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This study investigates the relative roles of frequency and transparency in native speakers’ comprehension of Spanish object relative sentences by comparing performance with two variants of the construction that differ in these properties. Experiment 1 suggests that seven- to eight-year-old children’s processing of object relative sentences is consistently facilitated by variant frequency and likely relies on separate representations for each variant as two different, although related constructions. Experiment 2 turns to adult comprehension of the two variants, showing similar accuracy and reaction time patterns for both variants for this population. This second outcome could be interpreted as a decrease in frequency effects over time, in line with the power law of practice, as an experience-based increase in the ability to make use of redundant markers, or both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper addresses the notion of multimodal constructions. It argues that Tell me about it is a multimodal construction that consists of a fixed spoken and a variable, but largely obligatory multimodality slot on the formal side of the construction. To substantiate this claim, the paper reports on an experiment that shows that, first, hearers experience difficulties in interpreting Tell me about it when it is neither sequentially nor multimodally marked as either requesting or stance-related and, second, hearers considerably rely on multimodal features when a sequential context is missing. In addition, the experiment also shows that the more features are used, the better hearers get at guessing the meaning of Tell me about it. These results suggest that, independent of the question of whether the multimodal features associated with requesting or stance-related Tell me about it are non-spoken, unimodal constructions themselves (like a raised eyebrows construction), a schematic multimodality slot might be part of the constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of the existential sign var 'there' in Turkish Sign Language from a synchronic point of view. The sign has been previously described as being restricted to clause-final predicate position and typically used for two main linguistic functions: (i) existential and (ii) possessive. However, abundant corpus evidence indicates that var can also be used for other linguistic functions in post-verbal position, which have not been reported in the literature before. Following Construction Grammar, this study presents a theoretical framework to investigate how the construction [verb + var] arose and what its semantic motivation is, paying particular attention to the notion of possession. It is argued that this construction has three different functions: (i) habitual, (ii) evidential, and (iii) assumptive. According to this account, var originated as an existential marker and subsequently developed into a marker of possession, before evolving to encompass its other linguistic functions in three stages. Using Labov's Apparent Time Hypothesis (Labov, William. 1963. The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19(3). 273–309), closer examination also revealed that a progressive difference exists between age groups. Younger TİD signers use the construction [verb + var] more frequently, and as the age of the TİD signer decreases, the usage of this construction in the assumptive function increases considerably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expression of binominal concepts, i. e. the combination of two nominal concepts, varies between the world's languages qualitatively as well as with regard to quantitative proportions (Pepper 2020; Pepper et al. 2023). The combination of a noun and a relational adjective (NArel) is a frequently applied option, amongst others in Polish and French, which we focus on in this paper. Both languages show high proportions of postponed attributive adjectives and deviate from the other Slavic respective Romance languages in this trait.In our paper we take a constructionist perspective and compare the expression of binominal concepts in Polish and French based on a qualitative and quantitative analysis of AN and NA constructions and their constructional equivalents (especially N Prep N) in the Polish and French translations of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (Parasol Corpus). The results show that NArel constructions are of high relevance for the expression of binominals in Polish with lower proportions for NNgen, N Prep N and ArelN, whereas in French N Prep N is predominant, followed by NArel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present contribution starts from Goldberg and Perek’s (2019) analysis of gapping within a constructionist framework. The authors promote their analysis as surpassing non-constructionist takes on gapping and ellipsis more generally. In particular, they claim predictive power. That this is not the whole truth is explained in detail in this contribution. It is shown which predictions can be made from their perspective versus from a generative perspective and it is discussed whether they are borne out. Furthermore, I highlight how the predictions relate to the fundamentals of the respective theories and, as a consequence, how they differ in kind.

Encoding of nominal predication constructions (NPC) is an essential component in typological debates concerning lexical flexibility and parts of speech. This study investigates encoding strategies of NPCs in 65 verb-initial languages from 20 language families. The results indicate that the combinations of a zero strategy and certain other typological features are cross-linguistically disfavored due to non-iconicity. The varying degree of lexical flexibility observed among languages reflects a competition between economy and iconicity, as in many other aspects of linguistic diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study introduces a novel instructional approach to teaching a Chinese construction to college students in a foreign language classroom. Based on the framework of the construction-grammar approach to language acquisition, this study tested the effect of construction-based teaching, which integrates formal and semantic aspects of language with contextually meaningful visual scenes, in Korean-speaking Chinese learners' acquisition of the Chinese Ba construction. Two groups of Chinese learners, who were enrolled in second-semester college-level Chinese classes, received constructional (n = 33) or form-focused instruction (n = 33) for 13 weeks. Results from elicited production and grammaticality judgment tasks implemented preceding and following the instruction showed that the constructional instruction group had improvements to a greater extent than the form-focused instruction group. These findings underscore the validity of the construction-grammar approach as an effective teaching method in foreign language learning settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue examines the question of how both formal(ist) and functional(ist) accounts or elements of theorizing can contribute to the explanation of (morpho)syntactic variation. Are formal and functional approaches really irreconcilable with each other, as often seems to be taken for granted by their respective advocates? It will be argued instead that they are rather complementary and that both can make a valuable contribution to explaining linguistic variation, in synchronic as well as diachronic respects. The integration of ways of looking at a certain phenomenon or problem from the respective other camp is proven to provide a significant added value and should not be excluded. The volume focuses on several Germanic languages and dialects, more specifically on German, Dutch, and Swedish varieties. It unites different formal and functional perspectives and, not least, it considers also semantic and phonological factors. The models covered include different versions of generative grammar, information-based morphology, construction grammar/construction morphology, natural morphology, and sociolinguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a novel perspective on Agentive Cognitive Construction Grammar (AgCCxG) by examining the intricate interplay between mind and language through the lens of both Active Inference and Peircean semiotics. AgCCxG emphasizes the impact of intention and purpose on linguistic choices as a cognitive imperative to balance the symbolic Self (Intelligent Agent) with the dynamics of the environment. Among other things, the paper posits that linguistic constructions, particularly Constructional Attachment Patterns (CAPs), like argument structure constructions, embody experienced interactions with the world through reenactment routines via the integration of multisensory channels. Unlike traditional usage-based approaches (e.g., construction grammars), AgCCxG embraces a robust theory of signs that reveals human representation as a continuous process of semiotic hybridization for the creative prediction of uncertain scenarios. Importantly, the paper challenges the notion of the mind as a unified, rational, uncertainty-reducing machine by asserting that physical processes governing open biological systems profoundly influence the linguistic sign system. Intelligent agents' adaptability in expressing incongruous realities thus highlights the role of semiotic hybridization in preserving an agent's autonomy and semiotic boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests the morphological gradience theory on Russian prefixed verbs. With the help of a specially designed experiment, I offer evidence that verbs with prefixes that have prepositional counterparts and verbs with prefixes that exist only as bound morphemes reveal significant differences in terms of their morphological decomposition. In the pronunciation of native speakers, there tends to be a significantly longer silent period between prepositional prefixes and bases than between unprepositional prefixes and bases due to the compositional nature of the former and the non-compositional nature of the latter. Drawing on these findings, I contend that Russian prefixed verbs can be analysed as constructional schemas and that the degree of their morphological decomposition depends upon the different levels of activation of their sequential and lexical links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reconciles the sociolinguistic concept of stance and stancetaking and Construction Grammar (CxG); it shows that overlapping allostructions may differ in terms of the stances they convey. Drawing on a corpus study of Wikipedia Talk pages, the paper presents a case study of German discourse management markers such as wo wir gerade dabei sind 'speaking of which' or wenn wir schon dabei sind 'while we're at it'. By statistically comparing the observed frequencies of the filler items with the expected ones (using Hierarchical Configural Frequency Analysis and Distinctive Collexeme Analysis), I will argue that there are two different collocational types, namely wo wir/ich gerade bei NP sind/bin 'as we are/I am just at NP' and wenn wir/du schon bei NP sind/bist 'as we/you are already at NP'. Both serve as discourse management markers, topic orientation markers in particular, whose purpose it is to shift the topic. They involve the same fixed pattern, combining the same categorical slots. However, they diverge in collocational preferences. I will argue that these collocational preferences are indicative of the stances the allostructions conventionally convey: While the allostruction wo wir/ich gerade PP sind/bin seems to be neutral in terms of stance (face-less stance), wenn wir/du schon PP sind/bist is often used to express negative evaluation of a previous utterance made by an interlocutor, thus marking disalignment. The expression of disalignment seems to be related to the construction's propensity to reference utterances made by an interlocutor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English verbs can combine with an object-like (or Objoid) element consisting of a possessive and a superlative. These Superlative Objoids do not add a participant to the event but function like manner adverbs (they work their hardest, i.e. they work extremely hard). This paper is the first to use diachronic evidence from a corpus of Late Modern American English to trace the recent history of Superlative Objoid Constructions (SOC). In particular, it aims to assess whether the construction has become entrenched to the extent that it can give rise to analogical extension. Secondly, the evidence is used to model, within the framework of Construction Grammar, the horizontal and vertical links between the SOC and its (potential) relatives in the constructional network of transitivity changing constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research paradigm of alternation studies is forming an increasingly large share of the empirical foundations of usage-based linguistics. As the paradigm is essentially an amalgamation of research traditions from various subfields of linguistics, including sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, and construction grammar, it sports various definitions of the concept of "alternation" and various ways of conducting an alternation study, which are not always compatible. The present special issue is therefore intended to bring researchers from various backgrounds in usage-based linguistics together to see how we can deal with these issues. This introduction first presents the various ways of defining an alternation and discusses the differences between them and how these definitions determine the methodological set-up of an alternation study. Next, the contributions to the special issue are each in turn summarized and related to one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depending on the theory of language employed, the paradigmatic and lexical variation associated with a given composite form-meaning pair is treated in different ways. First, variation can be treated as independent of the constructional semantics, an approach typical of modular theories. Second, paradigmatic variation can be considered indicative of constructional semantics; its variation constituting networks of closely related families of constructions. This is a common approach in construction grammar. Third, there exists a trend in cognitive linguistics and construction grammar to treat grammatical constructions as non-discrete emergent clusters of many-to-many form-meaning mappings. This study explores the possibility of extending current methods for quantitatively modelling construction grammar to an approach that does not assume discrete grammatical constructions. The speaker choice examined consists of the English future constructions will and BE going to and their use in contemporary informal British English. The constructions are examined with the behavioural profile approach. Three different regression modelling methods are applied to the grammatical alternations, each operationalizing one of the theoretical assumptions. While the results show that all three approaches are feasible and comparable in predictive accuracy, model interpretation becomes increasingly difficult with added complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic English was traditionally treated as a monolithic register with respect to grammar, but recent research has shown that there is considerable variation across modes, dialects, research traditions and disciplines. We apply two quantitative corpus-linguistic methods (keyword analysis and a variant using PoS-grams instead of words) to investigate noun-noun and adjective-noun sequences in two discipline-specific Academic Englishes, that of the Arts and Humanities and that of the Physical Sciences. We show that the function of the various constructions underlying these sequences are exploited in different ways in these discipline clusters, in accordance with specific communicative needs. In the Physical Sciences, there is a need for standardized terminology. Noun-noun compounds are the preferred strategy for creating this terminology, with a specific adjective-noun construction involving relational adjectives playing a minor part and syntactic adjective-noun constituents playing no particular role. In the Arts and Humanities, there is a need for precise ad-hoc descriptions, and syntactic adjective-noun constituents are the preferred way of doing so. This difference accounts for the previously observed distribution, confirmed in our study, that noun-noun sequences are more typical for the natural sciences and adjective-noun sequences are more typical for the humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The corresponding German construction to English let alone is geschweige denn with a meaning of 'and even more/less so'. For present-day German, the construction is described as a coordinating conjunction, the use of which is tied to certain usage conditions, such as negative contexts. The construction is idiomatic and can be described as a form-function pairing in a Construction Grammar framework. This paper describes the origin and development of the idiomatic construction from a diachronic perspective. The data analyzed comes from the core corpus of the German Text Archive (Deutsches Textarchiv; DTA), occasionally complemented by the extension corpora of the DTA. It is shown that the construction evolves from verb phrases such as ich geschweige ('I remain silent'), which are often used with a genitive complement or a dass-clause complement ('that-clause'). One crucial aspect of the development of the coordinating conjunction is the loss of the filling of the nominative complement, usually ich ('I'), with geschweige and the loss of ge- prefixes in inflected verb forms, which gradually leads to a change of the verb form to ich schweige, while the conjunction fossilizes the form prefixed with ge-. Furthermore, over time, the coordinating conjunction denn wins against the competition by dann and other words to form geschweige denn. The paper also traces the development of the idiomatic verb phrase ganz zu schweigen von, which happens in parallel to that of geschweige denn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last forty years, Construction Grammar has emerged as the leading syntactic theory in cognitive linguistics. Usage-based versions of Construction Grammar have successfully been used to explain language acquisition, change, and variation. How the theory can be applied in foreign language teaching, however, has only recently attracted scholarly attention (De Knop and Gilquin 2016; Boas 2022). As part of this enterprise, the Constructionist Approach to Syntactic Analysis (CASA; Herbst and Hoffmann 2018, 2024) offers a new model that enables language teachers and students to analyse the most complex naturally occurring sentences. In the present paper, I will provide a short introduction to the CASA model. In addition to this, I will illustrate how this approach not only allows for a descriptive analysis of sentences, but how it offers teachers and students important theoretic insights into the cognitive nature of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the importance of database architecture in building a reference constructicon. Several reference constructicons have been implemented for various languages (FrameNet Constructicon, English Constructicon, Japanese FrameNet Constructicon, German Constructicon, Swedish Constructicon, FrameNet Brasil Constructicon, Russian Constructicon). However, most constructicon projects do not provide explicit information about their implementation or the underlying data model. A recent reference constructicon project dealing mainly with the English language is CASA (Construction Grammar Approach to Syntactic Analysis). In this paper, we present the data model underlying CASA in detail and its current implementation as a relational database and web interface. Relational databases are widely used for many different applications and allow large amounts of data to be stored and managed in a structured and efficient way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces and illustrates a methodology for analyzing corpus data with the goal of identifying regularities in the use of a given element or pattern. In line with the research tradition in construction grammar, one type of these regularities pertains to form-meaning and/or form-function pairings. In addition to this, however, further types of regularities are explored, among them the reciprocal type of regularity that links communicative goals and linguistic forms as well as contextual and social regularities. I pursue three main goals: 1) to lay out the conceptual groundwork of the methodology; 2) to present a manual for applying it; and 3) to illustrate its application with a case study on the sequence in here. The motivation for developing this methodology, labelled Multi-Dimensional Regularity Analysis (MDRA), lies in the dynamic, flexible and multi-dimensional notion of linguistic conventions and conventional constructions proposed as part of the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model (Schmid 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work on Construction Grammar and Diachronic Construction Grammar has foregrounded the idea that constructions are organized as a network of interconnected form-meaning pairs. This article explores the history of the construction exemplified in the title, henceforth referred to as the Expeditionary Go construction, and its relation both to other members of the small family of English go-constructions and to the prepositional be-progressive (e.g., 1700, They were a hunting). The analysis traces the development of expeditionary go since Old English times and argues that it was a device conveying the Subject's remoteness from the speaker-oriented deictic centre. This function has remained basically unchanged over the course of the history of English, but the form of expeditionary clauses has been adjusted as a result of profound language-internal and language-external developments; these developments have brought expeditionary clauses and other members of the network of go-constructions, most especially admonitive clauses (Don't go peeping like that!), closer together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines semantic features and functions of free relative clauses with pronominal relativizers, represented in the Croatian Glagolitic folk medicine books from the 14th, 15th and 18th centuries. Prediction, projection and topicality are singled out as central conceptual and functional features of the expressions studied. The examples are interpreted from the aspect of construction grammar and the pragmatic aspect, and therefore a schematic representation of mental spaces forming the basis for the selected relative clauses has been constructed using the methodology presented in Dancygier and Sweetser (2005). The expressions studied are also viewed in the context of the titling function, as well as in the context of all relative clauses in the studied corpus and have therefore also been linked to the specific features of the text type and certain diachronic changes in their use have been observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined L1 and L2 English speakers' sensitivity to constructional meaning by investigating their categorization of Noun1 of Noun2 constructions (e.g., results of studies) and argument structure constructions (e.g., Tom cut the bread). Participants were 40 L1 English speakers and 44 intermediate proficiency Chinese-speaking learners of L2 English, who completed two online sorting experiments. In each experiment, participants were instructed to (i) sort the stimuli according to their overall meaning and (ii) provide explanations for their sorting decisions. Results showed that EFL users preferred construction-based sorting for the argument structure stimuli but not the Noun1 of Noun2 stimuli. However, L1 English speakers showed a preference toward word-based sorting for both construction types. Participants' self-reported explanations for their sorts nonetheless indicated sensitivity to the constructional meanings of argument structure constructions and Noun1 of Noun2 constructions. Additionally, language users were found more likely to produce construction-based sorts with more time spent on the task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explored Indonesian EFL learners' explicit knowledge, processing, and use of English periphrastic causative constructions make, have, and get. 20 English L1 speakers and 20 Indonesian intermediate level EFL learners majoring in English Language Education at an Indonesian university took part in this study. Data were collected through a cloze task, a sentence completion task, an interpretation task, and a set of open-ended questions asking learners to provide descriptions about their knowledge of the constructions. Results showed that learners did not always use the first noun strategy to identify the agent in a passive causative construction. Also, their suppliances of the causative verbs in most items did not significantly differ from L1 speakers. However, the syntactic patterns were mostly non-target-like. They demonstrated insufficient explicit knowledge that could enable them to verbalize the formal and functional aspects underlying the constructions. Pedagogical implications along with suggestions to improve instruction are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces Chinese synthetic verbs and analyses their contributions to debates in manner/result complementarity studies and cognitive typology studies. Chinese synthetic verbs simultaneously express manner information and path/result information, but encode them into separate root slots under Beavers and Koontz-Garboden's (2012. Manner and result in the roots of verbal meaning. Linguistic Inquiry 43(3). 331–369) scopal modifier test, so they differ from English "manner+result verbs" and further challenge the manner/result complementarity hypothesis. Synthetic verbs followed by redundant path/result verbs constitute double-framing structures that twice encode the framing information, and the non-motion case, i.e., the "synthetic verb+result verb" structure, supplements Croft et al.'s (2010. Revising Talmy's typological classification of complex event constructions. In Hans C. Boas (ed.), Contrastive studies in construction grammar, vol. 10, 201–235. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company) classification that only includes the motion case, so that Chinese synthetic verbs complement the discussion on double-framing structures. This paper thereby further falsifies the manner/result complementarity hypothesis and provides an overall illustration of the double-framing structure in cognitive typology. This paper also illustrates the diachronic changes of manner, which might be universal and await further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a renewed construction grammar analysis of linguistic constructions in a diachronic perspective. The present theory, termed Agentive Cognitive Construction Grammar (AgCCxG), is informed by active inference (AIF), a process theory for the comprehension of intelligent agency. AgCCxG defends the idea that language bear traces of non-linguistic, bodily-acquired information that reflects sémiotico-biological processes of energy exchange and conservation. One of the major claims of the paper is that embodied cognition has evolved to facilitate ontogenic mental alignment among humans. This is demonstrated by the results of a corpus study in which the patterns of association between verbs, the particle UP and argument structure in Old and Middle English have been studied. The conclusion is that, similar to biological systems, the linguistic sign system displays patterns of equilibrium and non-equilibrium. In other words, while in Old English usage near equilibrium was reached through the use of a conservative set of constructional semiotic templates (attachment patterns), associated with motor modalities, Middle English displays high rates of randomness resulting in a less stable, yet distinct, system of constructional attachment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the effectiveness of L2 instruction on the learning of English caused-motion constructions (e.g., Jane put the balls into the box, Harry swam Peter to the beach). Korean EFL high school students (N = 156) were randomly assigned to three instructional conditions and one control group. While the metalanguage group relied on explicit uses of grammar jargon, the input flood group read narrative stories in which the instances of a prototypical verb were presented with higher frequency than other verbs. The image-schema group, which adopted a balanced approach to form and meaning attention, studied the core meaning of the target construction. Mixed-effects logistic regressions on Korean-to-English translation tests revealed that the image-schema group was most effective in terms of learnability and generalizability. The benefits of image-schema-based instruction were attributed to simultaneous attention to form and meaning, which might lead to deeper processing. Image-schema-based-instruction is discussed as a viable alternative for L2 construction learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to Construction Grammar, historical linguistics, and Russian linguistics through an in-depth corpus study of predicate agreement in constructions with quantified subjects. Statistical analysis of approximately 39,000 corpus examples indicates that these constructions constitute a network of constructions ("allostructions") with various preferences for singular or plural agreement. Factors pull in different directions, and we observe a relatively stable situation in the face of variation. We present an analysis of a multidimensional network of allostructions in Russian, thus contributing to our understanding of allostructional relationships in Construction Grammar. With regard to historical linguistics, language stability is an understudied field. We illustrate an interplay of divergent factors that apparently resists language change. The syntax of numerals and other quantifiers represents a notoriously complex phenomenon of the Russian language. Our study sheds new light on the contributions of factors that favor singular or plural agreement in sentences with quantified subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to examine whether Italian has theticity and sentence-focus among its grammatically encoded categories. After the categories of theticity and sentence-focus are introduced, the concepts of grammatically encoded category and category of language use are operationalized along the lines of Integral Linguistics. For a functional category to qualify as a grammatically encoded category of a language, the language should have at least one construction that structurally encodes the category as its indefeasible semantics. The article provides a qualitative investigation of both corpus-based and constructed examples of the eight Italian sentential structures that have hitherto been recognized in the literature as thetic or sentence-focus constructions. It is shown that each of the constructions has information structural uses that are incompatible with a structurally encoded theticity or sentence-focus semantics, i.e., topic-comment structure and narrow focus construal. It is argued that theticity and sentence-focus are therefore categories of language use rather than grammatically encoded categories of Italian.

This article demonstrates how Cognitive Grammar and Construction Grammar can prevent Chinese students learning Spanish from fossilizing mistakes in restrictive relative clauses at the A2-B1 level of the European Framework of Reference for Languages. To address this issue, first, relative clauses in Spanish and Chinese were contrasted and, second, tailored solutions based on Cognitive Grammar were proposed. Among the cognitive based tailored solutions, certain geometry forms, colours and basic mathematics metaphors were compared with syntactic characteristics such as noun order, subordination hierarchy or resumption. To elucidate the impact of such teaching methods, an experiment with 74 Chinese students was performed. The results indicate that the efficacy of the proposed materials is statistically significant and as such, the Chinese students avoid fossilized mistakes while producing subject, object and locative relative clauses in Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their recent paper on pseudogapping in Construction Grammar/HPSG, Kim and Runner (Kim, Jong-Bok & Jeffrey T. Runner. 2022. Pseudogapping in English: A direct interpretation approach. The Linguistic Review. https://doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2022-2094) suggest that the analysis of pseudogapping in Hybrid Type-Logical Grammar (Hybrid TLG) presented in Kubota and Levine (Kubota, Yusuke & Robert Levine. 2017. Pseudogapping as pseudo-VP ellipsis. Linguistic Inquiry 48(2). 213–257) does not explain certain complex patterns of pseudogapping for which their own proposal does offer an account. Though Kim and Runner's (2022) remarks on Kubota and Levine (Kubota, Yusuke & Robert Levine. 2017. Pseudogapping as pseudo-VP ellipsis. Linguistic Inquiry 48(2). 213–257) leave room for interpretation, we take it to be reasonably clear that they simply mean that it is difficult to see how such data could be formally accounted for in Kubota and Levine's proposal. The primary goal of our response is to refute Kim and Runner's claim on this interpretation. After refuting their claim on this interpretation, we consider a different interpretation of their remarks, one which merely questions the conceptual plausibility of Kubota and Levine's (2017) broader theoretical architecture. This latter discussion leads to some interesting and important cross-theoretical comparison of different approaches to ellipsis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Rezensionen zur Germanistischen Sprachwissenschaft is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Mellado Blanco argues that variants of CxG "constitute an ideal framework for studying phraseological variation along the lexis-grammar continuum" (p. 12), as CxG approaches variation holistically in terms of productivity, analogy, regularity, and schematicity. Blanco, Carmen Mellado Productive Patterns in Phraseology and Construction Grammar (Formelhafte Sprache / Formulaic Language 4) Berlin, Boston De Gruyter 2022 320 pp. But this only shows that all in all, Carmen Mellado Blanco's volume is an ideal starting point for extending the dialogue not only between phraseology and Construction Grammar, but also between constructionist approaches to phraseology and other empirical and usage-based work in linguistics. Mellado Blanco sketches a number of areas where CxG and phraseology can cross-fertilize each other, and also discusses another key concept mentioned in the title of the volume: productivity. [Extracted from the article]

This paper uses computational experiments to explore the role of exposure in the emergence of construction grammars. While usage-based grammars are hypothesized to depend on a learner's exposure to actual language use, the mechanisms of such exposure have only been studied in a few constructions in isolation. This paper experiments with (i) the growth rate of the constructicon, (ii) the convergence rate of grammars exposed to independent registers, and (iii) the rate at which constructions are forgotten when they have not been recently observed. These experiments show that the lexicon grows more quickly than the grammar and that the growth rate of the grammar is not dependent on the growth rate of the lexicon. At the same time, register-specific grammars converge onto more similar constructions as the amount of exposure increases. This means that the influence of specific registers becomes less important as exposure increases. Finally, the rate at which constructions are forgotten when they have not been recently observed mirrors the growth rate of the constructicon. This paper thus presents a computational model of usage-based grammar that includes both the emergence and the unentrenchment of constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans are an incredibly creative species – our minds have evolved to a degree that has enabled us to think original thoughts and come up with novel solutions to a great number of problems. One domain of human cognition that has recently received considerable attention is linguistic creativity. The present contribution will take a closer look at how Construction Grammar can account for various types of verbal creativity. In addition to this, it will also explore the implications of creative utterances for Construction Grammar as a mental theory of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural priming is a promising tool for testing similarity relations between constructions, but its applicability to larger-scale models of constructional networks is still limited. This article outlines the following two limitations of previous priming studies: first, they largely focus on priming between alternating constructions; and second, they often test the relations between instances of the same construction rather than between instances of different constructions. Three strategies are suggested for how future priming research could overcome these limitations. Concrete ideas for experimental setups are presented, and their benefits and limitations are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an exploratory corpus-based study of a set of verbs of throwing and their co-occurrence with iconic gestures. It is hypothesized that the (in)formality and the metaphoricity of verbs is related to co-speech gesture frequency, but ultimately, relatively little evidence is found for such relationships. A simpler alternative assumption, i.e. that it is mental simulations that drive co-speech gesture alone, has to be dismissed, too, because the frequency of co-speech gesture is markedly different across verbs, ranging from roughly 41 to about 60 per cent (lob vs. fling, respectively). One possible explanation might be that, just as with co-occurrences between purely verbal signs, some verbs are conventionally associated with certain types of gestures to a higher degree. With sufficient data, we can quantify these associations, making use of statistics developed for research on collocation and collostruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at giving a comprehensive account of a so far undescribed reduplicative pattern in Italian named syntactic discontinuous reduplication with antonymic pairs (SDRA). This pattern, characterized by the non-contiguous repetition of the same element within a larger fixed configuration defined by two spatial antonyms, can be schematized as , where Adv1 and Adv2 are antonyms (e.g., di qua ‘here’ ∼ di là ‘there’). After describing its formal and functional properties, based on naturally occurring data extracted from the Italian Web 2016 corpus, the SDRA is analyzed as an independent ‘construction’ in the Construction Grammar sense. This construction is claimed to convey a general value of ‘plurality’ and to have developed a polysemy network of daughter constructions expressing more specific functions such as ‘distributivity,’ ‘related variety,’ and ‘dispersion.’ In addition, we propose considering the SDRA a ‘multiple source construction,’ originating from the blending of two independent constructions: syntactic reduplication and irreversible binomials with antonymic adverbs. Finally, we discuss SDRA-like patterns in other typologically different languages (Russian, Modern Hebrew, Mandarin Chinese, German), pointing out similarities and differences, and paving the way to a more systematic study of discontinuous reduplication in a crosslinguistic perspective.

Usage-based approaches assume that children's early utterances are item-based. This has been demonstrated in a number of studies using the traceback method. In this approach, a small amount of "target utterances" from a child language corpus is "traced back" to earlier utterances. Drawing on a case study of German, this paper provides a critical evaluation of the method from a usage-based perspective. In particular, we check how factors inherent to corpus data as well as methodological choices influence the results of traceback studies. To this end, we present four case studies in which we change thresholds and the composition of the main corpus, use a cross-corpus approach tracing one child's utterances back to another child's corpus, and reverse and randomize the target utterances. Overall, the results show that the method can provide interesting insights—particularly regarding different pathways of language acquisition—but they also show the limitations of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies utilizing association measures for collocation analysis have demonstrated significant differences in second language (L2) collocation production across proficiency levels. However, the association strength measures utilized in these previous studies have neglected part of speech and grammatical information when calculating association strength between collocating words. The current study seeks to address these limitations by defining verb–noun collocations as constructions within the framework of Construction Grammar and analyzing their cross-sectional development in L2 writing. Texts from a corpus of L2 writing evenly divided into low, medium, and high proficiency levels were analyzed for verb–noun collocation frequency, diversity, and association strength using covarying collexeme analysis. Results showed that more proficient writers produced a more diverse range of verb–noun collocations that were less frequent and more positively and strongly associated. These results have clear implications for Usage-based Second Language Acquisition research, L2 collocation development research, and L2 writing pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work in Diachronic Construction Grammar (DCxG) has foregrounded the importance of multiple sources of a particular construction, as well as promoting the idea that constructions are organised as a network of knowledge. The research presented in this article explores the ways in which multiple sources play a role at various stages in constructional change, and the effects of this on the structure of the language network. We aim to show how an account of language structure that focuses on links between constructions may be useful in tracking the various stages in the development of a new construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the emergence and development of a mirative constructional network involving the shell nouns wonder, marvel and chance, called 'wonder' nouns here. In combination with negative quantifiers (e.g. no wonder), they can be used either lexically or as part of grammatical, mirative markers, qualifying a proposition as unsurprising in view of another situation. The network emerges in Old English around wonder, with three meso-constructions which differ in surface structure but all inherit the anti-concessive discourse schema from the macro-construction, consisting of a proposition, mirative qualifier and justification. Two additional meso-constructions emerge in Middle English, which is also the time when the Romance loan marvel joins the network, making it gain in schematicity, abstractness and productivity. In Present-day English, another Romance loan, chance, expands the mirative network even more. Throughout time, we observe node loss, node creation, constructional substitution and changes in frequencies of constructions. Theoretically, we propose a semiotic approach to diachronic construction grammar, arguing that multi-sign constructions invariably involve syntagmatic relations, which are themselves form-meaning pairings. This approach allows us to capture generalizations which would otherwise be missed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper discusses the concept of gradience and fuzziness from the perspective of Diachronic Construction Grammar. It does so by investigating verb-attached PPs in the history of English, with a focus on their semantic and syntactic functions and features over time. Specifically, the paper uses the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpora of Historical English, including texts from Middle English (PPCME2), Early Modern English (PPCEME), and Late Modern English (PPCMBE) to revisit the distinction between adjuncts and complements. In particular, I address the question whether this traditionally binary classification finds support in diachronic data, or whether PPs rather represent a gradience between prototypical adjunct- and complementhood. Furthermore, the paper assesses whether any change in the distribution and features of PPs (specifically an increase in complementhood) can be observed over time. Ultimately, the findings suggest a multi-level network of PPs that is diachronically very stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linguists have debated whether complex prepositions deserve a constituent status, but none have proposed a dynamic model that can both predict what construal a given pattern imposes and account for the emergence of non-spatial readings. This paper reframes the debate on constituency as a justification of the constructional status of complex prepositional patterns from a historical perspective. It focuses on the Prep NPILof NPlm construction, which denotes a relation of internal location between a located entity (a trajector) and a reference entity (a landmark). Four subschemas of the Internal Location construction are examined: middlecxn (in the middle of), centercxn (in/at the center of), heartcxn (in/at the heart of), and midstcxn (in the midst of). All occurrences are extracted from the COHA, along with their co-occurring landmark NPs. Using vocabulary growth curves, all patterns are shown to be productive over the whole period covered by the corpus, although at different levels. Using word2vec, a semantic vector space with the landmark collocates of each pattern is made. Curves indexed on association scores are plotted to see how densely semantic areas have been populated across four consecutive periods: 1810s–1860s, 1870s–1910s, 1920s–1970s, and 1980s–2000s. Two divisions of labor have emerged. midstcxn and heartcxn are in complementary distribution and operate mostly at the level of abstract locations whereas middlecxn and centercxn are in parallel distribution and operate at the level of concrete locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show that, in contrast to previously examined causative constructions in Russian and Dutch (and arguably most Indo-European languages), Chinese I rang i , I shi i and I ling i are hard to profile by focussing on analysing lexical semantic properties of noun phrases that appear in their causer and causee slots (cf. [13]; [15]; [63]). Based on these results, the cluster solution is further evaluated by first comparing the I ling i cluster with both the I rang i and I shi i cluster (Section 4.2), and then comparing the less distinct I rang i and I shi i clusters to each other (Section 4.3) (see Figure 4). Keywords: behavioural profiling; construction grammar; frame semantics; near-synonymy; causative constructions; Mandarin Chinese EN behavioural profiling construction grammar frame semantics near-synonymy causative constructions Mandarin Chinese 263 306 44 05/12/22 20220501 NES 220501 1 Introduction This article presents a behavioural profiling study of a Mandarin Chinese construction that is used to express a range of functions broadly located on the cause-effect continuum, such as resultatives, causation, permission, yielding. The plot also shows that I shi i (green) clusters around two areas in the lower part of the plot while I rang i (red) appears more evenly distributed, which indicates that behavioural differences also exist between I rang i and I shi i . The Section 4.3 compares I rang i and I shi i . 4.3 Behavioural profile of rang ( ) versus shi ( ) This section compares the I rang i cluster (red) and the I shi i clusters (green), examining which contextual features set I rang i and I shi i apart (see Figure 4). [Extracted from the article]

Word-embedding models learned the word vectors by maximizing the likelihood of either predicting the context words when given the target word (e.g., word2vec:CBOW) or predicting the target word when given the context words (e.g., word2vec:Skipgram). Word-embedding models of lexical semantics were essentially a computational version of distributional semantics built upon the assumption that "difference of meaning correlates with difference of distribution" ([32]: 785). Network analysis, space particles, usage-based grammar, collocation, collostruction analysis, construction grammar We will closely investigate the network's properties at all three levels (i.e., microscopic, mesoscopic, and macroscopic) and will specifically contextualize their implications for the development of constructional semantics in relation to the emerging semantics of the usage-based grammar. Keywords: usage-based grammar; collocation; collostruction analysis; network analysis; space particles; construction grammar EN usage-based grammar collocation collostruction analysis network analysis space particles construction grammar 209 235 27 05/12/22 20220501 NES 220501 1 Introduction Meaning in language is a complex subject. [Extracted from the article]