The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics Part 54 pptx

and partially productive past-tense schema, but the alleged source forms, the present-
tense forms, are phonologically so varied that no single rule can systematically derive
the past-tense forms from the present-tense forms. The existence of product-oriented
schemas argues against rules linking one form to another and supports the view that
schemas are formed as taxonomic hierarchies over semantically similar forms.
Hypothesis 4: Strength of connection between word forms, and thus
forces influencing their phonological shape (among other
things), is a function of similarity. Similarity is measurable
by comparing words to each other in both meaning and
form; similarity in meaning is much stronger than similarity
in form.
It was noted in section 4 that the taxonomic hierarchy is really a taxonomic web: a
construction has multiple parents. The taxonomic web would be a far more complex
organization of constructions than a taxonomic hierarchy. While one cannot deny
the existence of the taxonomic web, it is certainly the case in morphology at least that
some word forms are ‘‘closer’’ to each other than to other related word forms; this is
the basis for the intuitive organization of forms into paradigms in traditional mor-
phology. Bybee (1985) argues that the principle governing closeness is essentially
semantic similarity, although formal similarity also plays a reinforcing role. More
often, one finds analogical reformation of a paradigm so as to bring formal similarity
into line with semantic similarity (i.e., paradigmatic iconicity; Croft 2003).
In principle, all four hypotheses should be supported in syntax as well as
morphology, if the construction grammar model is valid. Research on the usage-
based model in syntax has only begun at this point, although there is significant
research in language acquisition and language change in the usage-based model, as
will be seen below (see also Bybee this volume, chapter 36; Tomasello, this volume,
chapter 41).
Bybee and Thompson (1997) present evidence for the role of token frequency of
constructions (defined as token frequency of the substantive elements in the con-
struction) in grammatical organization. They observe that the syntax of the English
auxiliaries is conservative in that they invert with the subject in questions and

precede the negator. All verbs had this possibility in Middle English, but it was lost
in Modern English. Bybee and Thompson argue that the token frequency of the
auxiliaries was high enough that the Subject Inversion and Postposed Negation
constructions survived with auxiliaries when it was lost with other verbs. Bybee and
Thompson also note that the French Subjunctive Verb construction is disappearing
from the spoken language but survives in the highly frequent main clause verb
falloir ‘have to’ and/or in the most frequent complement verbs.
Cruse and I argue that product-oriented syntactic schemas exist (Croft and Cruse
2004: 313–18). For example, the English Polarity Question and Declarative Nega-
tion constructions have syntactic schemas, [Aux Sbj ?] and [Sbj Aux-n’t ], that
are more coherent than the input schemas, which may have zero, one, or more
auxiliary verbs. Other product-oriented schemas include the English Declarative,
500 william croft
which requires an overt subject even when one is semantically lacking (It’s raining)or
is extraposed (It seems that it’s never sunny in Manchester); the so-called Extraction
constructions such as the relative clause, information, and It-cleft constructions, in
which the ‘‘extracted’’ element is initial no matter what position it occurs in in the
simple declarative; and the Japanese Passive, in which the passive subject is initial and
the verb takes the passive -(r)are suffix, no matter what position the subject occurs in
in the active construction.
Finally, there is evidence that constructions are organized in terms of semantic
similarity. For example, the historical shift of the English negative adjectival im-
perative from Be not cruel! to Don’t be cruel! makes the negative adjectival imper-
ative syntactically more similar to the semantically more similar negative verbal
imperative Don’t jump! than the semantically more distant negative adjectival de-
clarative She isn’t cruel (Croft and Cruse 2004: 320–31). Semantic similarity is also
the governing principle underlying the semantic map model, used in typology and
in Radical Construction Grammar (Croft 2003: 133–39; van der Auwera and Nuyts,
this volume, chapter 40). The semantic map model maps the function of con-
structions in a conceptual space such that the functions of a single construction

form a connected region in the conceptual space. If this principle is followed
in cross-linguistic comparison, ideally one can construct a conceptual space such
that the semantic maps of any language’s constructions will form a connected
region in the conceptual space. If so, then the conceptual space is structured in
terms of the semantic similarity of functions as encoded in linguistic forms across
languages. The organization of conceptual space allows one to arrange construc-
tions in terms of semantic similarity; the usage-based model predicts that this
arrangement will be reflected in the formal syntactic similarity of these construc-
tions to some degree.
The usage-based model allows construction grammar to accommodate dy-
namic aspects of language: not simply language use, as discussed above, but also
language acquisition and language change.
Research on the acquisition of syntax by Tomasello, Lieven, Pine, and others
offers evidence for a usage-based, inductive model of the acquisition of syntax.
Evidence from very detailed longitudinal studies of early language development
demonstrates that children are in fact extremely conservative language learners
(Braine 1976 is an early important study along these lines; for more recent studies,
see Tomasello 2000, 2003; this volume, chapter 41). Children’s earliest multiword
utterances demonstrate that children use verbs and other predicates in only one
construction at a time (Tomasello 1992; Lieven, Pine, and Baldwin 1997; Pine and
Lieven 1997; Tomasello et al. 1997; Pine, Lieven, and Rowland 1998).
The main exception to this highly specific acquisition process is that children
do substitute different object names in a single participant role in a construction
from early on. Tomasello (1992) proposed the Verb Island Hypothesis, namely that
verbs and other predicates form ‘‘islands’’ of a single verb plus a single construc-
tion, before joining together the ‘‘islands’’ into a construction network such as that
illustrated in (12) above.
construction grammar 501
In other words, children do not utilize schematic categories such as [Verb]or
schematic constructions such as the Transitive construction [Sbj Verb Obj]in

their early acquisition, whether these schematic structures are innate or not. In-
stead, children begin with very low level generalizations based around a single
predicate and a single construction in which that predicate occurs and only later in
acquisition learn more schematic categories and constructions.
Although children substitute object names or ‘‘nouns’’ early in acquisition,
it does not appear that this implies that children acquire a schematic [Noun]or
[Determiner Noun]NP category early on. Pine and Lieven (1997) found that at
the earliest stage of learning nouns and determiners, children also proceed in a
piecemeal fashion. In their study, Pine and Lieven found that although children use
a variety of nouns with both a and the, the nouns they use with a and the nouns they
use with the overlap very little at first. Instead, it appeared that children learned
nouns with one determiner or that the determiner use was associated with larger
structures in which the noun and determiner occur, such as [in the X] or [That’s a
X]. Other studies indicate that children begin with ‘‘islands’’ other than verbs (Pine,
Lieven, and Rowland 1998), that acquisition of verbal inflections is piecemeal and
sensitive to frequency (Rubino and Pine 1998, on Brazilian Portuguese; Gathercole,
Sebastia
´
n, and Soto 1999 found the same in the acquisition of Spanish, but mor-
phological complexity also played a role).
These and other language acquisition studies suggest that a careful, detailed
examination of the actual course of development of children’s language acquisi-
tion conforms to the predictions of the usage-based model. Children begin with
very narrow construction types, even specific to individual verbs and nouns, and
gradually build more schematic grammatical constructions over time. The rate of
learning and generalization is influenced by the relative frequency of the con-
structions in the caregivers’ input. The order of acquisition is also sensitive to the
semantic distance between constructions.
Similar results are found in the detailed examinations of the paths of syntactic
change. As many historical linguists have observed in detailed studies, the birth and

growth of a construction proceeds in an incremental fashion, not terribly unlike
the expansion from ‘‘islands’’ of highly specific constructions as in child language
acquisition.
One example of a syntactic change, cast in a cognitive linguistic framework, is
Israel’s analysis of the development of the way construction, illustrated in (44)
(1996: 218):
(44) a. Rasselas dug his way out of the Happy Valley.
b. The wounded soldiers limped their way across the field.
c. ?Convulsed with laughter, she giggled her way up the stairs.
All of the way-construction examples given in (44) use a possessed direct object way
and require a complement describing the path of motion. Example (44a) describes
a means of achieving the motion along the path; (44b) describes a manner of
motion along the path; and example (44c) describes an incidental activity of the
502 william croft
subject as she travels along the path. The way-construction is also syntactically and
semantically idiosyncratic: the verbs in the way-construction are normally intran-
sitive, and their meaning does not normally entail motion.
Using data from the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford University Press
Corpus of Contemporary English, Israel argues that the modern way-construction
grew gradually from two different, more narrowly used way-constructions, the
Means and Manner constructions (a third source, the acquisition or continued
possession of a path, shrank rather than expanded, although it remains in certain
common instances such as find one’s way; Israel 1996: 221, note 3). The Manner
construction began as a special case of the Middle English [go one’s Path] con-
struction and was originally found with only the most common general motion
verbs, no more than sixteen verbs before 1700 (Israel 1996: 221). The Means way-
construction does not emerge until around 1650 and begins with verbs describing
path clearing (cut, furrow out), road building (pave, smooth) and forcible motion
(force out, Israel 1996: 223). In the nineteenth century, the Means and Manner way-
constructions appear to merge. At the same time that the class of verbs in the

way-construction is expanding, the overall syntactic form of the construction
becomes narrower, eventually prohibiting other nouns than way and requiring an
obligatory path expression (Israel 1996: 221, 226).
This (common) pattern in syntactic change illustrates how a new construction
emerges from an often highly specific instance of an existing construction schema
and then expands in its own direction. A usage-based model can account for this
pattern in that it allows for the entrenchment of specific instances of construction
schemas, which function as ‘‘islands’’ from which a new construction expands,
establishing and generalizing a new construction schema with its own syntactic and
semantic peculiarities.
7. Prospects for the Future

Construction grammar is a flourishing area of grammatical theorizing, as evidenced
by the range of construction grammar theories that have been proposed. On the
other hand, construction grammar is also a relatively new area, and a number of
aspects of constructing a model of grammatical representation need further devel-
opment. Some of these aspects have been alluded to in the course of this presentation.
Any model of grammatical representation that aspires to be psychologically
plausible, as construction grammar aspires to be, must also include a model of
utterance comprehension and production and of grammatical acquisition and
change (see also this volume, chapters 41 and 49).
Utterance comprehension involves the categorization of the utterance as an
instance of the various constructions that make it up and the construction of
construction grammar 503
a proper semantic interpretation of the utterance. Ideally, comprehension should
be modeled by an interactive activation network model, to reflect priming and
other effects that have been documented in psycholinguistic experiments.
Utterance production is a more difficult task. Construction Grammar employs
a unification model (see section 5.1) for utterance production (and comprehen-
sion). But other construction grammar models allow for the novel construal of

words and phrases in sentences (see Verhagen, this volume, chapter 3), which the
feature-matching unification algorithm would fail to model. Construction gram-
mars of course represent construction knowledge schematically, to a greater or
lesser degree. A model of utterance production would have to specify when all that
must be instantiated is in fact properly instantiated for an utterance to be produced.
Language acquisition research in a construction-based framework has made
major progress in understanding the earliest stages of syntactic development. An
important question which is now attracting more attention is the later develop-
ment of highly schematic constructions from the more substantive structures that
children begin with. Historical linguistic research, both philological and socio-
linguistic, has been usage-based since long before the usage-based model evolved;
but relatively few studies have taken a construction grammar approach to syntactic
change.
Finally, as noted in the last section, an important desideratum for most con-
struction grammars is the role of the usage-based model in syntactic representation.
Many fundamental questions remain to be addressed: How many tokens is enough
to entrench a linguistic unit? How many types are enough to give rise to some degree
of productivity? What is the role of timing of exposure in facilitating entrenchment?
How similar do tokens/types have to be to facilitate entrenchment of a grammatical
schema? How does one measure grammatical and semantic similarity in order to
compare its effect to that of token/type frequency? Substantive answers to these
questions will greatly advance the grammatical theory of Cognitive Linguistics.
NOTES

1. This analysis is very similar to the rule-to-rule hypothesis of Montague Grammar
(Dowty, Wall, and Peters 1981)—that for every syntactic rule, there must be an associ-
ated semantic interpretation rule—adopted by Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar
(Gazdar et al. 1985) and its lineal descendant, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
(Pollard and Sag 1993). The rule-to-rule hypothesis can be recast as the construction
grammar generalization that every construction has associated with it a meaning and a

mapping from form to meaning.
2. Other theories share some, though not all, of construction grammar’s basic prin-
ciples. Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG; Pollard and Sag 1987, 1993), Se-
miotic Grammar (MacGregor 1997), and Word Grammar (Hudson 1984; this volume,
chapter 19) share construction grammar’s representation of grammatical units as symbolic
504 william croft
units and organize grammatical knowledge into a taxonomic network. However, these
theories are not explicitly construction-based, although HPSG and Fillmore and Kay’s
(1993) version of construction grammar have converged in many respects—for example,
both use attribute-value matrices combining syntactic and semantic information, both use
inheritance in grammatical organization, and both use unification for combining con-
structions into sentences (see section 5.1). Word Grammar explicitly denies the existence of
constructions as complex symbolic units: ‘‘In Construction Grammar a construction
constitutes a phrase whose parts are also either words or phrases; in Word Grammar the
only units are words’’ (Holmes and Hudson 2005: 252).
3. More recently, Lakoff and colleagues have developed Embodied Construction
Grammar (Bergen and Chang 2005). Embodied Construction Grammar is distinguished
by its linking of semantic representations of constructions to simulations of perceptual-
motor routines in the mind. The syntactic model of Embodied Construction Grammar
is largely unchanged compared to the versions of Construction Grammar described in
this and the preceding sections.
4. Many contemporary syntactic theories treat categories as bundles of features, so
that, for example, the category Adjective is defined as [þN, þV] (Haegeman 1994: 146).
The decomposition of categories into features performs a further reduction, so that the
atomic elements are features instead of categories. However, for our purposes, we may
assume that the primitive elements are categories. Note that in the case of the examples
given here, Construction Grammar has atomic feature values for Noun and Verb ([cat n],
[cat v]) and Subject and Object ([gf subj], [gf obj]).
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508 william croft
chapter 19

WORD GRAMMAR

richard hudson
1. Language as
aConceptualNetwork

Word Grammar (Hudson 1984, 1990, 2007) is a theory of language which touches
on almost all aspects of synchronic linguistics and unifies them all through a single
very general claim (Hudson 1984: 1):
The Network Postulate:
Language is a conceptual network
This claim is hardly contentious in Cognitive Linguistics, where it is often taken for
granted that language as a whole is a network in contrast with the more traditional
view of language as a grammar plus a dictionary—a list of rules or principles and a
list of lexical items. However, it is particularly central to Word Grammar, in which
each of the main traditional areas of language is a subnetwork within the total
network of language.
Most obviously, ‘‘the lexicon’’ is a network of:
a. Forms
b. Meanings
c. Lexemes
(The scare-quotes round ‘‘the lexicon’’ anticipate section 8, which argues that the
lexicon is not an identifiable part of the total language.) This is a network rather
than a simple list because the elements among the parts are in a many-to-many
relation. There are lexemes which have more than one meaning (polysemy); there
are meanings which are shared by more than one lexeme (synonymy); and there
are lexemes which have more than one form (inherent variability).