phrase
construction
PP Cxn: PREP NOMINAL
the PREP - BARE NOUN construction has idiosyncratic
constraints that are not inherited from the PP Cxn:
PP Cxn: on a sunny day
Prep – bare noun cxn: *on sunny vacation
 
meaning inheritance
 
The time he takes!
The amount of plastic waste!
>> the Metonymic NP construction
NP refers to an extreme point on a scale
 
This meaning is inherited by NPs in more
specialized constructions, for instance in the NP-
complement exclamative cxn:
I can’t believe the time he takes!
It’s ridiculous the amount of plastic waste!
 
Kinds of inheritance links
 
kinds of inheritance links
 
instantiation links
polysemy links
metaphor links
subpart links
 
instance links
instance links (X IS A Y - relationship)
 
   
        
   
    VEHICLE
 
 
         TRAIN          CAR           BUS         BIKE        PLANE
 
 
SEDAN      SPORTS CAR  
 
     CONVERTIBLE    JEEP     PICKUP
instance links (X IS A Y - relationship)
 
   
        
   
    Verb Phrase
 
 
intransitive            transitive                            ditransitive
 
 
spill the beans                          face the music               give a hoot
 
polysemy links
 
polysemy links
 
polysemy = one form mapping onto several,
conceptually related meanings
 
Polysemy in the ditransitive construction
John gave Mary the book.
The doctor allowed me a full meal.
I promise you a rose garden.
They denied Bob tenure.
 
actual transfer
 
intended transfer
 
future transfer
 
enabled transfer
 
blocked transfer
 
polysemy links
 
The s-genitive construction
 
John’s book
John’s office
John’s train
the country’s president
yesterday’s events
inflation’s consequences
 
metaphor links
 
metaphor links
 
the caused motion construction
John kicked the ball over the fence.
the resultative construction
Anne tied her hair into a bun.
 
Same syntactic form
Metaphor accounts for the link between the
respective meanings
STATES ARE LOCATIONS
 
metaphor links
 
You must be home by ten!
You must be David’s brother!
 
You may now kiss the bride!
He may have escaped through the window.
 
I can’t open the door.
That can’t possibly be true.
 
subpart links
 
subpart links
 
relate cxns with either semantic or formal
overlap
do not classify cxns as instances of one
another
 
John wrote            a letter.
John wrote Mary  a letter.
 
subpart links
 
VP: take the train
NP: the train
N: train
 
syntactic amalgams
 
John invited you’ll never guess how many
people to the party.
 
 
syntactic amalgams
 
John invited 
you’ll never guess how
 
many
people to the party.
 
 
You’ll never guess how
 
many people John
invited to the party.
 
John invited 
very 
many people to the party
.
 
syntactic amalgams
 
The Smiths felt it was an important enough
song to put it on their single.
 
It was an important                  song.
It was       important  enough            to put it on their single.
 
attributive adjective cxn:
an important song, a red ball
enough-to-infinitive cxn:
old enough to know better, sick enough to stay at home
 
syntactic amalgams
 
It’s unbelievable what he can do with the
piano!
The things he can do with the piano!
It’s unbelievable the things he can do with the
piano!
it-extraposition
It BE PREDICATE THAT-CLAUSE
bare complement question
SUBJ V
COMP
 WH-INTERROGATIVE
metonymy construction
NP (scalar interpretation)
extraposed exclamative construction
It BE PREDICATE   WH-INTERROGATIVE
nominal extraposition
It BE PREDICATE   NP (scalar interpretation)
 
multiple inheritance
 
normal syntax in CxG
 
noun phrases
 
milk
an old donkey
the big one with the two horns
all my personal belongings
my friend Amy, who recently moved to Italy
 
cxns vs. phrase structure rules
 
NP PS rule:
blueprint for putting together noun phrases
presupposes part-of-speech categories
 
NP Cxn
generalization over different nominal cxns
emerges from speakers’ perceiving similarities across
those nominal cxns
>> parts-of-speech are not basic, they are the result of
a process of abstraction!
 
Croft (2001) on syntactic categories
 
« No schematic syntactic category is ever an
independent unit of grammatical
representation. »
SUBJECT is an abstraction over the agentive
roles that occur in the transitive construction,
the ditransitive construction, and in other
clausal constructions. Speakers do not
necessarily perceive these as the same.
 
POS categories do not exhibit uniform
behavior
 
NP >> DET ADJ N
works fine for red, hot, big, complicated, etc.
* the awake child
* the ready food
* the on computer
* the fond of children lady
 
summing up
 
Construction Grammar
 
speakers’ knowledge of language = an associative
network of constructions
constructions carry meaning and can change the
meaning of lexical elements
the more schematic the form of a construction, the
more abstract and polysemous its meaning
constructions are linked through instance links,
polysemy links, metaphor links, and subpart links
constructions are the basis for part-of-speech
categories and phrase structure rules
 
 
 
 
See you next time!
 
martin.hilpert@unine.ch
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Delve into the realm of Construction Grammar with Martin Hilpert in the 35th year of Cognitive Linguistics. Discover the intricacies of idiomatic constructions, the distinction between constructions and constructs, coercion in neologisms, and more. Explore the relationship between Construction Grammar and Generative Grammar, historical linguistics, and the role of corpora in analyzing constructions and constructs.


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  1. 35 years of Cognitive Linguistics Session 9: Construction Grammar Martin Hilpert

  2. your questions

  3. Some constructions are very abstract, some are very specific. Can we call all of these constructions IDIOMATIC? If not, where does idiomaticity start and where does it end?

  4. Where do we draw the line between constructions and constructs? Do some constructs change into constructions?

  5. Is coercion involved in the formation of neologisms? Example: sauce (n.) -> sauced (v.)

  6. Could Construction Grammar explain why it is easier to acquire a language than to learn it?

  7. How does the dictionary and grammar model defend its position against the arguments of construction grammar?

  8. Are Construction Grammar and Generative Grammar really that different?

  9. How many constructions are there in English?

  10. Are there Construction Grammar approaches to historical linguistics?

  11. How are corpora used in the detection and identification of constructions?

  12. Construction Grammar

  13. What do speakers know when they know a language?

  14. What speakers have to know: must know words dog, submarine, probably, you, should, etc. what they mean, how they sound must know that there are different kinds of words red is an adjective, tasty is an adjective as well, lobster is a noun, etc. must know how to put words together red can be combined with ball many cannot be combined with milk John saw Mary is ok, John Mary saw is not, but It s John Mary saw is ok must be able to put the right endings on words John walk-s, two dog-s must be able to understand newly coined words festive-ness, under-whelm must know that sometimes more is meant than is said General Motors were able to increase production in the second quarter. I don t know if that is a good idea. must know idiomatic expressions I'm all ears, let s take a break, we really hit it off,

  15. The dictionary-and-grammar model

  16. The totality of our knowledge of language is captured by a network of constructions: a construct-i-con. Goldberg 2003: 219 [ ] the network of constructions captures our grammatical knowledge of language in toto, i.e. it s constructions all the way down. Goldberg 2006: 18

  17. Constructions words: cat, philosophy, sparkling, run, ... collocations: I don t know, you bet, see you, ... semi-fixed phrases: keep V-ing, could you please VP syntactic patterns: SUBJ BE V-ed, SUBJ V OBJ1 OBJ2 abstract phrase structures: PREP DET NOUN Speakers knowledge of language = an associative network that connects all of these constructions

  18. argument structure constructions

  19. Goldberg 1995 sentence patterns that involve a verb and several nominal structures idea: these patterns have meaning their meanings reflect basic recurrent types of everyday experience

  20. argument structure also called valency yawn send

  21. Valency defined The set of participants is called the verb s valency. devour has a valency of two (transitive) hand has a valency of three (ditransitive) exist has a valency of one (intransitive) The participants are called the arguments of the verb.

  22. Traditional idea of valency It s in the lexicon! Each verb is listed in the mental lexicon. In the entry it is specifies with what syntactic contexts the verb can occur. SWEEP intransitive transitive transitive plus resultant state adjective transitive plus path

  23. problems with lexically specified valency speakers use verbs creatively , in syntactic contexts in which they have not heard a verb before: John played the piano to pieces. He pulled himself free, one leg at a time. No matter how carefully you lick a spoon clean, some goo will cling to it. Are there entries such as the following? play: acting on an object in a violent manner that triggers a change of state in that object

  24. alternative explanation The syntactic context dictates a certain interpretation of the verb. coercion: If a lexical item is semantically incompatible with its morphosyntactic context, the meaning of the lexical item conforms to the meaning of the structure in which it is embedded. John plays the piano. John plays the piano to pieces.

  25. coercion at work intransitive verbs: run, sneeze, worry resultative uses: John ran his feet sore. Fred sneezed his cat soaking wet. Bob s mother worried herself sick.

  26. the ditransitive construction SUBJ V OBJ1 OBJ2

  27. the ditransitive construction central sense of the construction: transfer of an object between a volitional agent and a willing recipient: John gave Mary a book several other senses John denied Mary a cookie (blocked transfer) John bequeathed Mary a gold watch (future transfer) several metaphorical meaning extensions: John gave Mary a kiss. John gave Mary an idea.

  28. Why call this a construction? C is a CONSTRUCTION iffdefC is a form-meaning pair <Fi, Si> such that some aspect of Fior some aspect of Siis not strictly predictable from C s component parts or from other previously established constructions. (Goldberg 1995: 4) John baked Mary a cake. Not predictable from the individual word meanings?

  29. implausible verb senses John baked Mary a cake. bake: intend to cause someone else to receive the product of applying hot air to an edible substance John sneezed the napkin off the table. sneeze: move something by means of exhaling in a burst from the nose John talked himself blue in the face. talk: cause someone to become X by means of uttering words

  30. positing constructional meaning instead of ad-hoc verb senses DITRANSITIVE CX: MEANING = TRANSFER BAKE: MEANING = APPLY HOT AIR SUBJ V John baked OBJ1 OBJ2 Mary a cake

  31. Semantics of the ditransitive a volitional agent the agent needs to carry out the transfer willingly John kicked Mary the soccer ball. John threw the squirrels some peanuts. John painted Mary a picture. troublesome data John gave me the flu. The medicine brought me relief.

  32. explanation: CAUSES ARE TRANSFERS Situations of cause and effect are understood metaphorically as situations in which the cause brings the effect to a recipient: The report furnished them with all the information they needed. The new legislation brought new controversies. The accident presented us with a large number of injured workers. Nothing good ever came from smoking.

  33. Semantics of the ditransitive a willing recipient the recipient needs to accept the transfer willingly John kicked Mary the soccer ball. John threw the squirrels some peanuts. * John burned Mary some rice. * John threw the unconscious patient a blanket. troublesome data John gave me the flu. The tabasco sauce gave the dish a spicy flavor. Again, explanation is the CAUSES ARE TRANSFERS metaphor

  34. further metaphorical extensions the conduit metaphor (COMMUNICATION IS TRANSFER OF INFORMATION) John told Mary a joke. John gave Mary his thoughts on the subject. DIRECTED ACTIONS ARE TRANSFERRED OBJECTS John gave Mary a wink. Mary gave John a kick.

  35. further metaphorical extensions FACTS ARE GIVEN OBJECTS I ll give you that assumption I ll grant you that much of your argument BENEFICIAL ACTIONS ARE TRANSFERRED OBJECTS John offered Mary a ride to the airport John owes me many favors

  36. Constructions = meaningful symbolic units

  37. meaningful units Clear for words and idioms spill the beans Some analysis reveals non-compositional meanings of argument structure constructions. SUBJ VERB OBJ1 OBJ2 But very general syntactic patterns such as the plan for a noun phrase? DET ADJ NOUN

  38. Do all syntactic forms carry meaning?

  39. meaningful constructions? John sings. Bob heard a noise. One sock lay on the sofa, the other one under it. *One sock lay on the sofa, the other one under.

  40. Do all constructions carry meaning? No, there are semantically empty constructions! All constructions carry meaning.

  41. meaningless constructions 1. formal generalizations with fully compositional meanings SUBJECT-PREDICATE CX (John sings) MODIFIER-HEAD CX (red ball, completely full)

  42. meaningless constructions 2. formal generalizations associated with a heterogeneous set of meanings SUBJECT-AUX INVERSION Will you come to the party? Had I known this, I would have stayed at home. Am I ever hungry! FILLER-GAP CXNS What kind of sandwich did you eat? How many sandwiches he ate! I couldn t count all the sandwiches that he ate. The more sandwiches you eat, the hungrier you get.

  43. meaningless constructions 3. ellipsis constructions GAPPING One sock lay on the sofa, the other one under it. STRIPPING John washed the dishes, and the silverware, too. SHARED COMPLETION The South remains distinct from and independent of the North.

  44. If we would like to maintain that linguistic knowlege is knowledge of symbolic units, what do we do?

  45. two ways out? There are two ways in which this issue can be approached [ ]: by a prototype analysis that takes one [meaning, MH] as basic and finds a principled way of accounting for all other [meanings] as extensions from this basic prototype; or by a schematic analysis that finds an abstract characterization. Stefanowitsch (2003: 420)

  46. solution 1: a prototype approach Goldberg 2006: 177 Why would you do that? Never would I leave you. May he burn in hell! Would you do that? Does this hurt! Neither would I. So would I. Had I known this He has read more articles than have his classmates.

  47. solution 2: a schematic approach Langacker 1991: 156

  48. The construct-i-con: a network of interlinked constructions

  49. the construct-i-con a large inventory of form-meaning pairs, representing speakers knowledge of language important addendum no chaotic bag of constructions , but instead: hierarchically structured links between constructions In what ways can constructions be linked?

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