Construction grammar
The term construction grammar (construction grammar, CxG ) refers to a "family" of grammatical theories or models based on the idea that the basic units of grammar atomic syntactic units and their combination rules are not, but so-called constructions. The entire grammar of a language consists of taxonomic hierarchies of such units. CxG is typically associated with cognitive linguistics in context, on the one hand because, many people are representative of the CxG with cognitive linguistics and the other because CxG and cognitive linguistics have many theoretical and philosophical assumptions in common.
- 6.1 Construction Grammar
- 6.2 Construction Grammar Goldberg / Lakoff
- 6.3 Cognitive Grammar
- 6.4 Radical Construction Grammar
- 6.5 Embodied Construction Grammar
- 6.6 Further grammars
The History
CxG was in the eighties by linguists such as Charles J. Fillmore, Paul Kay and George Lakoff in response to their opinion, unsatisfactory handling of generative grammar of Noam Chomsky with semantic phenomena - among other things idiomatic and idiosyncratic twists - developed, which she founded in the atomistic and reductionist nature of the component model of generative grammar saw ( More below: Lakoff against Chomsky ). In this model, grammar is divided into a number of autonomous modules, such as phonology, syntax, semantics, and lexicon.
Despite a number of previous publications, especially the article published in 1988 by Fillmore et al applies. to the English let alone construction as pioneering publication that established the starting point of construction of grammatical theory.
Grammatical constructions in CxG
In CxG is the grammatical construction as generally in semiotics a link between form and meaning (form - meaning pair). The formal design of the part indicates how the construction is realized in the block. It is often referred to as syntactic pattern or scheme, but also includes more than mere syntax also phonological aspects as prosody and intonation. The significance part contains both the semantic and the pragmatic meaning of the construction. It consists of the conceptual structures of different types and is often expressed with the conceptual means of frame semantics. Form and meaning are represented by Langacker way through symbolic relations are linked. This means that the relationship between the form and content randomly, ie shall be fixed by the formation of conventions ( it is arbitrary ). As words it is not possible from the knowledge of the contents of the mold to close, or vice versa.
A design is therefore regarded as a linguistic sign or symbol, that is, all the structural aspects that are relevant for use of the character in the character itself are included and not - spread across a variety of modules - as in the component model. As a consequence, not only lexicalized structures, such as fixed idioms, but also more abstract grammatical constructions, such as argument structures, links between form and ( conventionalized ) are important. So you go, for example, assume that the ditransitive schema [SV IO DO ] (ie [ subject verb IndirektesObjekt Direct Object] ) the meaning of " X MAKES THAT YZ RECEIVES " bears, as well as X bumblebees in Xs butt " X is impatient and nervous " and X kills Y" X MAKES THAT Y DIES ". In CxG ie all structures, regardless of their formal or semantic complexity and extent of linkages form and meaning, and thus exactly structured like words. Some representatives of the construction grammar would even argue about it beyond the effect that all linguistic units that can be determined both in terms of form as well as their significance, represent constructions, such as phrase structures, idioms, words and even morphemes.
The syntax - lexicon continuum
Rejecting a strict separation of syntax and lexicon as in the component model of generative grammar CxG suggests a continuous transition between the two areas. This follows from the assumption that both words and complex grammatical constructions of form and meaning exist and differ only in their degree of internal complexity and abstractness. Syntax and lexicon so do not represent two discrete modules, each with its own, very different processes represent, but are the two extreme points of a continuum: Syntax > subcategorization > syntactic category > word / lexicon (Note: these are traditional terms and not in the construction Grammar are used. )
Grammar as " Inventory " by designs
According to the CxG is the grammar of a language networks of taxonomic families of designs. The structure of these networks is analogous to that of networks of conceptual categories of cognitive linguistics by principles such as inheritance, Prototypizität, extension, and multiple parenting.
With regard to the manner in which such information is stored in this network, there are four different model concepts can be identified:
Full -entry model
In Full -entry models information is stored redundantly at all relevant levels of the taxonomy. This has the consequence that, if any, is very little generalization.
Usage -based models
The usage -based model ( -use -based model ) is based on the idea that linguistic knowledge is acquired through an inductive, bottom-up directed learning process. In addition to redundant storage of grammatical information accordingly also generalizations are approved, arising from generalizations of the learner of any recurring events of language use ( usage events).
Default inheritance model
In the default inheritance model, each network has a central, generally as possible specified (default) form - meaning unit, which inherited its features to all child instances by default. This model thus operates to a large extent with generalizations, but can also insofar redundancy, are allowed as various extensions of the instances.
Complete inheritance model
In this model, information is stored only on the highest possible level and inherited to the subordinate units each. The mechanism of inheritance includes complete redundancy completely.
Usage -based models are increasingly preferred
For all four models, there have been advocates in the construction grammar, since the late nineties, however, been an increase in the usage -based models emerging. This was ultimately responsible for the development of corpus-based approaches to the study of grammatical constructions.
Synonymy and monotony
Since CxG based on the application of schemas and taxonomies, dynamic Derivationsregeln not matter. Konstruktionsgrammatische approaches are therefore monotone. The construction grammar rejects the concept of constructional polysemy, since in CxG approaches no surface structures are derived from deep structures, and represents - as performed by Adele Goldberg - the principle of no synonymy of functionalists Dwight Bolinger. So you would say in the context of construction grammar, for example, that the asset- liabilities- and the variant of a proposition can not be derived from the same deep structure, but both are instances of its own design, respectively. Since there are constructions of form and meaning, the asset- liabilities- and the version of the proposition are not synonymous, but differ in their - in this case pragmatic - meaning.
Individual construction grammars
As mentioned above, it is at CxG less a unified grammar as a whole "family" of theories. The elaborated, formalized structure grammars include the following:
Construction Grammar
Construction Grammar ( with initial capital letter ) focuses on the formal aspects of constructions. Used a unifikationsgrammatisches system, comparable to the Head - Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Representatives, and developers of Construction Grammar are Charles J. Fillmore, Paul Kay, Laura Michaelis, and to some extent also Ivan Sag.
Construction Grammar Goldberg / Lakoff
Construction grammars, as proposed by linguists as Adele Goldberg and George Lakoff are mainly oriented to the mutual external relationships of the structures and the structure of the overall network. It can be also a strong consideration of cognitive aspects in so far observed, as a large number of principles from cognitive linguistics is assumed.
Cognitive Grammar
The Cognitive Grammar (CG, eindeutschbar as cognitive grammar) by Ronald Langacker is sometimes regarded as a type of construction grammar. The Cognitive Grammar is primarily concerned with the meaning component of grammatical constructions. The key assumption of the CG is that the formal aspect of a design in some ways are a reflection of its semantics, or are motivated by this. Langacker even assumes that even supposedly abstract grammatical concepts such as Wortartklassen are semantically motivated and can be traced back to specific conceptualizations.
Radical Construction Grammar
The Radical Construction Grammar (RCG ) by William Croft has been developed with a view to their application in language typology and with special attention on the speech comparison. With her is the analysis of the internal structure of structures in foreground.
Radical Construction Grammar is completely nichtreduktionistisch. Constructions can not be by their constituents ( syntactic categories, semantic roles ) define, but conversely, the components defined by their occurrence in a particular design.
As a result, in the RCG have the character designs of shapes. The Radical Construction Grammar can thus reject the notion of the universality of semantic roles and relations, and syntactic categories, since they are regarded not only as a language-specific, but also as a construction -specific. In the RCG so there are no universals that are related to formal properties of structures. Universal properties are, however, in the field of imaging ( mapping) of form and meaning to the syntactic or conceptual space suspected.
In addition, the Radical Construction Grammar does not use any syntactic relations, their properties can be reduced to the relations of semantic roles with each other. As the construction grammar Goldberg / Lakoff and Cognitive Grammar can be the RCG assign the cognitive linguistics.
Embodied Construction Grammar
The Embodied Construction Grammar (ECG), as is currently being developed by Benjamin Bergen and Nancy Chang, oriented to the common definition of a grammatical construction, but places greater emphasis on the relationship between the meaning of part of a structure and aspects of the incarnation of mental representations ( Embodiment ) and sensorimotor sensory data. A central assumption for the ECG is that the content of a linguistic sign with mental simulations is related and can be traced back ultimately to basic image schemas as they have been described by Mark Johnson and George Lakoff. ECG is also a cognitive linguistic theory and is based as well as the Construction Grammar in a unification committed representation model.
Other grammars
In addition, there are other representative construction of grammatical theories, which can be assigned to any particular direction. A growing interest in diachronic aspects of structures has led to an extension of the construction grammar to studies on grammaticalization. The same is true for studies in the field pragmatics and pragmatic structures, which ultimately for the ' usage- based model' represents a substantial increase in popularity. Mainly due to the work of Michael Tomasello also an interest in construction grammatical approaches has arisen to acquire language. A structure grammar, which is designed to be used for parsing spoken or written language, the fluid construction grammar Luc Steels.