scholarly journals From compounding to derivation The emergence of derivational affixes through “constructionalization”

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Hüning ◽  
Geert Booij
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Change ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Complex Word ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Construction Morphology ◽  
Recent Developments

AbstractThe rise of new derivational affixes can be analyzed adequately as a case of “constructionalization” within the framework of Construction Morphology as developed by Booij (2010). We review some aspects and problems of previous accounts that view the emergence of derivational affixes as a case of grammaticalization or as a case of lexicalization, respectively. In line with recent developments in grammaticalization research, not the isolated element (word or affix) is viewed as the locus of change, but the complex word as a whole - seen as a “construction” in the sense of Construction Grammar - and its relation with other constructions. Morphological change can be conceived as constructional change at the word level.

Cette mesure est-elle vraiment clé? A constructional approach to categorial gradience

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
KRISTEL VAN GOETHEM
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Construction Morphology

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the recently developed adjectival properties of the French noun clé ‘key’, as attested in for instance un poste très clé ‘a really key position’ and Cette mesure est-elle vraiment clé? ‘Is this measure really key?’. The main purpose of this study is triple: it consists in analysing (i) which adjectival uses can be found in modern French, (ii) to what extent they are accepted by native speakers (from different geographical varieties) of French, and (iii) how they can be accounted for within the framework of Construction Grammar and Construction Morphology. It will be hypothesised that French clé is subject to categorial gradience as a consequence of an ongoing constructionalisation process.

Automatic metaphor detection using constructions and frames

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jisup Hong
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Detection System ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Computational Resource ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Relative Success ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Conceptual Network

This paper presents MetaNet’s automatic metaphor detection system that applies theoretical principles from construction grammar, frame semantics, and recent developments in conceptual metaphor theory, including the theory of cascades (Lakoff 2014). The system has achieved relative success in identifying metaphorical expressions for a range of target domains from large corpora and holds promise as a useful tool for corpus-based study of metaphor. The detection system relies on MetaNet’s conceptual network of frames and metaphors as a computational resource for its functionality, and improves automatically as the representations stored in the network are built up. In addition, because of its theoretically principled design the system’s level of accuracy at identifying metaphorical expressions provides feedback to linguists about the accuracy of the frame and metaphor analyses in the network.

scholarly journals Conversation, Construction Grammar, and cognition

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
KERSTIN FISCHER
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Grammar And Interaction

abstractRecent developments in grammatical theory seem to invite an integration of grammar and interaction; nevertheless, there are reservations on both sides. While some of these reservations can be traced to misconceptions, others are deeply rooted in the theoretical premises of each approach. The differences are, however, not very well understood; especially theoretical premises regarding the role of cognition in language use have been hindering a fruitful collaboration. Reinterpreting the results of Conversation Analysis (CA; cf. Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974; Sacks, 1992) in terms of Construction Grammar (Goldberg, 1995, 2006; Croft, 2001, Langacker, 2008) recasts the discursive practices identified in CA in terms of participants’ cognitive construals of the communicative situation, making the speaking subjects apparent in their strategies and conceptualizations of the interaction.

Inflectional patterns as constructions

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrien Beuls
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Modeling Approaches ◽  
Construction Morphology ◽  
Computational Implementation ◽  
Operational Rule ◽  
Future Work

Although often a painful and prolonged process, conjugating verbs correctly is essential when you try to master a foreign language. Verbs that exhibit an irregular conjugation paradigm, however, are often the verbs that occur most frequently in a language. The nature of inflectional morphemes and the mechanism for conjugating verbs have been the topic of debate for 25 years now. This has led to many different accounts of the problem, both in the field of descriptive linguistics as well as in a range of modeling approaches. The field of Construction Grammar has recently witnessed the theoretical work on Construction Morphology by Geert Booij (2010), but there has been no computational implementation that could test the theory on a large scale. Using the framework of Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG), I investigate the grammar and morphological constructions that are needed to automatically conjugate the full paradigms of the 600 most frequently used verbs in Spanish. This paper reports a fully operational rule-based implementation of such a grammar and goes into the details of the constructions that support it. The results also show that morphological constructions are exemplary constructions since they combine two (or more) units (a stem and a suffix(es)) into a single meaningful unit (a conjugated verb form) that can be picked up by other discourse elements. Extensions towards embedding the conjugation constructions into a bigger grammar or automatically learning new morphological constructions remain the focus of future work.

Exocentric compounds in Akan

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clement K. I. Appah
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Compounds ◽  
Complex Issue ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Construction Morphology ◽  
Per Se

The purpose of this paper is to investigate exocentric compounds in Akan and to present a Construction Morphology account of their properties. I show that the complex issue of exocentricity is better accounted for if we distinguish between formal and semantic exocentricity. I present Bauer's (2008, 2010) typology of exocentric compounds (bahuvrihi, exocentric synthetic, transpositional exocentric, exocentric co-compounds and metaphorical exocentric compounds) and test the Akan data against them, showing that all Akan compound types (N-A, N-N, N-V, V-N, and V-V) are either exocentric or have exocentric subtypes which fall into three of the five types identified by Bauer. They are bahuvrihi compounds and exocentric synthetic compounds (of which I identify two subtypes each) and transpositional exocentric compounds. I present the properties of each identified type of Akan exocentric compound using formalisms from Construction Morphology ( Booij 2010b ) in which compounds are word-level constructions capable of having holistic properties. The unexpressed features of the exocentric compounds are regarded as holistic constructional properties that do not emanate from the constituents per se.

Coda: Literature, language, and creativity

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Kukkonen
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Media Environments ◽  
Cognitive Literary Studies ◽  
Creative Media

AbstractLiterature is often considered the creative expression of language par excellence. This coda considers how the perspectives from Construction Grammar, as they are outlined in this special issue, can enter into dialogue with recent developments in how literary studies address creativity. Construction Grammar concerns itself with the productive generation and manipulation of language in everyday contexts, but, as this special issue goes to show, these processes can also be discussed in terms of creativity and deployed to shed light on creative processes in the arts. Convergences between Construction Grammar and (cognitive) literary studies appear to emerge in particular around the question of creative practice in literary language and (1) in how far writing gives rise to particular kinds of creativity; (2) how one can generalize between different creative media, such as literature, painting and music; and (3) how writing-based creativity can be investigated. Literary studies with its interests in media environments, social/historical context and textual analysis might provide a larger testing ground for claims about the compatibility and incompatibility of everyday and literary creativity as they are put forward in this special issue.

Regularity and idiosyncracy in the formation of nominals

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 823-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANK VAN EYNDE
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Alternative Treatments ◽  
Phrase Structure Grammar ◽  
Proper Place ◽  
Nominal Phrase ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Higher Types

This paper explores the interaction of regularity and idiosyncracy in the formation of nominals. It treats both nominals whose formation is highly regular, such as red box, and nominals whose formation is rather idiosyncratic, such as the Big Mess Construction (bmc; so good a bargain) and the Binominal Noun Phrase Construction (bnpc; her nitwit of a husband). Both the bmc and the bnpc conform to productive patterns, but the proper place of those patterns in the grammar as a whole is not easy to identify. To rise to the challenge, we build on recent developments in Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar and the more formally inclined strands of Construction Grammar. Taking a cue from the treatment of clausal constructions in Ginzburg & Sag (2000), we develop a bi-dimensional hierarchy of nominal phrase types, in which the regular nominals inherit their properties from independently motivated higher types, while the idiosyncratic nominals are characterized by a mixture of inherited and inherent properties. The resulting treatment is sufficiently flexible to deal with the subtle interaction between the regular and the idiosyncratic, and sufficiently rigorous to be falsifiable. It is also compared with alternative treatments.

Pleonastic complex words as functional amalgams

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikos Koutsoukos ◽  
Laura A. Michaelis
Keyword(s):  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Derivational Morphemes ◽  
Complex Words

Abstract Syntactic amalgams are innovative phrasal constructions that combine otherwise incompatible subparts of other constructions (Lambrecht 1988; Brenier and Michaelis 2005). We describe pleonastic formations like flavorize in English and ψηλαφ-ίζ(ω) [psilafízo] ‘palpate’ in Modern Greek as functional amalgams at the word level. We examine these formations through the lens of (function-oriented) Sign-Based Construction Grammar (Sag 2012), arguing that once we see derivational morphemes as signs, and sign combination as construction-driven rather than head-driven, we can describe such words as coercive combinations that serve a variety of semiotic functions.

Construction Morphology

2018 ◽  
pp. 364-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Masini ◽  
Jenny Audring
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Recent Model ◽  
New Words ◽  
Construction Morphology ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Flexible Architecture ◽  
Inflectional Paradigms

The chapter provides an outline of Construction Morphology (Booij 2010), a recent model of morphology. The theory follows the basic tenets of Construction Grammar in treating form–meaning pairs (‘constructions’) as the basic units of language and assuming a continuum rather than a split between grammar and lexicon. Words and multi-word units are stored in memory if they have noncompositional properties and/or are conventionalized and frequent. Lexical items show a rich internal structure and are highly interconnected. Generalizations over stored items are captured in schemas: constructions consisting partly or entirely of variables. If productive, such schemas serve as templates for new words and word forms. Relations between schemas are captured in second-order schemas, which are particularly useful in modelling inflectional paradigms and paradigmatic word formation. The model offers a flexible architecture that complements construction-based syntax and accommodates both regularities and idiosyncrasies, as well as variation and change.

Verbal Semantics in Ancient Greek Possessive Constructions with eînai

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-33
Author(s):  
Maria Carmela Benvenuto ◽  
Flavia Pompeo
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
Distinct Pattern ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Possessive Constructions ◽  
Precise Role

The aim of this paper is to investigate ‘eînai (‘be’) plus dative’ and ‘eînai plus genitive’ possessive constructions, paying special attention to the semantic content of the verb eînai in order to identify the function and the distribution of the various combinatorial patterns of the constructions in question, and the precise role of the verbal items. In particular, the present analysis, carried out within the framework of Construction Grammar, will attempt to demonstrate that each possessive variant constitutes a semantically and pragmatically distinct pattern where the semantic content of the verb eînai is the result of form-meaning configurations over and above the morpheme and word level. From this perspective, the cluster of semantic, pragmatic and morpho-syntactic values attributed to participant slots constitutes an integral part of constructions.

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