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35 years of Cognitive LinguisticsSession 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
• 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.
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 iffdef C is a form-meaning pair <Fi, Si> such that some aspect of Fi or some aspect of Si 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 OBJ2John 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 semanticallyempty 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 approachLangacker 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 VCOMP 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
