Corpus-based Approaches to Construction Grammar PDF Download

Author: Jiyoung Yoon
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027266603
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 268

View

Book Description
This volume brings together empirical Construction Grammar studies to (i) promote cross-fertilization between researchers interested in constructional approaches on various languages, and (ii) further the growing trend towards empirically rigorous research that takes seriously a commitment not only to usage-based theories, but also to usage-based methodologies. Accordingly, the chapters in this volume comprise a range of studies not based on synchronic contemporary English but include Dutch, old English, Italian, and Spanish. This volume also features studies from a wider range of statistical sophistication: some chapters use more traditional frequency- and attestation-based approaches, some chapters use inferential statistical techniques to explore lexically specific preferences and patterns in constructional slots, and some chapters use multifactorial hypothesis-testing techniques or multivariate exploratory tools to discover patterns in corpus data that a mere eye-balling or simple statistical tools would not uncover.

Author: Florent Perek
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027268754
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258

View

Book Description
The argument structure of verbs, defined as the part of grammar that deals with how participants in verbal events are expressed in clauses, is a classical topic in linguistics that has received considerable attention in the literature. This book investigates argument structure in English from a usage-based perspective, taking the view that the cognitive representation of grammar is shaped by language use, and that crucial aspects of grammatical organization are tied to the frequency with which words and syntactic constructions are used. On the basis of several case studies combining quantitative corpus studies and psycholinguistic experiments, it is shown how a usage-based approach sheds new light on a number of issues in argument realization and offers frequency-based explanations for its organizing principles at three levels of generality: verbs, constructions, and argument structure alternations.

Author: Samantha Laporte
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027260087
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 419

View

Book Description
This book takes an integrated approach to the fields of Corpus Linguistics, Construction Grammar, and World Englishes through a thorough constructional and corpus-based examination of the patterning of the versatile high-frequency verb make in British English and New Englishes. It contributes to Construction Grammar theory by adopting a verb-based, rather than construction-based, perspective on argument structure. This allows the probing of the interface between verb-independent generalizations and item-specificity from an underexplored angle that offers new insights into the shape of the constructicon. From a variationist perspective, it seeks to (i) identify features of New Englishes and gauge whether these features exhibit traces of conventionalization, and (ii) assess whether the degree of institutionalization of the New Englishes correlates with linguistic behavior, both from a social and cognitive perspective, thereby contributing to the budding effort to integrate the cognitive and social dimensions into the modeling of linguistic variation in World Englishes.

Author: Stefan Th. Gries
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110197707
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 361

View

Book Description
Cognitive Linguistics, the branch of linguistics that tries to "make one's account of human language accord with what is generally known about the mind and the brain," has become one of the most flourishing fields of contemporary linguistics. The chapters address many classic topics of Cognitive Linguistics. These topics include studies on the semantics of specific words (including polysemy and synonymy) as well as semantic characteristics of particular syntactic patterns / constructions (including constructional synonymy and the schematicity of constructions), the analysis of causatives, transitivity, and image-schematic aspects of posture verbs. The key characteristic of this volume is that all papers adopt the methodological perspective of Corpus Linguistics, the rapidly evolving branch of linguistics based on the computerized analysis of language used in authentic settings. Thus, the contributions do not only all provide various new insights in their respective fields, they also introduce new data as well as new corpus-based and quantitative methods of analysis. On the basis of their findings, the authors discuss both theoretical implications going well beyond the singular topics of the studies and show how the discipline of Cognitive Linguistics can benefit from the rigorous analysis of naturally-occurring language. The languages which are investigated are English, German, Dutch, and Russian, and the data come from a variety of different corpora. As such, the present volume will be of interest to a wide range of scholars with many different foci and interests and should pave the way for further integration of usage-based techniques of analysis within this exciting paradigm.

Author: Sabine De Knop
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110458268
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 372

View

Book Description
Current research within the framework of Construction Grammar (CxG) has mainly adopted a theoretical or descriptive approach, neglecting the more applied perspective and especially the question of how language acquisition and pedagogy can benefit from a CxG-based approach. The present volume explores various aspects of “Applied Construction Grammar” through a collection of studies that apply CxG and CxG-inspired approaches to relevant issues in L2 acquisition and teaching. Relying on empirical data and covering a wide range of constructions and languages, the chapters show how the cross-fertilization of CxG and L2 acquisition/teaching can improve the description of learners’ use of constructions, provide theoretical insights into the processes underlying their acquisition (e.g. with reference to inheritance links or transfer from the L1), or lead to novel teaching practices and resources aimed to help learners make the generalizations that native speakers make naturally from the input they receive.

Author: Thomas Hoffmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195396685
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 609

View

Book Description
This Handbook is the first authoritative reference work solely dedicated to the theory, method, and applications of Construction Grammar, and will be a resource that students and scholars alike can turn to for a representative overview of its many sub-theories and applications.

Author: Nicholas Groom
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027267901
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 328

View

Book Description
Corpus linguistics has had a revolutionary impact on grammar and discourse research. Not only has it opened up entirely new theoretical perspectives and methodological possibilities for both fields, but it has also to a considerable extent erased the boundaries that have traditionally been drawn between them. This book showcases a variety of current corpus-based approaches to the study of grammar and discourse, and makes a case for seeing grammar and discourse as fundamentally inter-related phenomena. The book features contributions from leading experts in cognitive linguistics, construction grammar, critical discourse studies, genre and register analysis, phraseology, language learning and teaching, languages for specific purposes, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, systemic functional linguistics and text linguistics. An essential reference point for future research, Corpora, Grammar and Discourse has been edited in honour of Susan Hunston, whose own work has consistently pushed at the boundaries of corpus-based research on grammar and discourse for over three decades.

Author: Martin Hilpert
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748675868
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 232

View

Book Description
Construction Grammar explains how knowledge of language is organized in speakers' minds. The central and radical claim of Construction Grammar is that linguistic knowledge can be fully described as knowledge of constructions, which are defined as symbolic units that connect a linguistic form with meaning.

Author: Nick C. Ellis
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9781119296522
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
Nick C. Ellis, Ute Römer, and Matthew Brook O'Donnell present a view of language as a complex adaptive system that is learned through usage. In a series of research studies, they analyze Verb-Argument Constructions (VACs) in first and second language learning, processing, and use. Drawing on diverse epistemological and methodological perspectives, they show how language emerges out of multiple experiences of meaning-making. In the development of both mother tongue and additional languages, each usage experience affects construction knowledge following general principles of learning relating to frequency, contingency, and semantic prototypicality. The implications of this work will be of value to students and scholars from a wide range of disciplinary interests in language and learning. "This is an impressive volume that will inspire researchers for generations to come. Focusing on the construction and acquisition of language, it combines a comprehensive synthesis of theory with a detailed account of extensive empirical work." —Susan Hunston, University of Birmingham "This book is a phenomenal synthesis of a formidable research program. In a feast of corpus, psycholinguistic, acquisitional, and simulation evidence, the authors’ bold theoretical insights advance knowledge about human language to unprecedented levels." —Lourdes Ortega, Georgetown University "The authors present a superb synthesis of approaches to verb-argument constructions and convincingly demonstrate the close links between lexical patterning and constructional meaning. An absolute must-read for anyone interested in usage-based approaches to language learning." —Ewa Dabrowska, University of Northumbria at Newcastle "This book represents an outstanding achievement. The authors illustrate why the most exciting work in the language sciences today is conducted across disciplinary boundaries. Working at the intersection of experimental, computational, and corpus-based approaches, their research inspires us to look beyond our own disciplines to observe language data from all angles." —Patrick Rebuschat, Lancaster University

Author: Jonathan Dunn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009233777
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 191

View

Book Description
This Element introduces a usage-based computational approach to Construction Grammar that draws on techniques from natural language processing and unsupervised machine learning. This work explores how to represent constructions, how to learn constructions from a corpus, and how to arrange the constructions in a grammar as a network. From a theoretical perspective, this Element examines how construction grammars emerge from usage alone as complex systems, with slot-constraints learned at the same time that constructions are learned. From a practical perspective, this work is accompanied by a Python package which enables linguists to incorporate construction grammars into their own corpus-based work. The computational experiments in this Element are important for testing the learnability, variability, and confirmability of Construction Grammar as a theory of language. All code examples will leverage the cloud computing platform Code Ocean to guide readers through implementation of these algorithms.