This book brings together research in cognitive linguistics and experimental psychology to construct a psychologically plausible account of grammar as a mental network. To explore the organisation of this network, the author examines evidence from structural priming, which occurs when speakers’ processing of a grammatical construction is affected by prior exposure to the same or a similar construction. Previous experimental findings are innovatively reinterpreted to shed light on various aspects of the grammatical network, including the strength of the similarities between constructions, the level of abstraction at which they are represented and the ways in which similar constructions can either boost or inhibit each other. Moreover, new experiments are reported that extend structural priming to phenomena like the resultative, the depictive and the caused-motion construction. The book is directed at theoretical linguists, psycholinguists and cognitive psychologists alike, showcasing how recent work in these areas can be integrated and extended.

Provides a dynamic network model of grammar that explains how linguistic structure is shaped by language use.

This volume brings together ten contributions by leading experts who present their current usage-based research in Diachronic Construction Grammar. All papers contribute to the discussion of how to conceptualize constructional networks best and how to model changes in the constructicon, as for example node creation or loss, node-external reconfiguration of the network or in/decrease in productivity and schematicity. The authors discuss the theoretical status of allostructions, homostructions, constructional families and constructional paradigms. The terminological distinction between constructionalization and constructional change is revisited. It is shown how constructional competition but also general cognitive abilities like analogical thinking and schematization relate to the structure and reorganization of the constructional network. Most contributions focus on the nature of vertical and horizontal links. Finally, contributions to the volume also discuss how existing network models should be enriched or reconceptualized in order to integrate theoretical, psychological and neurological aspects missing so far.

Syntax puts our meaning (“semantics”) into sentences, and phonology puts the sentences into the sounds that we hear and there must, surely, be a structure in the meaning that is expressed in the syntax and phonology. Some writers use the phrase “semantic structure”, but are referring to conceptual structure; since we can express our conceptual thought in many different linguistic ways, we cannot equate conceptual and semantic structures. The research reported in this book shows semantic structure to be in part hierarchic, fitting the syntax in which it is expressed, and partly a network, fitting the nature of the mind, from which it springs. It is complex enough to provide for the emotive and imaginative dimensions of language, and for shifts of standard meanings in context, and the “rules” that control them. Showing the full structure of English semantics requires attention to many currently topical issues, and since the underlying theory is fresh, there are fresh implications for them. The most important of those issues is information structure, which is given full treatment, showing its overall structure, and its relation to semantics and the whole grammar of English. As of October 2024, this e-book is Open Access under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

The argument structure of verbs, defined as the part of grammar that deals with how participants in verbal events are expressed in clauses, is a classical topic in linguistics that has received considerable attention in the literature. This book investigates argument structure in English from a usage-based perspective, taking the view that the cognitive representation of grammar is shaped by language use, and that crucial aspects of grammatical organization are tied to the frequency with which words and syntactic constructions are used. On the basis of several case studies combining quantitative corpus studies and psycholinguistic experiments, it is shown how a usage-based approach sheds new light on a number of issues in argument realization and offers frequency-based explanations for its organizing principles at three levels of generality: verbs, constructions, and argument structure alternations.

This volume brings into focus the conceptual roots of the notion ‘grammatical construction’ as the theoretical entity that constitutes the backbone of Construction Grammar, a unique grammatical model in which grammatical constructions have the status of elementary building blocks of human language. By exploring the analytic potential and applicability of this notion, the contributions illustrate some of the fundamental concerns of constructional research. These include issues of sentence structure in a model that rejects the autonomy of syntax; the contribution of Frame Semantics in establishing the relationship between syntactic patterning and the lexical meaning of verbs; and the challenge of capturing the dynamic and variable nature of grammatical structure in a systematic way. All the authors share a commitment to studying grammar in its use, which gives the book a rich empirical dimension that draws on authentic data from typologically diverse languages.