Constructions at Work by Adele Goldberg Oxford U Press 2006

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Constructions at Workby Adele GoldbergOxford U
Press 2006

• Presented by Laura A. Janda

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Overview of the book

• Part I (Chap 1, 2, 3) Theory, comparison with
  Generativism
• Part II (Chap 4, 5, 6) Learning, how and why
  constructions are learned
• Part III (Chap 7, 8, 9) Constraints, how they
  work language-internally and cross-linguistically
• Chap 10 Comparison with Generativism and other
  construction grammars (Fillmore, Croft,
  Langacker)
• Chap 11 Conclusion

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What is a construction?

• a conventionalized pairing of form and meaning
• This works at many levels simultaneously -- its
  constructions all the way down
• Any given utterance contains many constructions
• Constructions are not componential, meaning can
  be wholistic/emergent, though some items can be
  put in slots

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Part I (Chap 1, 2, 3) Theory
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Ch1 Constuctionism (CCxG) vs. Generativism

• Where they agree
• Language is a cognitive system
• It is possible to combine structures to create
  novel utterances
• Theory must account for acquisition, for
  potentially infinite output given finite input

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Ch1 Constuctionism (CCxG) vs. Generativism

• Where they disagree
• Input is not so impoverished
• Relationship of structure and meaning
• Nature of meaning
• Distinction between core language (grammar
  rules) and periphery (lexicon storage)
• Status of idioms
• How grammar (core) is transmitted
• Transformation/derivation
• Levels of language
• Underlying representations, empty elements
• Relationship of language to cognition

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Ch1 Basic Assumptions of CCxG

• Language is the aggregate network of
  constructions
• Language is learned on the basis of input and
  general cognitive mechanisms
• Storage and grammatical rules (generalizations)
  overlap, coexist and cooperate
• Idioms are not special, no clear boundary between
  idioms and grammar

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Ch1 Basic Assumptions of CCxG

• Semantics are always important, there are no
  purely formal generalizations
• Some semantic prototypes may exist
  cross-linguistically because humans are more
  alike than different
• Semantics is recursive language works because I
  can imagine what you think about what someone
  else believes

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Ch2 Surface generalizations

• Each surface pattern should be considered on its
  own terms
• Various constructions may be related to each
  other, but they are not derived from each other
• Constructions can be combined freely
  (juxtapositions blends as well as addition),
  when conflicts arise they are resolved by
  construal or coercion
• Note
• Goldberg is dealing with constructions
  specifically at the level of the verb phrase, but
  her model can be used at other levels

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Ch2 Notation

• Sem
• gives arguments labels, but does not assume that
  they come from a universal set, can be determined
  by the construction
• Syn
• surface structure
• Solid lines
• argument role of construction must fuse with
  independently existing participant role of verb
• Dashed lines
• argument role can be contributed by construction,
  doesnt have to be inherent to verb

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Ch2 The Surface Generalization Hypothesis

• There are typically broader syntactic and
  semantic generalizations associated with a
  surface argument structure form than exist
  between the same surface form and a distinct form
  that it is hypothesized to be syntactically or
  semantically derived from
• Each argument structure pattern is best analyzed
  in its own terms, without relying on reference to
  a possible alternative paraphrase

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Ch2 Interaction of roles

• Interaction of participant roles (ltverb) and
  argument roles (ltconstruction) accounts for
  overlap in meaning of paraphrases
  ambiguity/multiple interpretations
• Each sense of a verb is associated with certain
  participant roles

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Ch2 Two constraints on fusion of participant
roles (ltverb) and argument roles (ltconstruction)

• Semantic Coherence Principle participant role
  of verb and argument role of construction must be
  semantically compatible the more specific
  participant role of the verb must be construable
  as an instance of the more general argument role
  a categorization task
• Correspondence Principle profiled participant
  roles of the verb must be encoded by profiled
  argument roles of the construction lexical
  semantics and discourse pragmatics are aligned
• Correspondence principle can be overridden by a
  construction such as passive, which deemphasizes
  a normally profiled role like agent.

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Ch2 Arguments and Adjuncts
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Ch3 Item-Specific knowledge and generalizations

• Information about specific exemplars is stored
• Abstractions are created locally, on the basis of
  small numbers of exemplars
• Language learning must involve memories of
  individual examples because the end state of
  grammar is only partially general
• Oftentimes an idiom is constructionally the same
  as something that is very common

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Ch3 Item-Specific knowledge and generalizations

• It must be that both generalizations and
  instances are stored
• Children seem to both learn instances and make
  generalizations

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Ch3 Usage-Based models of language

• Grammars are usage-based if they record facts
  about actual use of linguistic expressions such
  as frequencies and individual patterns that are
  fully compositional alongside more traditional
  linguistic generalizations
• Language learners are conservative they do not
  generalize significantly beyond the evidence in
  the input, and they seek generalizations that are
  consistent with the evidence presented
• Language learners seek both local consistency and
  global consistency. Local consistency makes
  learners aim to be conservative and stick closely
  with the local instances that they have
  witnessed. Global consistency makes learners seek
  out generalizations among instances so that the
  overall system coheres

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Part II (Chap 4, 5, 6) Learning
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Ch4 How constructions are learned

• Growing evidence that at least certain patterns
  in language are learnable on the basis of general
  categorization strategies
• Poverty of stimulus point of view is biologically
  implausible
• What is crucial is the uncontroversial notion
  that there do in fact exist correlations between
  formal linguistic patterns and meaning.

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Ch4 Skewed input

• In input from mothers, go, put, give, make are
  more frequent than all other verbs, and are used
  in only one construction each
• go Intrans Motion
• put Caused Motion
• give Ditransitive
• make Resultative
• Certain verbs are templates for the learning of
  other verbs and constructions
• children gradually abstract a more general and
  purely syntactic pattern

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Ch4 The advantage of skewed input an anchoring
effect

• A high-frequency token is likely to be considered
  a prototype by the learner
• Categories with a salient stable prototype are
  easier to learn
• Frequency and order of acquisition play key roles
  in category formation
• Input is structured in such a way as to make the
  generalization of argument structure
  constructions straightforward
• Knowledge of constructions is a straightforward
  extension, by generalization, of knowledge of
  groups of words that behave similarly

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Ch5 How generalizations are constrained

• Factors
• a) entrenchment (token frequency)
• b) statistical pre-emption (repeated witnessing
  of a word in a competing pattern)
• c) type frequency
• d) variety of items that occur (degree of
  openness)
• How to minimize overgeneralizations more
  specific knowledge always pre-empts general
  knowledge in production when all else is equal

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Ch5 Collaboration between storage and
conservative generalization

• Specific knowledge vs. generalizations
• referee preempts reffer
• children preempts childs
• went preempts goed
• moister co-exists with the abstractly created
  more moist
• Pre-emption gives learners indirect negative
  input since an instance of X suggests that the
  context is probably not good for any other Y
• Constructions that have appeared with many
  different types are more likely to appear with
  new types than constructions that have only
  appeared with few types

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Ch6 Why generalizations are learned

• Verbs are good cues to sentence meaning cf.
  childs early learning of verb-centered argument
  structure patterns (verb islands)
• But children also generalize beyond the verb
  this is useful in predicting overall sentence
  meaning
• Constructions are often better predictors of
  overall meaning than verbs

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Ch6 Cue validity of verbs vs. constructions

• Most verbs appear in more than one construction
• Pat got the ball over the fence (VOL pattern -gt
  caused motion) vs. Pat got Bob a cake (VOO
  pattern -gt transfer)
• Here got has lower cue validity than construction
• Cue validity for VOL construction in predicting
  caused-motion meaning in mothers speech 63-85
  vs. Cue validity for verbs 68 (near 100 for a
  few, extremely low for most)
• Cue validity for VOO construction 61-94 vs. Cue
  validity for verbs 61 (a few with 100 and very
  low for all the rest)

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Ch6 Cue and category validity for caused-motion

• Corpus of mothers speech
• 100s Eng verbs can appear in the C-M
  construction, for nearly all of them, cue
  validity is close to 0 (highest is put at 62)
• Only 3 constructions express caused motion, and
  the VOL construction has 83 category validity
• constructions are better cues to sentence meaning
  than verbs

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Ch6 Summary

• Verb is best single word predictor of overall
  sentence meaning, but constructions have equal
  cue validity and much higher category validity,
  thus the construction is at least as reliable and
  much more available
• Because many verbs have low cue validity in
  isolation, attention to the contribution of the
  construction is essential
• Hearing or producing a particular construction
  makes it easier to produce the same construction
• Instead of learning a myriad of unrelated
  constructions, speakers do well to learn a
  smaller inventory of patterns in order to
  facilitate online production

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Part III (Chap 7, 8, 9) Constraints
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Ch7 Island constraints

• Generative grammar Islands are certain
  syntactic constructions that restrict
  extraction (complex noun phrases, complex
  subjects, complements of manner-of-speaking
  verbs, adjunct clauses)
• CCxG so-called movement involves combinations
  of constructions and clashes in their information
  structure
• Keenan Comries (1977) accessibility hierarchy
  subject gt direct object gt oblique object gt object
  of comparison -- this corresponds to foregrounded
  gt gt gt backgrounded

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Ch7 Island constraints, contd

• It all boils down to this -- Backgrounded
  constructions are islands
• The restriction on backgrounded constructions is
  clearly motivated by the function of the
  constructions involved.
• Elements involved in unbounded dependencies are
  positioned in discourse-prominent slots
• It is pragmatically anomalous to treat an element
  as at once backgrounded and discourse-prominent
• Example ditransitive recipient argument, which
  is almost always (old) given information -- it is
  thus backgrounded and resists unbounded
  dependencies

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Ch7 More examples

• Subordinate clauses most, but not all, are
  backgrounded
• Reason clauses may or may not be backgrounded,
  same goes for adjuncts
• Both restrictive and non-restrictive relative
  clauses are backgrounded
• Displacement from canonical position creates
  additional processing load and this combines with
  the pragmatic clash to result in unacceptability

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Ch7 Other examples

• Quantifier scope ( use of a, one, some with all,
  every, each) is also strongly correlated with
  topicality
• The information-structure properties of
  constructions predict their predominant
  assignment of scope

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Ch8 Subject-Auxiliary Inversion (SAI)

• SAI found in yes/no ques, non-subject wh-ques,
  counterfactual conditionals, sentences with
  negative adverbs, exclamatives, comparatives,
  negative conjuncts, positive rejoinders.
• It has been claimed that these contexts are
  unrelated, so this is just syntax
• CCxG shows that syntactic form of SAI is
  motivated by semantic/pragmatic function
• Goldberg shows that SAI forms a radial category

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Ch8 The SAI prototype

• The prototype is a non-prototypical sentence
  non-positive, non predicate focus, non-assertive,
  dependent, non-declarative
• The various types of SAI are linked to this
  prototype
• But WHY should non-positive contexts be indicated
  by an inversion of subject and auxiliary?

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Ch8 Why SAI?

• Auxiliaries carry information about polarity as
  well as tense and aspect
• By positioning the auxiliary in a non-canonical
  position, the construction conveys that the
  polarity involved is not the canonical, positive
  polarity
• Note that SAI is rare cross-linguistically, but
  UG assumes SAI is a universal -- while the formal
  approach may be descriptively adequate, it does
  not, in the case of SAI, have any explanatory
  force

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Ch9 Mapping of roles is learnable and learned

• Universalist vs. Emergentist debate
• Linking rules (link agent to SUBJECT, patient
  to OBJECT, etc.) are a problem for UG, assumed to
  be universal, not learned
• CCxG solution not universals, but tendencies,
  that result from general cognitive, pragmatic, or
  processing attributes of human cognition
• Isomorphic Mapping Hypothesis ( of NPs and
  linking)
• Not exceptionless
• Motivated by non-linguistic generalizations

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Ch9 Isomorphic Mapping Hypothesis

• Exceptions
• Pat was killed (missing agent)
• The tiger killed again (missing patient)
• Pat buttered the toast (incorporated patient)
• Pat laughed a hearty laugh (object of an
  intransitive)
• These exx show that we cannot claim universal
  validity it makes more sense to accept a weaker
  pragmatic generalization...

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Ch9 Pragmatic Mapping Generalizations

• (A) The referents of linguistically expressed NPs
  are interpreted to be relevant to the message
  being conveyed.
• (B) Any semantic participants in the event being
  conveyed that are relevant and non-recoverable
  from context must be overtly indicated.
• This formula states only what has to be there,
  not what might be required by the grammar of a
  given language.
• Participants that are irrelevant or recoverable
  dont have to be expressed, and languages differ
  on how they deal with this some require them,
  some dont.

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Ch9 Other examples

• Goldberg shows that may supposed universals can
  be accounted for by non-linguistic motivations
• Discourse-conditioned argument omission
• Recoverable arguments need not be expressed
• Ditransitive construction
• Recipient is subject-like
• Word-order generalizations
• Processing simplicity
• Iconicity
• Proximity both functionally and
  temporally/spatially

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Ch9 Summary

• Generalizations typically capture tendencies, not
  hard and fast constraints
• It is advantageous to explain universal
  tendencies by appeal to independently motivated
  pragmatic, semantic, and processing facts, since
  these would not be expected to be perfectly
  exceptionless

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Ch10 Differences between CCxG and UG

• UG
• Assumes derivational approach to syntax
• Ignores speaker construal
• Assumes pairing of underlying form and coarse
  meaning rather than surface form and detailed
  function
• Assumes only certain patterns are constructions
  words and morphemes are stored separately
• Assumes syntax makes no reference to semantics or
  function
• Assumes constructions are universal and
  determined by UG
• Does not address language-internal
  generalizations across constructions

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Ch10 Differences between CCxG and UG

• CCxG assumes
• Each verb sense lexically specifies the number
  and semantic type of arguments it has, and which
  of those arguments are obligatory (profiled),
  along with its rich frame semantic meaning
• Each argument structure construction specifies
  its formal properties, its semantic and
  information-structure properties, and how it is
  to combine with verbs and arguments
• Constructions specify which if any arguments they
  contribute
• There is a cline of productivity and regularity
• The role of the lexicon includes phrasal patterns
  with their own idiosyncratic syntactic or
  semantic properties
• It is the interaction of the argument structure
  of the verb and construction that gives rise to
  interpretation

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Ch10 Various Construction Grammars

• Charles Fillmore

Ronald Langacker
William Croft
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Ch11 Conclusion

• Speakers knowledge of language consists of
  systematic collections of form-function pairings
  that are learned on the basis of the language
  they hear around them
• The usage-based model of grammar is supported not
  only by linguistic facts, but also by what we
  know about how non-linguistic categories are
  represented
• Far from being an arbitrary collection of
  stipulated descriptions, our knowledge of
  linguistic constructions, like our knowledge
  generally, forms an integrated and motivated
  network
• Child learners can make statistical
  generalizations, use semantics and pragmatics for
  making interpretations and generalizations
• Constructions can be learned, and learned
  quickly, on the basis of the input