In recent years, multiple researchers working on the evolution of language have put forward the idea that the theoretical framework of usage-based approaches and Construction Grammar is highly suitable for modelling the emergence of human language from pre-linguistic or proto-linguistic communication systems. This also raises the question of whether usage-based and constructionist approaches can be integrated with the analysis of animal communication systems. In this paper, we review possible avenues where usage-based, constructionist approaches can make contact with animal (...) communication research, which in turn also has implications for theories of language evolution. To this end, we first give an overview of key assumptions of usage-based and constructionist approaches before reviewing some key issues in animal communication research through the lens of usage-based, constructionist approaches. Specifically, we will discuss how research on alarm calls, gestural communication and symbol-trained animals can be brought into contact with usage-based, constructionist theorizing. We argue that a constructionist view of animal communication can yield new perspectives on its relation to human language, which in turn has important implications regarding the evolution of language. Importantly, this theoretical approach also generates hypotheses that have the potential of complementing and extending results from the more formalist approaches that often underlie current animal communication research. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

This paper examines, on the basis of a longitudinal corpus of 50 early modern authors, how change at the aggregate level of the community interacts with variation and change at the micro-level of the individual language user. In doing so, this study aims to address the methodological gap between collective change and entrenchment, that is, the gap between language as a social phenomenon and the cognitive processes responsible for the continuous reorganization of linguistic knowledge in individual speakers. Taking up the (...) case of the prepositional passive, this study documents a strong community-wide increase in use that is accompanied by increasing schematicity. A comparison of the 50 authors reveals that regularities arising at the macro-level conceal highly complex and variable individual behavior, aspects of which may be explained by studying the larger (social) context in which these individuals operate (e. g., age cohorts, community of practice, biographical insights). Further analysis, focusing on how authors use the prepositional passive in unique and similar ways, elucidates the role of small individual biases in long-term change. Overall, it is demonstrated that language change is an emergent phenomenon that results from the complex interaction between individual speakers, who themselves may change their linguistic behavior to varying degrees. (shrink)

We present a case study of grammatical constructions and how their function in a single language can be captured through semantic and syntactic classification. Since 2016 an on-going joint project of UiT The Arctic University of Norway and the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow has been collecting and analyzing multiword grammatical constructions of Russian. The main product is the Russian Constructicon, which, with over two thousand two hundred constructions, is arguably the largest openly available constructicon resource (...) for any language. The combination of this large size with depth of analysis, containing both syntactic and semantic tags, makes it possible to view the interrelation of constructions as families and to discover trends in their behavior. Our annotation includes 53 semantic tags of varying frequency, with three tags that are by far more frequent than all the rest, accounting for 30% of the entire inventory of the Russian Constructicon. These three semantic types are Assessment, Attitude, and Intensity, all of which convey a speaker’s evaluation of a topic, in contrast to most of the other tags. Assessment and Attitude constructions are investigated in greater detail in this article. Secondary semantic tags reveal that negative evaluation among these two semantic types is more than twice as frequent as positive evaluation. Examples of negative evaluations are: for Assessment VP tak sebe, as in Na pianino ja igraju tak sebe “I play the piano so-so [lit. thus self]”; for Attitude s PronPers-Gen xvatit/xvatilo, as in S menja xvatit “I’m fed up [lit. from me enough].” In terms of syntax, the most frequent syntactic types of constructions in the Russian Constructicon are clausal constructions [constituting an independent clause like s PronPers-Gen xvatit/xvatilo ] and constructions with the anchor in the role of adverbial modifier. Our semantic and syntactic classification of this large body of Russian constructions makes it possible to postulate patterns of grammatical constructions constituting a radial category with central and peripheral types. Classification of large numbers of constructions reveals systematic relations that structure the grammar of a language. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 26 Heft: 4 Seiten: 613-632.

Predictive Processing (PP) is an increasingly influential neurocognitive-computational framework. PP research has so far focused predominantly on lower level perceptual, motor, and various psychological phenomena. But PP seems to face a “scale-up challenge”: How can it be extended to conceptual thought, language, and other higher cognitive competencies? Compositionality, arguably a central feature of conceptual thought, cannot easily be accounted for in PP because it is not couched in terms of classical symbol processing. I argue, using the example of language, that (...) there is no strong reason to think that PP cannot be scaled up to higher cognition. I suggest that the tacitly assumed common-sense conception of language as Generative Grammar (“folk linguistics”) and its notion of composition leads to the scale-up concerns. Fodor’s Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH) plays the role of a cognitive computational paradigm for folk linguistics. Therefore, we do not take LOTH as facing problems with higher cognition, at least with regard to compositionality. But PP can plausibly play the role of a cognitive-computational paradigm for an alternative conception of language, namely Construction Grammar. If Construction Grammar is a plausible alternative to folk linguistics, then PP is not in a worse position than LOTH. (shrink)

This article introduces Agentive Cognitive Construction Grammar, an emerging field that seeks to connect the linguistic system with speaker-meaning. The stated purpose is thus to tackle a pervasive disconnect in both cognitive linguistics and construction grammar, whereby the linguistic system and speaker selections are separated in the belief that language is essentially a mental process associated with the brain, and hence, separated from bodily experience. I contend this view by introducing a triadic model of construction (...) in which form and function are inextricably bound up with agency. This is possible because language is tethered to senses of movement and balance that connect experiences with the physical world with the mental. A major insight of the paper is that argument structure constructions partake of both linguistic and non-linguistic signs, which provides speakers with a means to verbalize their thoughts and distribute agency in specific events. (shrink)

This article discusses the English construction variously known as Locative Inversion or Stylistic Inversion. It shows that the construction displays a unique ensemble of grammatical and usage properties that can be stated but not motivated through purely grammatical means. In search of an explanatory approach, an analysis is presented that draws on concepts of Artificial Intelligence, in particular plans viewed as complex mental attitudes. It is claimed that utterances of Locative Inversion are associated with a particular communicative plan (...) on the speaker's part that motivates the grammatical and usage properties of the construction where grammar alone cannot. The final section of the article presents corpus examples showing that Locative Inversion is indeed used in the contexts predicted by the plan associated with the construction. This result is both theoretically and methodologically significant, insofar as it constitutes a case where the grammatical properties of a syntactic construction are better explained through its typical conditions of use than through grammatical means proper. (shrink)

This paper focuses on English yes-no interrogatives of the type Would you like/Do you want [NP]? and their elliptical variants You like/You want [NP]?, Like/Want [NP]? and [NP]?. The central question is what type of theoretical relationship can be assumed between the different forms. A theoretical discussion of different traditional approaches and their limitations is followed by the presentation of an explorative corpus search in the BNC, which can reveal interesting differences between the different stages of initial reduction, in particular (...) regarding the semantic class of the NP head nouns: While the possible lexemes found in the full forms and intermediate reductions seem only restricted by pragmatic constraints, the highly reduced [NP]? question displays only lexemes related to the semantic class of consumption goods. Construction Grammar (CxG) is suggested as a useful approach to explain the internal relationships between the different forms, especially because it offers the option of lexically open idiomatic structures, assumes a usage-based, hierarchical network with different degrees of independence between single constructions, and allows for an integration of pragmatic features into a grammatical model. (shrink)

Combining insights from two of the most influential approaches in linguistics, Construction Grammar and Relevance Theory, this book furthers our understanding of how meaning comes about. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

The mystery of the rise of the affirmative, declarative (periphrastic) use of do in the thirteenth century and its decline by the start of the eighteenth century remains one of the principal unsolved problems for linguists working in historical research. Some of the main arguments on the origins of do discuss the needs of poetic rhyme (e.g., Engblom 1938), the positioning of the adverb (e.g., Ogura 1993), the elimination of awkward consonant clusters (e.g., Stein 1990), and the ambiguities of object (...) referents in questions (Hudson 1997), much of the earlier historical research relying on hypotheses relating to internal problems of the system. The present study examines the early causative origins of do, viewed from a diachronic, construction-based approach, and offers an explanation in which the reanalysis and subsequent loss of do as a declarative, affirmative auxiliary took place via a process known as hyperanalysis (Croft 2000), resulting in the gradual process of co-lexicalization of the causative verb meaning within the semantics of the main verb across an ever-increasing range of main verb environments. (shrink)

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 NP IL of NP lm construction, which denotes a relation of internal location between a located entity and (...) a reference entity. Four subschemas of the Internal Location construction are examined: middle cxn, center cxn, heart cxn, and midst cxn. 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. midst cxn and heart cxn are in complementary distribution and operate mostly at the level of abstract locations whereas middle cxn and center cxn are in parallel distribution and operate at the level of concrete locations. (shrink)

In this volume Nick C. Ellis, Ute Römer, and Matthew Brook O’Donnell present a view of language as a complex adaptive system that is learned, both in first and second language contexts, through usage. In a series of research studies, they analyze Verb-Argument Constructions (VACs) in language learning, processing, and use. Drawing on diverse epistemological and methodological perspectives, they convincingly demonstrate that language emerges in the development of both mother tongue and additional languages out of multiple experiences of meaning-making following (...) general principles of learning relating to frequency, contingency, and semantic prototypicality. They draw implications from this work that will be of value to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplinary interests in language and learning. (shrink)

This article presents a systematic exposition of how the basic ideas of Construction Grammar and the Parallel Architecture of grammar provide the framework for a proper account of morphological phenomena, in particular word formation. This framework is referred to as Construction Morphology. As to the implications of CxM for the architecture of grammar, the article provides evidence against a split between lexicon and grammar, in line with CxG. In addition, it shows that the PA (...) approach makes it possible to be explicit about what happens on which level of the grammar, and thus to give an insightful account of interface phenomena. These interface phenomena appear to require that various types of information are accessible simultaneously, and it is argued that constructional schemas have the right format for expressing these mutual dependencies between different types of information. (shrink)

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 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. (shrink)

In the Kuhnian and Post-Kuhnian Philosophy of Science, it is widely accepted that scientific revolutions always involve the replacement of an old paradigm by a new paradigm. This article attempts to refute this assumption by showing that there are paradigm-constellations that conform to the relation of a scientific revolution in a Kuhnian sense without a paradigm-replacement occurring. The paradigms investigated here are the linguistic paradigms of Generative Grammar and Construction Grammar that, contrary to Kuhn’s conception of a (...) sequence of paradigm-replacements, are reconstructed as coexisting competing paradigms. By choosing linguistic paradigms, Kuhn’s assumption that paradigm-led research takes place only in the natural sciences is implicitly challenged, and an insight into linguistic theory-construction largely underrepresented in the philosophy of science is given. (shrink)

Interesting observations and problems emerge as the author pursues a complete calculus of an adverbial logic. Author Bartsch establishes a total of 18 adverbial subcategories and proposes an equal number of logico-semantic basic constructions in a predicate logical notation to explain them. The logico-semantic basic constructions bring out certain aspects of adverbial semantics, insofar as they can be specified by predicate logical means. However, for a logical and linguistic analysis of adverbials to be complete, sentence semantic analysis - provided it (...) is carried out in a clear-cut manner with clear paraphrasing criteria, unambiguous notation and complete interpretation rules - must be supplemented by and combined with 'word semantics' and syntax in a more elaborate way. The topic of adverbial semantics is a complicated and rewarding field, and this book contains enough suggestions, challenging hypotheses and stimulating observations, so that anybody directly concerned with the study of adverbials will want to have a look. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the hypothesis that constructions — here understood primarily as the dependencies of Word Grammar — can undergo systematic change, sometimes partly due to the effects of the grammaticalization of a lexical item or class of lexical items. I argue that the development of will as a future tense marker in English involves the development of a new construction where two separate syntactic items are associated with a single event in the semantics. I also (...) look at the loss of the impersonal construction in English, where it has been argued that the change is driven by an increase in the schematicity of the Transitive Construction, as well as having been argued that dative experiencers have been reclassified as subjects. I observe that it has also been noted that dative experiencers could function as subjects in earlier varieties of English, and suggest that this is an example of category strengthening. (shrink)

RESUMEN El artículo aborda la pregunta por la tarea de la memoria histórica en Colombia desde una perspectiva filosófica, concentrada en los retos epistemológicos y éticos derivados de la elaboración e implementación de iniciativas de memoria en contex tos de experiencia traumática. Se busca presentar y analizar estos retos desde las consecuencias conceptuales que los contextos traumáticos le plantean a los procesos de elaboración de memoria y a la práctica de escucha de testimonios provenientes de experiencias traumáticas. Se examinan los (...) modos para comprender, desde la fi losofía, un aspecto de la tarea de la memoria que puede pasar desapercibido, con el propósito de imaginar e identificar cursos de acción y estrategias de escucha más responsables, inclusivas y plurales. ABSTRACT The article addresses the task of historical memory in Colombia from a philosophical perspective focused on the epistemological and ethical challenges posed by the design and implementation of memory initiatives in contexts of traumatic experience. It presents and analyzes those challenges on the basis of the conceptual consequences that traumatic contexts have on processes of elaboration of memory and on the prac tice of listening to testimonies arising from traumatic experiences. The study also examines ways to understand philosophically an aspect of memory that might go unnoticed, in order to imagine and identify more responsible, inclusive, and plural courses of action and listening strategies. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

This paper examines early syntactic development from a usage-based perspective, using transcripts of the spontaneous speech of two Englishspeaking children recorded at relatively dense intervals at ages 2;0 and 3;0. We focus primarily on the children’s question constructions, in an effort to determine (i) what kinds of units they initially extract from the input (their size and degree of specificity / abstractness); (ii) what operations they must perform in order to construct novel utterances using these units; and (iii) how the (...) units and the operations change between the ages of two and three. In contrast to nativist theories of language development which suggest that children are working with abstract syntactic categories from an early point in development, we suggest that the data are better accounted for by the proposal that children begin with lexically specific phrases and gradually build up a repertoire of increasingly abstract constructions. (shrink)

The paper presents a system for construction classification representing multiple levels of specification, such as grammatical functions, grammatically reflected actants, and lexical semantics, aligned with a compositional system of sign combination mediating between a construction perspective and a valence perspective. The system uses a feature structure formalism based on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar but with essential elements from Lexical Functional Grammar, and has as implementation background large scale HPSG grammars. While on the one extreme being able (...) to encode word level selection in multi-word patterns, the system on the other provides a compact format for construction specification, allowing for cross-language comparison both in construction and valence frame inventories. Pivotal in these capacities as well as in sign formalization in general are the grammatical functions. The paper motivates the usefulness of the various functionalities and illustrates the way in which they work together in a formally uniform system. (shrink)

John Tucker; III—Constructivity and Grammar, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 63, Issue 1, 1 June 1963, Pages 45–66, https://doi.org/10.1093/aris.

John Tucker; III—Constructivity and Grammar, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 63, Issue 1, 1 June 1963, Pages 45–66, https://doi.org/10.1093/aris.

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 26 Heft: 1 Seiten: 61-94.

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

Japanese exhibits the Multiple Nominative Construction (MNC), where more than one nominative-marked NP appear within a single clause. Though the MNC has been extensively investigated in the syntax literature, its relation to rightward-displacement constructions has hardly been discussed. In the present article, we provide new sets of MNC data relating to the three types of right-displacement constructions: relatives, clefts, and postposing. The generalisation is that for the linearly ordered nominative-marked NPs in an MNC string, only the leftmost NP may (...) be right-displaced (that is, relativised, clefted, postposed). This pattern is shown to follow as an outcome of modelling incremental parsing, without stipulations specifically made for the observed data. We propose an account of MNCs in the light of an incremental grammar, formalising it within Dynamic Syntax. In this account, an MNC sentence is parsed on a word-by-word basis, and its interpretation is gradually built up, modelled as the growth of a semantic structure. In cases where a right-displacement is permitted, the right-displaced NP is successfully parsed against the structure built by the preceding part of the sentence. In cases where a right-displacement is disallowed, the right-displaced NP cannot be properly processed because the preceding part of the sentence has created no structural position into which the content of the right-displaced NP is reflected. As theoretical implications of the proposed account, we suggest the concept of time-linear grammaticality. (shrink)

It is the aim of INDICES to document recent explorations in the various fields of philosophical logic and formal linguistics and their applications in other disciplines. The main emphasis of this series is on self-contained monographs covering particular areas of recent research and surveys of methods, problems, and results in all fields of inquiry where recourse to logical analysis and logical methods has been fruitful. INDICES will contain monographs dealing with the central areas of philosophical logic (extensional and intensional systems, (...) indexical logics, non-classical logics, philosophy of logic, etc.) as well as studies in which these systems are applied to specific issues in philosophy, in the formal semantics of natural languages, the foundations of linguistic theory, in computational linguistics, and in theoretical computer science. Constructive type theory was first presented in 1970, by the Swedish logician Per Martin-Lof. It has become one of the main approaches used in the foundations of mathematics and computer science. But it has remained relatively unknown among linguists and philosophers, although it provides a considerable extension of the concepts and techniques of logic. The book first gives an introduction to type theory from the point of view of linguistics and the philosophy of language. Type theory is then applied in the areas of quantification, anaphora, temporal reference, and the structure of text and discourse. By virtue of the type-theoretical concepts of proof object and context, various phenomena of dependence and progression in language can be discussed in precise terms, and several well-known problems can be solved. A categorial grammar is presented togenerate formally a fragment of English, together with an example of a computer implementation. (shrink)

1971. Discourse Grammars and the Structure of Mathematical Reasoning II: The Nature of a Correct Theory of Proof and Its Value, Journal of Structural Learning 3, #2, 1–16. REPRINTED 1976. Structural Learning II Issues and Approaches, ed. J. Scandura, Gordon & Breach Science Publishers, New York, MR56#15263. -/- This is the second of a series of three articles dealing with application of linguistics and logic to the study of mathematical reasoning, especially in the setting of a concern for improvement of (...) mathematical education. The present article presupposes the previous one. Herein we develop our ideas of the purposes of a theory of proof and the criterion of success to be applied to such theories. In addition we speculate at length concerning the specific kinds of uses to which a successful theory of proof may be put vis-a-vis improvement of various aspects of mathematical education. The final article will deal with the construction of such a theory. The 1st is the 1971. Discourse Grammars and the Structure of Mathematical Reasoning I: Mathematical Reasoning and Stratification of Language, Journal of Structural Learning 3, #1, 55–74. https://www.academia.edu/s/fb081b1886?source=link . (shrink)

English grammar error correction algorithm refers to the use of computer programming technology to automatically recognize and correct the grammar errors contained in English text written by nonnative language learners. Classification model is the core of machine learning and data mining, which can be applied to extracting information from English text data and constructing a reliable grammar correction method. On the basis of summarizing and analyzing previous research works, this paper expounded the research status and significance of (...) English grammar error correction algorithm, elaborated the development background, current status, and future challenges of the classification model, introduced the methods and principles of feature extraction method and dynamic residual structure, constructed a basic model for English grammar error correction based on the classification model, analyzed the classification model and translation model of English grammar error correction, proposed the English grammar error correction algorithm based on the classification model, performed the analyses of the model architecture and model optimizer of the grammar error correction algorithm, and finally conducted a simulation experiment and its result analysis. The study results show that, with the continuous increase of training samples and the continuous progress of learning process, the proposed English grammar error correction algorithm based on the classification model will continue to increase its classification accuracy, further refine its recognition rules, and gradually improve correction efficiency, thereby reducing processing time, saving storage space, and streamlining processing flow. The study results of this paper provide a certain reference for the further research on English grammar error correction algorithm based on the classification model. (shrink)

Much philosophical attention has been devoted to the truth predicates of natural language and their logic. However, lexical truth predicates are neither necessary nor sufficient for a truth-attribution to occur, which warrants closer attention to the grammar of truth attribution. A unified analysis of five constructions is offered here, in two of which the lexical truth predicate occurs (It's true that John left and That John left is true), while in the three remaining, it does not (John left; It (...) seems that John left; and It's that John left). This analysis is philosophically significant for four reasons. First, it explains why speakers of natural language find standard instances of Tarski-inspired equivalences (e.g. That John left is true iff John left) intuitively compelling. Second, it derives the widespread ‘deflationist’ intuition that truth has no substantive content. Third, insofar as the deflationist sees insights on truth as flowing from understanding our practice of truth attribution, it furthers the deflationist agenda through a new analysis of such attributions. Finally, it advances the philosophical project of the ‘naturalization’ of truth by reducing our understanding of truth to our competence in the grammar of truth, as an aspect of our biological endowment. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Husserl’s Logical Grammar is intended to explain how complex expressions can be constructed out of simple ones so that their meaning turns out to be determined by the meanings of their constituent parts and the way they are put together. Meanings are thus understood as structured contents and classified into formal categories to the effect that the logical properties of expressions reflect their grammatical properties. As long as linguistic meaning reduces to the intentional content of pre-linguistic representations, however, it (...) is not trivial to account for how semantics relates to syntax in this context. In this paper, I analyze Husserl’s Logical Grammar as a system of recursive rules operating on representations and suggest that the syntactic form of representations contributes to their semantics because it carries information about semantic role. I further discuss Husserl’s syntactic account of the unity of propositions and argue that, on this account, logical form supervenes on syntactic form. In the last section I draw some implications for the phenomenology of thought and conjecture that the structural features it displays are likely to convey the syntactic structures of an underlying language-like representational system. (shrink)

Complex-transitive argument structures have received a large amount of attention from syntacticians of both formalist and cognitive-functional orientations. To account for expressions with causative resultative meanings, construction grammar has postulated a family of argument-structure constructions whose core is constituted by the Caused-Motion Construction and the Resultative Construction, exhibiting a locative complement and a predicative complement in the form of an AjP, respectively. Argument structures with NP complements, however, have been largely neglected. The present study investigates these (...) patterns in the International Corpus of English (ICE-GB) by means “collostruction analysis”. It shows that the formal distinction between AjP and NP complements corresponds to a constructional distinction hitherto unrevealed, viz. that between the Resultative Construction and another argument-structure construction, here called the “Denominative Construction”. Apart from improving existing descriptions of the network of complex-transitive argument-structure constructions, this study demonstrates that collostruction analysis can be employed in an exploratory way to discover constructions. (shrink)