Rule and Construction: The Transitivity of Resultatives in English

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-130
Author(s):  
Yuzhi Shi
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Surface Structures ◽  
Semantic Relationship ◽  
Resultative Construction ◽  
Lexical Items

The resultative construction has been one of the focuses in exploring the interfaces between semantics and syntax. In the generativist tradition, constructions are regarded as the surface structures that are generated by a set of phrasal rules. In cognitive linguistics, especially the approach of construction grammar, constructions are viewed as the fixed pairings of forms and meanings that are regarded as symbolic like lexical items. This article argues that constructions are schemas determined by certain rules, and a set of subconstructions may be produced by a base construction. The article shows that the transitivity of the resultative construction is governed by the semantic relationship between the verb and the resultative phrase, which in turn determines concrete syntactic configurations. Grammar constructions consisting of two or more elements are essentially different from those atomic lexical items, a point distinguishing my analysis from construction grammar. Without the assumption of any underlying structures, unlike the generativist model, this article uncovers the surface rules that determine concrete constructions.

Modality and Mood in Cognitive Linguistics and Construction Grammars

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronny Boogaart ◽  
Egbert Fortuin
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Force Dynamics ◽  
Mental Spaces

From the start of cognitive linguistics, in the 1980s, researchers working within this framework have given ample attention to mood and modality. This is understandable since these categories crucially involve speaker attitude and perspective and cognitive linguistics has always concerned itself with the ways in which language users present a subjective construal of reality. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of how mood and modality are analyzed within different strands of cognitive linguistics, ranging from the models of force dynamics and Mental Spaces to Cognitive Grammar. Specific topics discussed include the polysemy of modal verbs, the analysis of tense as modality, and the highly detailed account of modal verbs offered by Langacker in terms of “grounding” and “subjectivity”. The emerging framework of construction grammar focuses on the linguistic contexts, that is constructions, in which modal forms are used, regarding these as constraints on polysemy.

Beyond the sentence

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerstin Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
Cognitive Perspective ◽  
Pragmatic Markers ◽  
Grammatical Mood ◽  
Spoken Interaction ◽  
Interactive Experience ◽  
Grammatical Structures

Construction grammarians are still quite reluctant to extend their descriptions to units beyond the sentence. However, the theoretical premises of construction grammar and frame semantics are particularly suited to cover spoken interaction from a cognitive perspective. Furthermore, as construction grammar is anchored in the cognitive linguistics paradigm and as such subscribes to meaning being grounded in experience, it needs to consider interaction since grammatical structures may be grounded not only in sensory-motor, but also in social-interactive experience. The example of grounded language learning experiments demonstrates the anchoring of grammatical mood in interaction. Finally, phenomena peculiar to spoken dialogue, such as pragmatic markers, may be best accounted for as constructions, drawing on frame semantics. The two cognitive linguistic notions, frames and constructions, are therefore particularly useful to account for generalisation in spoken interaction.

Why Construction Grammar is radical

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 321-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Radical Construction

This article reviews some of the foundational assumptions of Croft'sRadical Construction Grammar. While constructions have featured prominently in much recent work in cognitive linguistics, Croft adopts the ‘radical’ view that constructions are the primary objects of linguistic analysis, with lexical and syntactic categories being defined with respect to the constructions in which they occur. This approach reverses the traditional view, according to which complex expressions are compositionally assembled through syntactic rules operating over items selected from the lexicon. The ubiquity of idioms, especially so-called constructional idioms, provides compelling evidence for the essential correctness of the radical constructional view. The possibility of a radical constructional approach to phonology is also discussed.

When tense meets constructional meaning

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-292
Author(s):  
Naoki Kiyama
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Great Emphasis ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Wide Range

Abstract Construction Grammar, one of the major frameworks in Cognitive Linguistics, has been successful in providing accounts of a wide range of empirical data. The approach has recently placed great emphasis on low-level generalizations, and some studies have argued that a constructional meaning is often associated only with a specific lexical item. Therefore, by investigating in detail the form [copula be + Adj. + enough + to-infinitive], the present study proposes that the combinatorial potential of the intensifier enough and the derived constructional meanings are sensitive to tense, thus emphasizing the importance of ‘item- and tense-specific constructions’.

scholarly journals Simpler semantics for computational and cognitive linguistics

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 17-31
Author(s):  
Hywel Evans
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Theory Of Language

Certain consequences are considered regarding a simpler, more cognitively plausible treatment of semantics in SignBased Construction Grammar, a cognitive, unification- based theory of language. It is proposed that a construction grammar may be able to improve its coverage of core linguistic phenomena in line with minimalist goals (Chomsky 1993). Suggestions are offered regarding relative clauses and wh-expressions to show that a more straightforward account is available, one that allows a unified treatment of scope for quantifiers and wh-expressions.

scholarly journals Constructionist basis of composing and translating political speeches: A case study of President Trump’s inaugural address

2021 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 03006
Author(s):  
Nataliia Talavira
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Inaugural Address ◽  
American President ◽  
Political Speeches ◽  
Linguistic Material

Application of the principles and tenets of cognitive linguistics to translation studies rests on the assumption that both of them employ the same meaning process while working with a text. Procedures implemented to translate the inaugural address of American President Trump have been regarded from the point of view of Construction Grammar. The construction is viewed as the main translation unit representing source linguistic material below the level of the text. The paper singles out from the translation of President Trump’s inaugural address equivalent constructions with identical form and meaning and non-equivalent pairings indicating transformations of structure or semantics in the original constructions. Syntactical modifications include the change of word order, grammar tenses or omission of construction component, while lexical transformations result in generalization, carried out by words with more abstract meaning than those in the source construction; simplification, representing separate objects or features from the array of denoted in the source pairing; and specification accentuating and detailing particular entities.

scholarly journals The Cognitive-Functional Properties of English WH-dialogic Constructions in Discourse

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guocai ZENG
Keyword(s):  
Functional Properties ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Cognitive Model ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Objective World ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Event Based

Within the theoretical frameworks of cognitive linguistics and cognitive construction grammar, this papertakes the pair of a WH-question and one of its answers in contemporary spoken English as the research object and regards such pairs as WH-dialogic constructions. In this study we construct an Event-based Schema-Instance Cognitive Model (ESI model) to analyze the cognitive-functional properties of this category of dialogic constructions. The discoursal expansion and textual cohesion in discourse achieved through the application of such dialogic constructions indicate that the usage of WH-dialogic constructions is one of the basic cognitive strategies for human beings to construe the objective world. 

scholarly journals Dadžare – japonský kalambúr a jeho výzkumný potenciál

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiří Matela
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
Modern Japan ◽  
Discourse Functions

Dajare – Japanese pun and its research potential The present paper introduces dajare as a Japanese form of puns, i.e. utterances with multiple meanings based on a wordplay. Dajare is chosen as a minimal text with a potential of humorous effect, thus a promising starting point for a research of humor and laughter from perspec tives of cultural anthropology and cognitive linguistics. While the ability to make puns with the use of the Chi nese script in Japan is historically well documented in the form of gisho, the concept of dajare is traced to the realms of the poetic forms of haikai no renga, zappai etc. In modern Japan, dajare is often regarded rather nega tively as “old men’s joke” (oyaji gyagu), mainly due to its separation from the tradition of poetic wit. Nevertheless, several areas of the use of dajare are presented and some principles of its most common form are discussed from the linguistic point of view. The paper ends with two main proposals for further research into Japanese puns: Research in the communicative, textual and discourse functions of dajare (humorous effect as the main goal is questioned) and in the relation of puns and linguistic creativity from the perspective of construction grammar.

Constructions in the Parallel Architecture

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Jackendoff
Keyword(s):  
Parallel Architecture ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Crucial Issue ◽  
Lexical Items

This chapter discusses what the Parallel Architecture has taken from Construction Grammar and what it might contribute to Construction Grammar. After outlining the fundamentals of the architecture, it explains why rules of grammar should be formulated as lexical items encoded as pieces of structure: there is no hard line between words, constructions, and standard rules. The chapter also argues for a “heterogeneous” variety of Construction Grammar, which does not insist that every syntactic construction is invested with meaning. Finally, it discusses the crucial issue of semiproductivity, usually thought to be a property of morphology, showing that constructions too can be either productive or semiproductive.

Construction Grammar as Cognitive Structuralism: the interaction of constructional networks and processing in the diachronic evolution of English comparative correlatives

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS HOFFMANN
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Secondary Role ◽  
The Family ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Processing Effects ◽  
Constructionist Approach ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Correspondence Hypothesis

Following the Uniformitarian Principle, the Performance–Grammar Correspondence Hypothesis (PGCH; Hawkins 2004) predicts a directionality in language change: if the same content can be expressed by two competing structures and one of these is easier to process (see Hawkins 1999, 2004), then the simpler structure will be preferred in performance. Consequently, it will be used more often with a greater range of different lexical items, which increases its type frequency and ultimately leads to it being more cognitively entrenched than its alternative (see Hawkins 2004: 6). As an analysis of the diachronic evolution of the family of English comparative correlative constructions (the more iconiccause–before–effectC1C2 constructionthe more you eat, the fatter you getvs the less iconiceffect–before–causeC2C1 constructionyou get the fatter, the more you eat) shows, however, the PGCH only played a secondary role in the genesis of this set of constructions. In this article, I will present a usage-based constructionist approach that allows researchers to reinterpret the classical Structuralist notion of gaps in the system as gaps in the mental constructional network. This type of Cognitive Structuralist analysis accounts for the presence of the less iconic C2C1 structure (and the absence of the more iconic C1C2 structure) in OE, the genesis of C1C2 structures at the end of the OE period as well as the processing effects predicted by the PGCH once both the C1C2 and the C2C1 constructions were in competition during the ME period.

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