Constructions are patterns and so are fixed expressions
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Laura A. Michaelis
Abstract
In Construction Grammar, grammar is conceived as an inventory of form-function-meaning complexes of varying degrees of internal complexity and lexical fixity. These complexes range from single lexemes like the verb demur to multiword expressions like the VP sweep x under the rug to syntactic templates lacking any lexical content, like that used to form polar interrogative questions. Whether we are describing a lexeme, a class of lexemes, a word with highly constrained selection properties (e.g. the adjective blithering) or a way to create a headed phrase of a particular type, we are describing patterns, because in each case we are describing the combinatoric properties of words. But if we take a pattern to mean a recurrent configuration containing some fixed and some variable components, only a phrasal template would seem to qualify. A verb by itself does not constitute a configuration, and a fixed expression like call it a day, while arguably phrasal, does not contain any open slots - it is inflexible. So, can a word or a word class or a fixed formula really be a pattern? This puzzle is resolved in Sign-Based Construction Grammar (SBCG; Sag 2012; Michaelis 2012; Kay and Sag 2012): all linguistic expressions are modelled as feature structures, whether these are signs or sign configurations (constructs). The question of what forms the grammar licenses comes down to the question of whether a given feature structure of the type sign is well formed. SBCG analyses lexical signs and constructs in much the same way: each kind of model object is deemed well formed (or not) according to its conformity to a feature-structure description of the type sign. The well formedness of a construct is determined indirectly, according to whether the construct’s mother sign conforms to a phrasal sign of the grammar. Because lexical signs and constructs are licensed in the same way, SBCG offers a uniform approach to all of the expressions - both lexemic and templatic - that populate the idiomaticity continuum and the meanings to be discovered at each point along this continuum.
Abstract
In Construction Grammar, grammar is conceived as an inventory of form-function-meaning complexes of varying degrees of internal complexity and lexical fixity. These complexes range from single lexemes like the verb demur to multiword expressions like the VP sweep x under the rug to syntactic templates lacking any lexical content, like that used to form polar interrogative questions. Whether we are describing a lexeme, a class of lexemes, a word with highly constrained selection properties (e.g. the adjective blithering) or a way to create a headed phrase of a particular type, we are describing patterns, because in each case we are describing the combinatoric properties of words. But if we take a pattern to mean a recurrent configuration containing some fixed and some variable components, only a phrasal template would seem to qualify. A verb by itself does not constitute a configuration, and a fixed expression like call it a day, while arguably phrasal, does not contain any open slots - it is inflexible. So, can a word or a word class or a fixed formula really be a pattern? This puzzle is resolved in Sign-Based Construction Grammar (SBCG; Sag 2012; Michaelis 2012; Kay and Sag 2012): all linguistic expressions are modelled as feature structures, whether these are signs or sign configurations (constructs). The question of what forms the grammar licenses comes down to the question of whether a given feature structure of the type sign is well formed. SBCG analyses lexical signs and constructs in much the same way: each kind of model object is deemed well formed (or not) according to its conformity to a feature-structure description of the type sign. The well formedness of a construct is determined indirectly, according to whether the construct’s mother sign conforms to a phrasal sign of the grammar. Because lexical signs and constructs are licensed in the same way, SBCG offers a uniform approach to all of the expressions - both lexemic and templatic - that populate the idiomaticity continuum and the meanings to be discovered at each point along this continuum.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- List of tables and figures VII
- List of contributors IX
- Patterns in linguistics: This volume, its aims and its contributions 1
- From term to concept and vice versa: Pattern(s) in language and linguistics 11
- How to do things with intertextual patterns: On Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose 47
- Word-entry patterns in Early Modern English dictionaries 69
- Collocations and colligations: Visualizing lexicogrammar 97
- Constructional pattern-development in language change 125
- How constructions are born. The role of patterns in the constructionalization of be going to INF 157
- Constructions are patterns and so are fixed expressions 193
- A dynamic equational approach to sound patterns in language change and secondlanguage acquisition: The (un)stability of English dental fricatives illustrated 221
- Learning by predicting: How predictive processing informs language development 255
- Index 289
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- List of tables and figures VII
- List of contributors IX
- Patterns in linguistics: This volume, its aims and its contributions 1
- From term to concept and vice versa: Pattern(s) in language and linguistics 11
- How to do things with intertextual patterns: On Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose 47
- Word-entry patterns in Early Modern English dictionaries 69
- Collocations and colligations: Visualizing lexicogrammar 97
- Constructional pattern-development in language change 125
- How constructions are born. The role of patterns in the constructionalization of be going to INF 157
- Constructions are patterns and so are fixed expressions 193
- A dynamic equational approach to sound patterns in language change and secondlanguage acquisition: The (un)stability of English dental fricatives illustrated 221
- Learning by predicting: How predictive processing informs language development 255
- Index 289
