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There is ample evidence that speakers' linguistic knowledge extends well beyond what can be described in terms of rules of compositional interpretation stated over combinations of single words. We explore a range of multiword constructions (MWCs) to get a handle both on the extent of the phenomenon and on the grammatical constraints that may govern it. We consider idioms of various sorts, collocations, compounds, light verbs, syntactic nuts, and assorted other constructions, as well as morphology. Our conclusion is that MWCs highlight the central role that grammar plays in licensing MWCs in the lexicon and the creation of novel MWCs, and they help to clarify how the lexicon articulates with the rest of the grammar., (Copyright © 2017 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.)

In Jackendoff's Parallel Architecture, the well-formed expressions of a language are licensed by correspondences between phonology, syntax, and conceptual structure. I show how this architecture can be used to make sense of the existence of parasitic gap constructions. A parasitic gap is one that is rendered acceptable because of the presence of another gap in the same sentence. Compare *a person whoi everyone who talks to ti likes Chris, which shows an illicit extraction from a relative clause, and a person whoi everyone who talks to pgi likes ti, which shows a parasitic gap in the relative clause. Languages differ in terms of the range of configurations in which they allow parasitic gaps; these configurations appear to form a hierarchy. These observations raise some fundamental questions: Why do parasitic gaps exist at all? Why are different syntactic configurations possible for P-gaps and why just these configurations? Why is there a parasitic gap hierarchy? The answers that I propose make crucial use of constructional overgeneralization of across-the-board extraction in coordinate constructions, formulated straightforwardly in the framework of Jackendoff's Parallel Architecture., (Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.)

We develop an approach to automatically identify the most probable multiword constructions used in children's utterances, given syntactically annotated utterances from the Brown corpus of CHILDES. The found constructions cover many interesting linguistic phenomena from the language acquisition literature and show a progression from very concrete toward abstract constructions. We show quantitatively that for all children of the Brown corpus grammatical abstraction, defined as the relative number of variable slots in the productive units of their grammar, increases globally with age., (Copyright © 2009 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.)

In many descriptions of American Sign Language (ASL), signs like [breakfast] are identified as compounds. These signs were once formed with two separate signs but have since fused into a single unit. This article presents an alternative definition of compound that includes both functional and formal properties. Following this updated definition, examples of ASL compounds are constructions like [name sign] and [sign language], which combine two object-concept words to name an object concept, as well as related constructions like [formal room] 'living room,' which also label object concepts. The updated definition of compound allows for terminological consistency and sets the stage for fuller understanding of the variety of multisign units in ASL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pragmalingüística is the property of Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Universidad de Cadiz 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 adopts a construction-grammar approach to multimodal meaning. We provide a detailed analysis of the Before-After -construction used frequently in advertisements, cartoons and Internet memes. We demonstrate that parts of its generic 'caused-change' meaning is compositional, and rendered independently from what is overtly expressed by concrete instances of the pattern. The latter hence build on an abstract multimodal construction whose form elements are paired idiosyncratically with meaning, just like linguistic constructions proper. We show that non-standard instances of the Before-After-construction represent deviations based on a systematized standard Before-After-construction. Finally, we argue that the Before-After-construction belongs to a broader inheritance hierarchy of two-image multimodal construction types, while also providing one amongst several options to convey caused-change. Altogether, we demonstrate that multimodal expressions instantiate similar properties as unimodal expressions both across form and meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the main constructions showing a covert encoding of Path of motion in Classical Greek (5th–4th century BC). Based on a corpus study of five texts belonging to different literary genres, it applies the theoretical frameworks and conceptual tools of contemporary linguistic approaches, such as the semantic typology of motion events and Construction Grammar, to the data from an ancient language, in order to address the non-compositional expression of Path. The results of the analysis reveal that, in addition to the overt morphosyntactic encoding of Path information, Ancient Greek resorts to more implicit patterns, in which coercion, meaning extension and inference play a crucial role. Furthermore, as opposed to traditional views on motion expression, this study shows that the encoding of spatial meaning is rarely committed to a single lexical or morphological tool within the clause, but rather it distributes across different linguistic units and results from their interaction with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the goals in Cognitive Linguistics is the automatic identification and analysis of constructions, since they are fundamental linguistic units for understanding language. This article presents DISCOver, an unsupervised methodology for the automatic discovery of lexico-syntactic patterns that can be considered as candidates for constructions. This methodology follows a distributional semantic approach. Concretely, it is based on our proposed pattern-construction hypothesis: those contexts that are relevant to the definition of a cluster of semantically related words tend to be (part of) lexico-syntactic constructions. Our proposal uses Distributional Semantic Models for modelling the context taking into account syntactic dependencies. After a clustering process, we linked all those clusters with strong relationships and we use them as a source of information for deriving lexico-syntactic patterns, obtaining a total number of 220,732 candidates from a 100 million token corpus of Spanish. We evaluated the patterns obtained intrinsically, applying statistical association measures and they were also evaluated qualitatively by experts. Our results were superior to the baseline in both quality and quantity in all cases. While our experiments have been carried out using a Spanish corpus, this methodology is language independent and only requires a large corpus annotated with the parts of speech and dependencies to be applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is common for "replacive" tonal patterns to be assigned by wordlevel morphological constructions, it is far less common for such overriding schemas to be assigned by specific phrase-level syntactic constructions. Kalabari, an Ijo language of Nigeria, does exactly this: Whenever the noun is preceded by a modifier, it loses its tones and receives different "melodies" depending on the constructional word class of the preceding specifier/modifier, either /HL/, /HLH/, /LH/, or /L/. In this paper, we first document the assignment of these different syntactic melodies and then provide evidence for how they developed diachronically. We then present a brief survey of other linguistic phenomena which partially resemble the Kalabari system, but conclude that tone is the only phrasal phonological property that can be assigned by construction from word to word.

Although it is common for "replacive" tonal patterns to be assigned by wordlevel morphological constructions, it is far less common for such overriding schemas to be assigned by specific phrase-level syntactic constructions. Kalabari, an Ijo language of Nigeria, does exactly this: Whenever the noun is preceded by a modifier, it loses its tones and receives different "melodies" depending on the constructional word class of the preceding specifier/modifier, either /HL/, /HLH/, /LH/, or /L/. In this paper, we first document the assignment of these different syntactic melodies and then provide evidence for how they developed diachronically. We then present a brief survey of other linguistic phenomena which partially resemble the Kalabari system, but conclude that tone is the only phrasal phonological property that can be assigned by construction from word to word.

The paper starts by briefly describing the so‐called truth‐functional approach to sentential operators, typical to logic, as opposed to the more multi‐faceted approach of linguistics. The latter reflects the more complex, substantial relations between the contents of utterances, emphasizing the logico‐semantical relations and functions of sentential operators. However, as an alternative to the pragmatically inclined critique of the truth‐functional approach, the paper proposes two possible directions of explaining the specific content of sentential operators by virtue of which they transcend the role of mere truth functions. Firstly, the paper summarizes our previous investigations into the interactions between sentential operators and (1) the vector of the course of events described by a compound sentence, and (2) the direction of grammatical time captured by a compound sentence. The paper focuses on how this interaction is coordinated with the particular epistemic goal (prediction, explanation etc.) pursued when using the meaning of a complex sentence. Using the concepts of necessary and sufficient conditions, and by characterizing the vectors of condition (the if‐vector), time and relevance (dominance or the epistemic vector), the paper demarcates the rules of correspondence for conditional operators as cases of combinatorics, as described by some linguists. Secondly, based on a distinction between different constructions the same operators as truth‐functions, the paper provides a logico‐semantical explanation of the specific meaning of the else, unless and although connectives, traditionally discussed by linguists. We believe that the extensions proposed here move the camp defending a logico‐semantic approach to sentential operators at least somewhat closer to the camp of linguistic investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Applied Linguistics 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.)

In recent years, Cognitive Linguistics (CL) has established itself not only as a solid theoretical approach but also as an important source from which different applications to other fields have emerged. In this introductory article, we explore some of the current, most relevant topics in applied CL-oriented studies grouped into three main strands: Analyses of figurative language (both metaphor and metonymy) in use, constructions and typology. An outline of the contents of the eight chapters included in this special issue is provided, explaining their contributions to these research areas and highlighting their methodological rigour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because different languages often lack semantic equivalents, translation may require looking for other cross-linguistic correlations on the level of the utterance. To find a functional equivalent that is adequate to the translation of a given context, the search should focus on pragmatic correspondences rather than semantic equivalents. The present article examines this phenomenon on the basis of the Russian near-synonymous discursive units with focus-sensitive semantics imenno (just/precisely) and kak raz (just/precisely). They are important elements of communication but have far not been fully described. Using relevant lexicographic information, text corpora, including parallel corpora, and works of fiction, we are going to show that synonymy of these discursive units is not as complete as it appears at first glance. We will analyze their semantic and pragmatic properties, usage peculiarities as well as systemic and translational equivalents in English, German and Swedish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two key issues in the study of idiom are the metaphorical status of idioms (whether or not underlying metaphors are active in the on-line processing of figurative idiomatic expressions) and the compositional status of idioms (whether or not the overall meaning of such expressions is analyzable from internal elements). This study addresses these questions from the perspective of emergent metaphor theory (Sanford, 2012, 2013), arguing that key properties of such expressions − idiosyncrasy of both form and meaning, the potential for idiom to be manipulated in discourse, and diachronic patterns in changes of idiomatic meaning − follow from the status of metaphorical idioms as highly entrenched instances of both conceptual and syntactic mappings. In the case of both types of schema, the interaction of type and token frequency effects predict the metaphoricity and analyzability of idioms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Unexpressed (“null”) 1sg subjects occur systematically in English conversation. [•] There are two loci of variation: absolute initial prosodic position and and-coordinated verbs. [•] The oft-reported cross-linguistic subject continuity constraint has no independent effect. [•] Priming is strong, such that a previous coreferential unexpressed subject favors unexpression. [•] Particular and-coordinating constructions with go and say shape local patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper investigates the productivity of liaison contexts in French, on the basis of a conversational corpus of Laurentian French. A detailed study of liaison with invariable words (adverbs, prepositions, connectors) highlights the inadequacy of previous approaches to liaison contexts, which rely on syntactic or prosodic structure or various frequency measures. The productivity of liaison and lexical distinctions among invariable words are rather determined by the distributional characteristics of individual words: liaison is productive only with words that appear systematically in the same grammatical construction, as opposed to words that have a more flexible distribution. This factor is measured by transition probabilities. This result leads to a new understanding of cohesion in Frenchliaison; it globally supports lexicalist and construction-based approaches to liaison contexts, while contributing to the characterization of the strength of liaison-related constructions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

To talk about simple concepts presupposes that the notion of concept has been aptly explicated. I argue that a most adequate explication should abandon the set-theoretical paradigm and use a procedural approach. Such a procedural approach is offered by Tichý´s Transparent Intensional Logic (TIL). Some main notions and principles of TIL are briefly presented, and as a result, concepts are explicated as a kind of abstract procedure. Then it can be shown that simplicity, as applied to concepts, is well definable as a property relative to conceptual systems, each of which is determined by a finite set of simple ('primitive') concepts. Refinement as a method of replacing simple concepts by compound concepts is defined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper demonstrates that dependency-based syntax is in a strong position to produce principled and economical accounts of the syntax of constructs. The difficulty that constituency-based syntax has in this regard is that very many constructs fail to qualify as constituents. The point is evident with the box diagrams and attribute value matrices (AVMs) that some construction grammars (CxGs) use to formalize constructions; these schemata often represent fragments rather than constituents. In dependency-based syntax in contrast, constructions are catenae, whereby a catena is a chain of words linked together by dependencies. The catena is a novel but well-defined unit of syntax associated with dependency grammar (DG). The constructs of CxGs are more amenable to analyses in terms of the catenae of dependency-based syntax than to analyses in terms of the constituents of constituency-based syntax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the principal difference between a construction-based and a valency-based syntax, and argues that constructions, like morphological distinctions, are organized in paradigms. It is generally assumed that verb-argument relations were relatively loose in Old Russian. Unlike in Modern Russian, which has a fully developed valency system where the verb determines the number of arguments and their (case) forms, many Old Russian verbs combined with more than one case form or even allowed for distinctly different syntactic constructions. Examples of A2 (argument 2) variation in Old Russian are considered, and it is argued that the syntactic system of Old Russian can be interpreted as construction-based rather than valency-based. It is shown that the concept of construction is a prerequisite for making sense of the case forms filling the argument slots in Old Russian, and tentative examples of construction paradigms are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the framework of cognitive linguistics and construction grammar (as in Lakoff 1987; Langacker 2000; Goldberg 1995; and Fried and Östman 2004), it is claimed in this paper that the semantics of psuche (psyche) is motivated by cognitive, cultural, and constructional parameters of meaning. More specifically, it is argued that psyche, as the immaterial nature of a human being, and the seat of emotions and feelings in particular, is understood in terms of image-based metaphors, a cultural model of the self, and a cultural narrative of existence. It is also argued that the frequent occurrence of psyche in a number of collocations and idioms motivates and constrains constructional meaning. At the same time, constructions motivate extended senses of this word, thereby contributing to its polysemy and ultimately to semantic change. The evidence presented within this framework argues against a fixed borderline between lexical and constructional meaning. This view, long and tacitly adopted in lexicographic practice by necessity, is gaining further support within current research in the framework of lexicography (Fillmore 2008; Hanks 2008), corpus linguistics (Fellbaum 2007), lexical semantics (Taylor et al. 2003), language change (Bybee 2006a), and construction grammar (Boas 2008). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Portuguese uses future subjunctive (futuro do conjuntivo) in subordinate clauses to express a condition that must be fulfilled in the future, or is assumed to be fulfilled, before an event can happen. As the other Romance languages don’t know or don’t regularly use this form of subjunctive, the author aims to find its equivalents in Spanish and French in various syntactic contexts. The main purpose is to specify the position of the future subjunctive within the Portuguese verbal system. If we imagine that the future subjunctive dissapears from the Portuguese verbal system and gets replaced by the most convenient tense for each context, no significant semanthic changes could be noticed in the vaste majority of cases. It could be easily substituted by the present subjunctive in conditional, concessive and partially also adverbial and relative clauses. However, the future subjunctive has different – more factual and definit – meaning than the present subjunctive in some specific adverbial and relative clauses. It means that these clauses admit both sunjunctive tenses in Portuguese but with slightly different semanthic meanings. This difference doesn’t have equivalent in the other Romance languagues. In general, the use of subjuntive forms in Portuguese can be seen as an important formal indicator of the semanthic value of certain syntactical constructions: the verb in the indicative mood means the sentence has a repetitive value (Modus Ponens) whereas the verb in the subjunctive mood expresses an eventuality in the future. In this perspective the Portuguese also has an exceptional position within the Romance language area. Spanish and French don’t seem to use the formal indicator or at least in the contexts we have seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most frequent statistics in corpus linguistics are frequencies of occurrence and frequencies of co-occurrence of two or more linguistic variables. However, such frequencies in isolation may sometimes be misleading since they do not take into consideration the degree of dispersion of the relevant linguistic variable. Many dispersion measures and adjusted frequency measures have been suggested but are neither widely known nor applied. Another unfortunate aspect of such measures is that many also come with a variety of problems. I pursue three objectives with this article. First, I want to raise awareness of this issue and make the available measures more widely known, so I present an overview of many measures of dispersion and adjusted frequencies. Second, I propose a conceptually simple alternative measure, DP, explain and exemplify it, and compare it to previously discussed measures. Third and most importantly, I urge corpus linguists to explore the notion of dispersion in more detail and outline a few proposals which steps to take next. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The comparative correlative construction, exemplified by The more I read, the more I understand, has a number of idiosyncrasies, highlighted in , which pose a problem for the view that grammatical systems are the result of setting a relatively small number of parameters. suggests that the construction is no problem for a principles-and-parameters approach to language. However, he provides no analysis and ignores the idiosyncrasies. He proposes that the first clause is a kind of free relative. This seems to explain some of its properties, but the same properties in the second clause are unexplained. Den Dikken shows that a number of languages have broadly similar CC constructions. However, data from French suggests that he seriously underestimates the extent of cross-linguistic variation. The first clause of the French construction does not resemble a free relative and for some speakers is not subordinate clause. In addition the two clauses may be connected by the conjunction et ‘and’. Den Dikken argues that the cross-linguistic variation is lexical and not syntactic. Within his general approach this is true. However, it does not make the variation any less problematic for a principles-and-parameters approach. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Jezikoslovlje is the property of University of Osijek, Faculty of Philosophy 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.)

The present study investigates the development of am in the speech of one English-speaking child, Scarlett (aged 4;6–5;6). We show that am is infrequent in the speech addressed to children; the acquisition of this form of BE presents a unique insight into the processes underlying language development because children have little evidence regarding its correct use. Scarlett produced a pervasive error where she overextended are to first-person singular contexts where am was required (e.g., I'm are trying, When are I'm finished?). Am gradually emerged in her speech on what appears to be a construction-specific basis. The findings of the study are used in support of a usage-based, constructivisit approach to language development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the context of the Lexical Constructional Model, which provides a comprehensive account of the relationship between syntax and all facets on meaning construction, this paper is concerned with one of the major representational modules of the model, viz. a lexical template. It is claimed that a lexical template consists of a semantic specification plus a logical structure. The logical structure formalism is constructed on the basis of Aktionsart distinctions proposed in Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin & Lapolla, 1997; Van Valin, 2005). Aktionsart regularities are captured by the external variables of the template, specified in Roman characters, and by a set of high-level elements of structure that function as semantic primitives. Lexical templates also contain internal variables, marked with Arabic numerals, and formally expressed in terms of a catalogue of lexical functions. These variables capture world-knowledge elements that relate in a way specific to the predicate defined by the lexical template. In order to test the viability of lexical templates, a detailed analysis of a set of verbs within the lexical domain of cognition is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that previous analyses of a class of inverted sentences in Modern Hebrew capture frequent correlations, but not hard constraints. Those analyses, which I refer to as lexically-based, focus on the properties of the lexical items which make up the sentence. The alternative approach proposed here views the constructions in their entirety and considers them from a discourse-functional perspective. It is proposed that V1 is employed by Modern Hebrew as an information packaging device which encodes thetic judgments in distinction from unmarked categorical judgments. The association of V1 with thetic judgments explains the frequent correlations between V1 and the properties which are identified by the lexically-based approach as definitional. Thus, by incorporating information packaging notions such as thetic and categorical judgments into the grammar, one can achieve a deeper understanding of linguistic phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of apposition remains an obscure notion despite the fact that it has figured prominently in the history of grammar. Modern grammatical frameworks have done very little if anything to clarify it, and, with very few exceptions, they continue to merely invoke it in passing when dealing with grey areas in the study of other phenomena. Characteristically, one starts studying NPs or reduced relatives, and when the grey areas become visible the words “apposition” or “appositive” come to the rescue. In fact, such rescuing is none other than an admission of defeat. Here I defend the view that so-called appositions inhabit a conceptual space that is best understood in reference to the notions of family resemblance, prototype, and construction. A crucial characteristic of this conceptual region is the fact that its lack of strong formal codification leaves it at the mercy of frequent, palliative, pragmatic construal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, grammatical blending is presented as an alternative to the conventional, linear overlap models of grammaticalization when it comes to conceptualizing complex cases of overlaps. The choice of the ‘emerging modal’ want to/wanna as a case study is motivated precisely by its interpretational complexity. For it appears that the grammaticalization of want to/wanna has been shaped by the compositional interaction of form and meaning. In this configuration, the linear model has to be modified for two reasons: being exclusively semantic, it does not take the form of the expression into account; being linear, it does not lend itself to a treatment of constructional compositionality. Grammatical blending, understood as the blend of constructions as defined in the Construction Grammar framework, is one way of altering the linear model so as to enable the representation of non-linear (i.e. compositional) constructional overlaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Construction Grammar, the ultimate grammatical unit is the construction, a conventionalized form-meaning pairing. We present interrelated evidence from three different methods, all of which speak in favor of attributing an ontological status to constructions for non-native speakers of English. Firstly, in a sentence-fragment completion study with German learners of English, we obtained a significant priming effect between constructions. Secondly, these priming effects correlate strongly with the verb-construction preferences in native speaker corpora: verbs which are strongly associated with one construction resist priming to another semantically compatible construction; more importantly, the priming effects do not correlate with verb-construction preferences from German translation equivalents, ruling out a translational explanation. Thirdly, in order to rule out an alternative account in terms of syntactic rather than constructional priming, we present semantic evidence obtained by a sorting study, showing that subjects exhibited a strong tendency towards a construction-based sorting, which even reflects recent explanations of how constructions are related. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]