Work on Construction Grammar and Grammatical Constructions

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If one wants to understand what lies at the heart of Construction Grammar, one should first tackle the following questions: what do speakers of a given language have to know, and what can they "figure out" on the basis of that knowledge, in order for them to use their language successfully and efficiently? Construction Grammar (CxG) is a usage-based framework that endeavors to treat all types of expressions as equally central to capturing grammatical patterning. It considers all dimensions of language (such as, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, discourse, morphology, phonology and prosody) as equal contributors to the process of shaping linguistic expressions. It is a constraint-based, generative, and non-derivational grammatical model. Its main feature consists in the insight that language is a repertoire of more or less complex patterns called "grammatical constructions", that integrate form and meaning, or content. They are the fundamental units from which sentences and their meanings are built.

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[...] Describing constructional meanings requires us to combine cognitive and discourse-functional explanations, because in this new prism, constructions combine semantic constraints with pragmatic ones. This constructional approach was used as a basis for current research on language and mind, which resulted in an important conclusion: knowledge of language may be the product of acculturation, and grammatical construction may, in this way, be seen as the basis of syntax. Bibliography Ackerman, Farrell & Adele Goldberg Constraints on Adjectival Past Participles. In Adele E. Goldberg Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language. [...]

[...] It is a constraint-based, generative, non- derivational grammatical model. Its main feature consists in the insight that language is a repertoire of more or less complex patterns –called “grammatical constructions”- that integrate form and meaning, or content: they stand for the fundamental units from which sentences and their meanings are built. In this sense, CxG consists of intricate networks of overlapping and complementary patterns, that serve as schemes for encoding and decoding linguistic expressions of all types. Given all those considerations, we can say that CxG proposes a different approach from De Saussure's, for instance. [...]

[...] The main feature of Cognitive Grammar is that conceptual semantics is primary to the degree that form is motivated by content. According to Langacker, even abstract grammatical units are semantically motivated and involve certain conceptualizations. C. Embodied Construction Grammar (Lakoff some extent-, Chang, Bergen): it adopts the basic definition of grammatical construction. However, it emphasizes the relation of constructional semantic content to embodiment and sensorimotor experiences. One of its main characteristics is that the content of all linguistic signs involve mental simulations. [...]

[...] Fillmore, Charles J Varieties of conditional sentences. Proceedings of the Third Eastern States Conference on Linguistics. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University. Department of Linguistics. 163-182. Fillmore, Charles J The mechanisms of ‘Construction Grammar.' BLS 14: 35-55. Fillmore, Charles J Grammatical Construction Theory and the familiar dichotomies. In Language processing in social context, ed. by R. Dietrich & C.F. Graumann. Amsterdam: North-Holland/Elsevier. 17-38. [...]

[...] University of Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Bybee, Joan Phonology and language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chapters 5-7. Bybee, Joan Frequency effects on French Liaison. In Joan Bybee and Paul Hopper (eds.) Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 337-359. Bybee, Joan Main clauses are innovative, subordinate clauses are conservative: consequences for the nature of constructions. In J. Bybee and M. Noonan (eds.) Complex sentences in grammar and discourse: essays in honor of Sandra A. Thompson. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [...]