Cognitive Linguistics
Croft & Cruse 9
From idioms
to construction grammar
9.1 Introduction
• Construction grammar arose as a reaction to
Generative grammar, inspired by a concern for
the need to account for idiomatic expressions –
the rest of this section basically describes
modular theories of this type, where rules
generate all structures larger than the word, thus
“eliminating” the notion of the grammatical
construction
• On the generative view, syntax is completely
regular, and all arbitrary or idiosyncratic
phenomena belong to the lexicon
9.2 The problem of idioms
• Idiom – a conventional expression whose
meaning or use cannot be entirely
predicted on the basis of its constituents
– Other properties:
• Restricted syntax
• Figurative meaning
• Description of social activity in terms of concrete
action
• Association with informal register
• Evaluative or affective description
9.2 The problem of idioms, cont’d.
• The problem is that the behavior of idioms is
partly explainable by syntactic rules and partly
not explainable. If your theory says that
everything is in either the lexicon or the
syntax, what can you do with idioms?
• Fillmore et al. identify various kinds of
distinctions among idioms:
–
–
–
–
Encoding vs. decoding idioms
Grammatical vs. extragrammatical idioms
Substantive vs. formal idioms
With vs. without pragmatic point
9.2 The problem of idioms, cont’d.
• Encoding idioms: interpretable, but
arbitrarily conventionalized (answer the
door), something a hearer could figure out,
but wouldn’t guess to be the normal way of
saying it
• Decoding idioms: uninterpretable, and also
arbitrarily conventionalized (kick the
bucket)
9.2 The problem of idioms, cont’d.
• Grammatical idioms – parsable by
syntactic rules, but semantically irregular
(X blows X’s nose) (both encoding and
decoding idioms can be grammatical)
• Extragrammatical idioms – cannot be
parsed by syntactic rules (by and large)
9.2 The problem of idioms, cont’d.
• Substantive idioms – lexically filled, all
elements are fixed and nothing can be
grammatically altered (It takes one to
know one)
• Formal (aka schematic) idioms – have at
least one slot where appropriate items can
be filled in (X blows X’s nose)
9.2 The problem of idioms, cont’d.
• With pragmatic point – idioms that are
used in certain pragmatic contexts (See
you later)
• Without pragmatic point – not limited to
use in certain pragmatic contexts (all of a
sudden)
9.2 The problem of idioms, cont’d.
• There is yet another way to categorize
idioms:
– Unfamiliar pieces unfamiliarly arranged (kith
and kin)
– Familiar pieces unfamiliarly arranged (all of a
sudden)
– Familiar pieces familiarly arranged (tickle the
ivories) – lexically and syntactically regular
but semantically irregular
9.3 Idioms as constructions
• Construction are basically idioms that have slots
that can be filled with a bit more freedom than
substantive idioms (where some or all of the
words are fixed) – they are schematic idioms.
• Case study: let alone – semantics and syntax of
this construction is complex and not predictable
from general rules. It is also part of a family of
related constructions (cf. Lakoff’s there
constructions, IT-clefts, Wierzbicka’s give a, take
a, have a)
• Schematic idioms are often language-specific
9.4 From constructions to
construction grammar
• The fact that constructions join syntactic and
semantic interpretations means that they are
incompatible with a modular/componential
model of grammar.
• Note that it is NOT the case that there is a
discrete division between substantive idioms
and schematic idioms – most idioms allow some
variation with very few or only one fixed
component (let alone), some allow a LOT of
variation, and some don’t have ANY fixed
components (like the resultative construction)
9.4 From constructions to
construction grammar, cont’d.
• Let’s look at the resultative
construction
– Sort of related to verb-particles
• He hammered the nail in
• He hammered the board
smooth
• He sneezed the napkin off
the table
• He dropped the napkin off the table
• He dropped the napkin off
• It’s just one small step
between a schematic idiom
and ALL constructions!
9.4 From constructions to
construction grammar, cont’d.
• Collocations: these are constructions that are
compositional, but in a limited way: toasted bread vs.
roasted meat.
• However, even “noncompositional” idioms often obey
some compositional rules: spill the beans instantiates a
Verb + Object phrase.
• Constructions are “idiomatic” in some ways: NP be Adj
(cf. Hannah is smart) is a construction that requires the
copula be and an adjective – semantic interpretation: Adj
symbolizes an atemporal relation, copula symbolizes a
process that Adjs must be combined with in order to be
predicated.
9.4 From constructions to
construction grammar, cont’d.
• “…semantic interpretation rules can be
provided for any schematic construction
describing the most general syntactic
structures of the language. In other words,
all syntactic expressions, whatever their
degree of schematicity, have rules of
semantic interpretation associated with
them…”
9.4 From constructions to
construction grammar, cont’d.
• “…the difference between regular syntactic
expressions and idiomatically combining
expressions is not that the former are
‘compositional’ and the latter are
‘noncompositional’. Instead, the former’s rules of
semantic composition are more general and the
latter’s rules…are more specialized… …the
concept of a construction can be generalized to
encompass the full range of grammatical
knowledge of a speaker.”
9.4 From constructions to
construction grammar, cont’d.
• So syntax and semantics are a unified whole,
and can be accounted for as constructions
– What about morphology?
• We see similar phenomena in morphology too – morphemes
like cran in cranberry that are as “idiomatic” as kith in kith and
kin. Some morphemes are more schematic than others.
– What about the lexicon?
• The lexicon differs only in degree from constructions. Words
have their own syntactic profiles.
9.4 From constructions to
construction grammar, cont’d.
• Where does all this lead us?
– There is a uniform representation of all
grammatical knowledge, in the form of
constructions
– There is a continuum that encompasses both
syntax and lexicon
9.4 From constructions to
construction grammar, cont’d.
• What is a construction grammar?
– A construction can be atomic or complex
– A construction can have parts that are bound
or free
– Any or all of the parts may be substantive or
schematic
– All constructions are pairings of a syntactic
and morphological/phonological form with a
meaning, including pragmatic meaning