Course title
Constructions: An integrated approach
Instructor
Arie Verhagen
E-mail: arie@arieverhagen.nl
Postal Address:
Leiden University Centre for Linguistics
P.N. van Eyckhof 1 (office 104a)
2311 BV Leiden
The Netherlands
Phone: +31 (0)71 527-4152
Homepage: http://www.arieverhagen.nl
This course offers an overview of Construction Grammar and the way it relates to semantics/pragmatics, language acquisition and processing, language change, and evolution. Construction Grammar is primarily a family of approaches to syntax based on the idea that constructions constitute the fundamental units for the grammatical analysis of utterances in natural languages. Over the years, Construction Grammar has developed into a comprehensive theoretical framework that provides an account of linguistic structure (syntax and semantics) and at the same time of processes of language use, language acquisition, and language change, in an integrated way. This is the result of the articulation of the 'usage-based' conception, according to which (systems of) rules of language are seen as emerging from patterns of actual language use: in the development of individuals (leading to knowledge of language in adults), as well as in the (cultural) evolution of conventional systems in populations (cf. grammaticalization).
Monday:
a) The motivation for Construction Grammar
b) Constructions and grammatical argumentation: the distributional method
Tuesday:
c) Structure in the constructicon: taxonomic networks of
syntactic and morphological constructions
d) The usage-based conception: processing and acquisition
Wednesday:
e) Clausal complementation as a network of constructions
f) 'Long distance Wh-movement' as a constructional idiom: form and function
Thursday:
g) Constructions as complex signs: emergent structure and the
issue of the autonomy of syntax
h) Constructions, linguistic diversity and language change: cultural evolution
Friday:
i) Constructions and the evolution of language
j) Wrap up and looking ahead
Readings directly covering the topics to be discussed in the course are (in order of presentation):
Goldberg (2003) (see reference above).
Jackendoff, Ray (2008), Construction after Construction and its theoretical challenges. Language 84: 8-28.
Croft, William & D. Alan Cruse (2004), Cognitive Linguistics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[Chapter 9, 'From Idioms to
Construction Grammar', p.225-256.]
Croft, William (2001), Radical Construction Grammar. Syntactic
Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[From Chapter 1: p.3-47.]
Bybee, Joan (2006), From Usage to Grammar: The Mind's Response
to Repetition. Language 82: 711-733.
Langacker, Ronald W. (2000), A dynamic usage-based model. In: Michael Barlow and Suzanne Kemmer (eds.), Usage-Based Models of Language. Stanford: CSLI Publications, p.1-63.
Langacker, Ronald W. (2009), A dynamic view of usage and language acquisition. Cognitive Linguistics 20: 627-640.
Tomasello, Michael (2006), Acquiring linguistic constructions. In D. Kuhn & R. Siegler (Eds.), Handbook of Child Psychology. Volume 2: Cognition, Perception, and Language. New York: Wiley, p.255-298.
Bannard, Colin, Elena Lieven and Michael Tomasello (2009), Modeling children's early grammatical knowledge. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106: 17284-17289.
Borensztajn, Gideon, Willem Zuidema and Rens Bod (2009), Children’s Grammars Grow More Abstract with Age—Evidence from an Automatic Procedure for Identifying the Productive Units of Language. Topics in Cognitive Science 1: 175–188.
Verhagen, Arie (2006). On subjectivity and 'long distance Wh-movement'. In: Angeliki Athanasiadou, Costas Canakis & Bert Cornillie (eds.), Subjectification: Various Paths to Subjectivity. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, p.323-346.
Langacker, Ronald W. (2005). Construction Grammars: Cognitive, radical, and less so. In Francisco J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez & M. Sandra Peña Cervel (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics: Internal Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, p.101-159.
Verhagen, Arie (2009), The conception of constructions as complex signs. Emergence of structure and reduction to usage. Constructions and Frames 1: 119-152.
Verhagen, Arie (2002), From parts to wholes and back again. Cognitive Linguistics 13: 403-439.
Verhagen, Arie (2007), English constructions from a Dutch perspective:
Where are the differences? In: M. Hannay & G.J. Steen (eds.), Structural-functional studies in English grammar. In honour of Lachlan
Mackenzie. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company,
2007, 257-274.
Bybee, Joan (1998), A functionalist approach to grammar and
its evolution. Evolution of Communication 2: 249-278.
Verhagen, Arie (in press), What do you think is the proper place of recursion? Conceptual and empirical issues. In: Harry van der Hulst (ed.), Recursion and Human Language. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Guyter, p.93-110.
Tomasello, Michael (2008), Origins of Human Communication.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Chapter 6: The Grammatical Dimension,
p.243-317.]
Further readings:
Tomasello, Michael (2003), Constructing a Language. A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Verhagen, Arie (2005), Constructions of Intersubjectivity.
Discourse, Syntax, and Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press
[Slightly extended paperback edition 2007].
Goldberg, Adele E. (2006), Constructions at Work. The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bod, Rens (2009), From Exemplar to Grammar: A Probabilistic Analogy-Based Model of Language Learning. Cognitive Science 33: 752–793.
Verhagen, Arie (in press), Usage, structure, scientific explanation,
and the role of abstraction, by linguists and by language users.
Target article and peer commentary in Cognitive Linguistics 20 (2009), in connection with Goldberg (2006):
Goldberg, Adele, The nature of generalization in language, 93–127.
Bod, Rens, Constructions at work or at rest?, 129–134.
Borsley, Robert D. and Frederick J. Newmeyer, On Subject-Auxiliary Inversion
and the notion "purely formal generalization", 135–143.
Crain, Stephen, Rosalind Thornton, and Drew Khlentzos, The case of the missing
generalizations, 145–155.
Croft, William, Constructions and generalizations, 157–165.
Langacker, Ronald W., Cognitive (Construction) Grammar, 167–176.
Lidz, Jeffrey, Alexander Williams, Constructions on holiday, 177–189.
Lieven Elena, Developing constructions, 201–224.
Goldberg, Adele E., Constructions work [Author's response], 201–224.