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Motivating a construction grammar

المؤلف:  Vyvyan Evans and Melanie Green

المصدر:  Cognitive Linguistics an Introduction

الجزء والصفحة:  C19-P641

2026-03-03

519

Motivating a construction grammar

So far in Part III of this book we have sketched out the characteristics of a cognitive approach to grammar (Chapter 14) and have investigated the main claims made by cognitive linguists relating to the conceptual basis of grammar (Chapter 15). We have also explored in some detail Cognitive Grammar, the influential theory developed by Langacker (Chapters 16–18). As we have seen, the construction has a central place in Cognitive Grammar, in the sense that any symbolically complex unit is ‘stored whole’ in the structured inventory that represents a speaker’s knowledge of language. In this chapter, we set about explaining how a constructional account can be motivated, something we have taken largely for granted up to this point. We will begin by comparing a constructional account with the ‘words and rules’ account assumed in most generative models of language (section 19.1). We then look in some detail at idiomatic expressions, linguistic units that display idiosyncratic as well as regular properties and cannot therefore be fully accounted for by a model of language that focuses on accounting for what is ‘regular’ (section 19.2). We explore two idiomatic grammatical constructions in detail: the let alone construction (Fillmore, Kay and O’Connor 1988) and the what’s X doing Y construction (Kay and Fillmore 1999). As we will see, in addition to displaying some regular grammatical properties, these constructions have grammatical, semantic and pragmatic properties that are not fully predictable from their sub parts. This discussion sets the scene for the development of the idea that grammatical constructions can be meaningful, in part independently of the content words that realise specific instances of the construction. Having explored the empirical motivation for a constructional approach to grammar, we sketch out the theory of Construction Grammar proposed by Kay and Fillmore (1999), and compare and contrast this approach with both generative and cognitive approaches to language (section 19.3). Finally, we consider Construction Grammar in the light of the ‘Generalisation Commitment’ (section 19.4).