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462 ronald w. langacker
chapter 18

CONSTRUCTION
GRAMMAR

william croft
1. Introduction: The Revival
of Constructions

Construction grammar presents a general theory of syntactic representation for
Cognitive Linguistics. In this sense, construction grammar (lower case) as treated in
this chapter refers to a cluster of cognitive linguistic theories of grammar, only some
of which have come to be known under the name of Construction Grammar
(capitalized).
The fundamental principle behind construction grammar is that the basic form
of a syntactic structure is a construction—a pairing of a complex grammatical
structure with its meaning—and that constructions are organized in a network. The
notion of a construction, of course, goes back to the concept in traditional gram-
mar, but it has been substantially altered in its revival. In particular, the notion of a
construction has been generalized so that it is a uniform model for the representa-
tion of all grammatical knowledge—syntax, morphology, and lexicon. There are
also antecedents in the 1960s and 1970s to the revival of constructions in Cognitive

Linguistics and parallel proposals in other contemporary models of syntactic repre-
sentation. Finally, construction grammar in contemporary Cognitive Linguistics
exists in a number of variants.
In section 2, the model of syntactic representation against which construction
grammarians have reacted, the componential model, is described, and the argu-
ments for a construction-based approach to syntax, morphology, and lexicon are
presented. The next two sections emphasize the commonalities among the different
models of construction grammar in Cognitive Linguistics. Section 3 describes the
structure of constructions, and section 4 the organization of constructions in a
grammar. Section 5 discusses the major variants of construction grammar in Cog-
nitive Linguistics, this time focusing on how they differ from one another. Section
6 discusses the relationship between construction grammar and the usage-based
model, language acquisition, and language change.
2. Arguments for
Construction Grammar

Construction grammar represents a reaction to the componential model of the
organization of a grammar that is found in generative syntactic theories. In the
componential model, different types of properties of an utterance—its sound
structure, its syntax, and its meaning—are represented in separate components,
each of which consists of rules operating over primitive elements of the relevant
types (phonemes, syntactic units, semantic units). Each component describes one
dimension of the properties of a sentence. The phonological component, for ex-
ample, consists of the rules and constraints governing the sound structure of
a sentence of the language. The syntactic component consists of the rules and con-
straints governing the syntax—the combinations of words—of a sentence. The se-
mantic component consists of rules and constraints governing the meaning of a
sentence. In other words, each component separates out each specific type of lin-
guistic information that is contained in a sentence: phonological, syntactic, and
semantic. In addition, all versions of Chomskyan Generative Grammar have broken

down the syntactic component further, as levels or strata (such as ‘‘deep structure,’’
later ‘‘D-structure,’’ and ‘‘surface structure,’’ later ‘‘S-structure’’; Chomsky 1981)
and modules or theories (such as Case theory, Binding theory, etc.; Chomsky 1981).
Further components have been proposed by other linguists. Some have argued
that morphology, the internal formal structure of words, should occupy its own
component (e.g., Aronoff 1993). Others have suggested that information structure,
that is, certain aspects of discourse or pragmatic knowledge, should have its own
component (Vallduvı
´
1992). However many components are proposed, the general
principle remains: each component governs linguistic properties of a single type—
sound, word structure, syntax, meaning, and use.
The only constructs which contain information cutting across the components
are words, which represent conventional associations of phonological form, syn-
tactic category, and meaning. Words are found in their own ‘‘component,’’ the
lexicon. The lexicon differs radically from other components in that it contains
information of more than one type and also in that the units in the lexicon are
464 william croft
syntactically atomic: they are the minimal syntactic units. (Words may be mor-
phologically complex, of course.)
More recently, attention has been directed to linking rules that link complex
syntactic structures to their semantic interpretation and link syntactic structures
to their phonological realization. The best explored linking rules in the compo-
nential model are the rules linking semantic participant roles in the lexical semantic
representation of verbs to syntactic argument positions in syntactic structure (see,
e.g., Jackendoff 1990; Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995). However, there must in
principle be linking rules joining together all components of the componential
model.
The componential model is illustrated in figure 18.1.
Within each component, the model of representation is essentially reductionist.

That is, each component consists of atomic primitive elements and rules of com-
bination that build complex structures out of atomic structures. Of course, the
inventory of atomic primitive elements and the permissible types of rules of com-
bination vary significantly from one componential theory to another. But the basic
componential structure and the reductionist analysis of the structures in each
component is common to all of the generative and formalist models of syntactic
representation.
The componential model can also be interpreted as a means to represent gram-
matical knowledge without explicitly referring to constructions in the traditional
sense of that term. The logical conclusion of the componential analysis of grammar is
the hypothesis that all properties of syntactic constructions—i.e., grammatical
structures larger than just a single word—can be captured with the general rules of
the grammatical components and their interfaces, and thus there is no need for con-
structions in grammatical analysis. Chomsky makes this claim explicit:
A central element in the work discussed here, as in recent work from which
it evolves, is the effort to decompose such processes as ‘‘passive,’’ ‘‘relativization,’’
etc., into more fundamental ‘‘abstract features.’’ (Chomsky 1981: 121)
UG [Universal Grammar] provides a fixed system of principles and a finite array
of finitely valued parameters. The language-particular rules reduce to choice of
values for these parameters. The notion of grammatical construction is eliminated,
and with it, construction-particular rules. (Chomsky 1993: 4)
Figure 18.1. The componential model of the organization of grammar
construction grammar 465
Chomsky’s position on the generality of syntax and the irrelevance of construc-
tions to the analysis of grammar is the complement of his view that all arbitrary
and idiosyncratic aspects of grammar should be restricted to the lexicon.
Construction grammar arose out of a concern to analyze one particularly
problematic phenomenon for the componential model, namely, idioms. Idioms are
linguistic expressions that are syntactically and/or semantically idiosyncratic in
various ways but are larger than words, and hence cannot simply be assigned to the

lexicon without some special mechanism. Some idioms are lexically idiosyncratic,
using lexical items found nowhere else, such as kith and kin ‘family and friends’.
Such idioms are by definition syntactically and semantically irregular, since the
unfamiliar word has no independent syntactic or semantic status. Other idioms use
familiar words but their syntax is idiosyncratic, as in all of a sudden or in point of
fact; these are called extragrammatical idioms. Still other idioms use familiar words
and familiar syntax but are semantically idiosyncratic, such as tickle the ivories ‘play
the piano’.
Idioms pose a problem for the componential model because their idiosyncrasy
requires inclusion of information from multiple components, yet they are complex
and often partly rule-governed and therefore appear to belong in an individual
component, not the lexicon. In other words, there is no proper place in the com-
ponential model for idioms. Construction grammarians in Cognitive Linguistics
were by no means the first to observe the problems that idioms pose for compo-
nential models (see, e.g., Makkai 1972; Becker 1975; Bolinger 1976).
In their seminal paper in Construction grammar, Fillmore, Kay, and O’Connor
(1988) develop the argument for constructions based on the existence and perva-
siveness of idioms, which they classify into three types. A theory of grammar should
capture the differences among these types of idioms and their relationship to the
regular lexicon and regular syntactic rules of a language. The need for a theory that
can accommodate idioms is most critical for idioms which are schematic to a greater
or lesser degree. Most idioms are not completely lexically specific or substantive, like
the idioms given above, but instead include schematic categories admitting a wide
range of possible words and phrases to instantiate those categories.
Partially schematic idioms also range over all three types described by Fillmore,
Kay, and O’Connor. A schematic idiom which is lexically idiosyncratic is the
Comparative Conditional construction The X-er, the Y-er as in The longer you
practice, the better you will become (the form the is not directly related to the
definite article, but is derived from the Old English instrumental demonstrative
form

py
). An example of an extragrammatical schematic idiom is the ‘‘Cousin’’
construction Nth cousin (M times removed),asinsecond cousin three times removed,
which describes different kinds of distant kin relations and has its own unique
syntax. Finally, an example of a schematic idiom that is only semantically idio-
syncratic is pull NP’s leg ‘joke with NP’ as in Don’t pull my leg; the NP category can
be filled by any noun phrase denoting a human being.
Schematic idioms pose an even more serious challenge to the componential
model than substantive idioms because schematic idioms either have regularities of
466 william croft
their own which should be captured as regularities (the extragrammatical schematic
idioms) or follow regular syntactic rules and ought to be somehow represented as
doing so (the grammatical schematic idioms). Moreover, all idioms are semanti-
cally idiosyncratic, which means that they do not follow general rules of semantic
interpretation. Instead, they have their own rules of semantic interpretation.
Fillmore, Kay, and O’Connor argue that the existence of idioms should be
accepted as evidence for constructions. Constructions are objects of syntactic repre-
sentation that also contain semantic and even phonological information (such as
the individual substantive lexical items in the partially schematic idioms, or special
prosodic patterns or special rules of phonological reduction as in I wanna go too).
Constructions are like lexical items in the componential model: they link together
idiosyncratic or arbitrary phonological, syntactic, and semantic information. The
difference between lexical items and constructions is that lexical items are sub-
stantive and atomic (that is, minimal syntactic units), while constructions can be
at least partially schematic and complex (consisting of more than one syntactic
element).
Beginning with Fillmore, Kay, and O’Connor (1988) and Lakoff (1987), there
have been a number of detailed studies of constructions whose grammatical prop-
erties cannot be accounted for by the general syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic
rules of English; other major studies following Fillmore, Kay, and O’Connor and

Lakoff’s model include Goldberg (1995) and Michaelis and Lambrecht (1996). Also,
the studies of syntactic structures with special pragmatic functions by Prince (1978,
1981) and Birner and Ward (1998) and the studies of syntactic structures with
special semantic interpretations by Wierzbicka (1980, 1982, 1987, 1988) strengthen
the case for treating those syntactic structures as constructions. Even formal syn-
tacticians who adhere to the componential model have recognized the existence of
constructions to some extent; see, for example, Akmajian (1984; cf. Lambrecht’s
1990 reanalysis of the same phenomenon) and Jackendoff (1990, 1997).
All of these studies can be interpreted as merely requiring the addition of
a constructional component to the componential model. But Fillmore, Kay, and
O’Connor (1988: 505, note 3) observe in a footnote that there is in fact a continuum
from substantive to schematic. Schematic idioms vary considerably in their che-
maticity. Some schematic idioms, such as the verb phrase idiom kick the bucket
‘die’, are fixed except for grammatical inflectional categories:
(1) a. Jake kicked the bucket.
b. Jake’s gonna kick the bucket. [etc.]
Other schematic idioms have one or more open argument slots as well as inflec-
tional flexibility, such as give NP the lowdown ‘inform’:
(2) a. I gave/I’ll give him the lowdown.
b. He gave/He’ll give Janet the lowdown. [etc.]
Still other schematic idioms have open classes for all ‘‘content’’ words, leaving just
a salient form such as the connective let alone as a substantive element:
construction grammar 467
(3) a. She gave me more candy than I could carry, let alone eat.
b. Only a linguist would buy that book, let alone read it.
Finally, a constructional analysis has been proposed for some schematic idioms in
which all elements are lexically open. For example, the Resultative construction—
actually one of yet another family of constructions—is analyzed as a construction
by Goldberg (1995: 181):
(4) a. This nice man probably just wanted Mother to kiss him unconscious.

(D. Shields, Dead Tongues, 1989)
b. I had brushed my hair very smooth. (C. Bronte
¨
, Jane Eyre, 1847)
Yet the Resultative construction has no lexically specific element. It can be de-
scribed only by a syntactic structure, in this case [NP Verb NP XP], with a unique
specialized semantic interpretation.
It is a short step from analyzing the Resultative construction as a construc-
tion to analyzing all the syntactic rules of a language as constructions. A syntactic
rule such as VP ? VNPdescribes a completely schematic construction [VNP],
and the semantic interpretation rule that maps the syntactic structure to its cor-
responding semantic structure is unique to that schematic construction.
Fillmore, Kay, and O’Connor take the logical next step: regular syntactic rules
and regular rules of semantic interpretation are themselves constructions. The only
difference between regular syntactic rules and their rules of semantic interpretation
and other constructions is that the former are wholly schematic while the latter
retain some substantive elements. Likewise, Goldberg (1995: 116–19) suggests that
there is a Transitive construction just as there are more specialized schematic
syntactic constructions such as the Resultative construction. Reanalyzing general
syntactic rules as the broadest, most schematic constructions of a language is just
the other end of the substantive-schematic continuum for idioms/constructions.
Turning to semantic interpretation, one can also argue that semantically idio-
syncratic constructions and compositional semantic rules differ only in degree, not
in kind. Most idioms are what Nunberg, Sag, and Wasow (1994) call idiomatically
combining expressions, in which the syntactic parts of the idiom (e.g., spill and
beans) can be identified with parts of the idiom’s semantic interpretation (‘divulge’
and ‘information’, respectively). They argue that idiomatically combining expres-
sions are not only semantically analyzable, but also semantically compositional.
Idiomatically combining expressions are only the extreme end of a continuum
of conventionality in semantic composition. The other end of the continuum is

represented by selectional restrictions. Selectional restrictions are restrictions on
possible combinations of words which are determined only by the semantics of the
concepts denoted by the word. For example, the restrictions on the use of mud and
car in (5) and (6) follow from the fact that mud is a viscous substance and a car is a
machine:
(5) a. Mud oozed onto the driveway.
b. ?*The car oozed onto the driveway.
468 william croft
(6) a. The car started.
b. ?*Mud started.
The combinations in (5a) and (6a) are semantically compositional: the meaning of
the whole can be predicted from the meaning of the parts.
Nunberg, Sag, and Wasow argue that the same analysis applies to idiomatically
combining expressions. Idiomatically combining expressions are largely fixed in
their words; any substitution leads to ungrammaticality, as in (7b), (7c), and (8b):
(7) a. Tom pulled strings to get the job.
b. *Tom pulled ropes to get the job.
c. *Tom grasped strings to get the job.
(8) a. She spilled the beans.
b. *She spilled the succotash.
However, given the meanings of the words in the idiomatically combining expres-
sion, the meaning of the whole expression is compositional:
By convention strings [in pull strings] can be used metaphorically to refer to
personal connections when it is the object of pull, and pull can be used meta-
phorically to refer to exploitation or exertion when its object is strings. (Nunberg,
Sag, and Wasow 1994: 496)
The traditional description of idioms is that the meaning of the idiomatically
combining expression is ‘‘noncompositional.’’ But this is not the correct descrip-
tion. Consider the idiom spill the beans, illustrated in (9):
(9) spill the beans

An idiomatically combining expression such as spill the beans is a construction.
As a construction, it has unique syntax: the verb must be spill and its object must be
the beans. It also has a semantic interpretation, namely ‘divulge information’. All
Nunberg, Sag, and Wasow are saying is that this construction has its own semantic
interpretation rules, mapping spill onto ‘divulge’ and the beans onto ‘information’.
What they have done is dissociate conventionality from noncompositionality.
Idiomatically combining expressions are not noncompositional. There exist truly
noncompositional expressions; these are idiomatic phrases such as saw logs ‘sleep’
and kick the bucket. Idiomatically combining expressions differ from collocations
and ordinary expressions only in that the conventional way of expressing the parts
of its meaning are conventional and also relatively opaque, compared to colloca-
tions and ordinary expressions.
construction grammar 469