Cognitive Approaches to Grammatical Forms

1
Cognitive Approaches to Grammatical Forms

• Gui Shichun (based on Croft Cruse)

2
From Idioms to Construction Grammar

• Construction grammar grew out of a concern to
  find a place for idiomatic expressions in the
  speakers knowledge of a grammar of their
  language.
• Construction grammar arose as a response to the
  model of grammatical knowledge proposed by
  various versions of generative grammar.
• In most theories of generative grammar, a
  speakers knowledge is organized into components
  

3
The horizontal organization of grammatical
knowledge
Phonological component
Lexicon
Link rules
Syntactic component
Link rules
Semantic component
4
The model rejects the concept of construction

• The passive construction
• Janet was promoted by the company.
• subject be Verb-PastParticiple by Oblique
• In the generative model, as many of these
  properties of the passive construction as
  possible would be described by the general rules
  of various components, and any idiosyncratic
  properties would be placed in the lexicon.

5
The problems of idioms

• Idioms are grammatical units larger than a word
  which is idiosyncratic in some respect.
• it takes one to know one(the person who
  expressed criticism has similar faults to the
  person being criticized)
• pull a fast one(to trick somebody)
• bring down the house(to make the audience laugh)
• wide awake(completely awake)
• sight unseen(buying something without looking at
  the thing first)
• all of a sudden
• (X) blows Xs nose
• Once upon a time

6
3. Three features which can be used to classify
idioms

• Encoding vs decoding.
• An encoding idiom is one that is interpretable by
  the standard rules for interpreting sentences,
  but is arbitrary (conventional) with this
  meaning, e.g. wide awake, answer the door, and
  bright red.
• A decoding idiom is one that cannot be decoded by
  the hearer, a hearer will not be able to figure
  out the meaning of the whole from the meaning of
  its parts, e.g. to pull a fast one, to kick the
  bucket.

7
Contin.

• Grammatical vs extragrammatical idioms.
• Grammatical idioms are parsable by the general
  syntactic rules for the language, but are
  semantically irregular, e.g. (X) blows Xs nose,
  kick the bucket.
• Extragrammatical idioms cannot be parsed by the
  general syntactic rules for the language, e.g.
  all of a sudden, so far so good, in short.

8
Contin.

• Substantive vs formal (schematic) idioms
• A substantive, or lexically filled, idiom is one
  which all the elements are fixed, e.g. it takes
  one to know one is completely fixed, one cannot
  even alter the tense(it took one to know one).
• A formal (schematic), or lexically open, idiom is
  one in which at least part of the idiom an be
  filled by the usual range of expressions that are
  syntactically and semantically appropriate for
  the slot, e.g. (X) blows Xs nose, X can be
  filled by a noun phrase I blow my nose, Kim blew
  her nose, etc.

9
4. A three-way categorization of idioms

• Unfamiliar pieces unfamiliarly arranged. Certain
  words occur only in a idiom, e.g. kith and kin,
  with might and main.
• Familiar pieces unfamiliarly arranged, e.g. all
  of a sudden, in point of fact.
• Familiar pieces familiarly arranged, e.g. pull
  Xs leg ( tease X, which can have any
  person-denoting noun phrase as X), tickle the
  ivories (play the piano very well, which can be
  inflected for tense/mood).

10
(No Transcript)
11
5. Idioms as constructions

• Fillmore et al argue that the proper way to
  represent speakers knowledge of idioms is as
  constructions. A construction is a schematic
  idiom. That is some elements of the construction
  are lexically open on the one hand, and so the
  idioms fitting the description cannot simply be
  listed as phrasal lexical items. On the other
  hand, it is semantically and possibly also
  syntactically and lexically irregular.
• As an illustration, the construction of the
  conjunction let alone is given to show that it
  has syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties
  that cannot be described by the general rule of
  the language.

12
Contin.

• As a coordinating conjunction Max would eat
  SHRIMP, let alone SQUID.
• It allows sentence fragments for the second
  conjunct. Let alone is like certain other
  conjunctions, including comparative than
• John hardly speaks RUSSIAN, let alone BULGARIUN
  vs John speaks better Russian than Bulgarian.
• It is impossible with VP ellipsis (deletion of
  verb phrase excluding the auxiliary)
• Max wont eat shrimp, let alone Minnie will.
• It is a paired focus construction
• He doesnt get up for LUNCH, let alone BREAKFAST
  vs He doesnt get up for LUNCH, much less
  BREAKFAST or She didnt eat a BITE, never mind a
  WHOLE MEAL.

13
Contin.

• Let alone occurs mostly in negative contexts, but
  it is also possible in certain contexts
• Youve got enough material there for a whole
  SEMEMSTER, let alone a WEEK.

All these point to the fact that the let alone
construction has its own syntactic, semantic, and
pragmatic properties that cannot be predicted
from more general rules of syntax, semantics and
pragmatics.
14
6. From constructions to construction grammar

• A construction is a syntactic configuration,
  sometimes with one or more substantive items
  (e.g. the words let alone, have a ) and
  sometimes not (e.g. the focus constructions).
• A construction has its own semantic
  interpretation and sometimes its own pragmatic
  meaning.
• A construction cuts across the componential model
  of grammatical knowledge. Like lexicon, it is a
  vertical structure which combines syntactic,
  semantic and even phonological information.

15
Contin.
Phonological component
Lexicon
Constructions
Link rules
Syntactic component
Link rules
Semantic component
16
7. The syntax-lexicon continuum
17
8. The symbolic structure of a construction
CONSTRUCTION
syntactic properties morphological
properties phonological properties
FORM
Symbolic correspondence (link)
semantic properties pragmatic properties discourse
-functional properties
(CONVENTIONAL) MEANING
18
9. Different versions of construction grammar

• Construction Grammar (Fillmore, Kay, et al)
• Lakoff (1987) and Goldberg (1995)
• Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 1987, 1999, 2001)
  as a construction grammar
• Radical construction grammar (Croft,2001)