Editing Construction grammar (section)

{{Short description|Family of theories within the field of cognitive linguistics}}
{{For|the TV show also sometimes abbreviated "CXG"|Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV series)}}
{{Linguistics}}
'''Construction grammar''' (often abbreviated '''CxG''') is a family of theories within the field of [[cognitive linguistics]] which posit that '''constructions''', or learned pairings of linguistic patterns with meanings, are the fundamental building blocks of human language. Constructions include words (''aardvark'', ''avocado''), [[morpheme]]s (''anti-'', ''-ing''), fixed expressions and [[idiom]]s (''by and large'', ''jog X's memory''), and abstract grammatical rules such as the [[English passive voice|passive voice]] (''The cat was hit by a car'') or the [[Ditransitive verb#In English|ditransitive]] (''Mary gave Alex the ball''). Any linguistic pattern is considered to be a construction as long as some aspect of its form or its meaning cannot be predicted from its component parts, or from other constructions that are recognized to exist. In construction grammar, every utterance is understood to be a combination of multiple different constructions, which together specify its precise meaning and form.<ref name=goldberg2006>{{cite book |last=Goldberg |first=Adele |title=Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |year=2006 |isbn=0-19-9-268525 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LHrcqeZmUN4C |pages=5–10 }}</ref>

Advocates of construction grammar argue that language and culture are not designed by people, but are 'emergent' or automatically constructed in a process which is comparable to [[natural selection]] in [[species]]<ref name="Croft_2006">{{cite book |last=Croft|first=William |editor-last=Nedergaard Thomsen |editor-first=Ole|year=2006| title=Competing Models of Linguistic Change: Evolution and Beyond | chapter=The relevance of an evolutionary model to historical linguistics |series=Current Issues in Linguistic Theory |volume=279 |publisher=John Benjamins |pages=91–132 |doi=10.1075/cilt.279.08cro |isbn=978-90-272-4794-0 }}</ref><ref name="Beckner_2009">{{cite journal |last1=Beckner |first1=Clay | last2=Blythe | first2 = Richard | last3=Bybee | first3=Joan | last4=Christiansen | first4= Morten H. | last5=Croft | first5=William | last6=Ellis | first6 =Nick C. | last7 = Holland | first7=John | last8=Ke | first8=Jinyun | last9=Larsen-Freeman | first9=Diane | last10= Schoenemann | first10=Tom |year=2009 |title=Language is a Complex Adaptive System: Position Paper |url=http://cnl.psych.cornell.edu/pubs/2009-LACAS-pos-LL.pdf |journal=Language Learning |volume=59 |issue=1 |pages=1–26 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00533.x|access-date=2020-03-04}}</ref><ref name="Cornish_etal_2009">{{cite journal |last1=Cornish|first1=Hannah | last2=Tamariz | first2 = Monica | last3=Kirby | first3=Simon |year=2009 |title=Complex Adaptive Systems and the Origins of Adaptive Structure: What Experiments Can Tell Us|url=https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/8777212/complex_adaptive_systems.pdf |journal=Language Learning |volume=59 |issue=1 |pages=187–205 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00540.x|s2cid=56199987 |access-date=2020-06-30}}</ref><ref name="MacWhinney_2015" /> or the formation of natural constructions such as [[nest]]s made by [[Eusociality|social insects]].<ref name="Dahl_2004">{{cite book |last=Dahl |first=Östen |year=2004| title=The Growth and Maintenance of Linguistic Complexity |publisher=John Benjamins |isbn=9781588115546 }}</ref> Constructions correspond to [[Replicator (evolution unit)|replicators]] or [[meme]]s in memetics and other cultural replicator theories.<ref name=Kirby_2013>{{cite book |last=Kirby|first=Simon |editor-last1=Binder |editor-last2=Smith|year=2013| title=The Language Phenomenon | chapter=Transitions: the evolution of linguistic replicators |series=The Frontiers Collection |publisher=Springer|url=http://www.labex-whoami.fr/images/documents/kirby_Labex_JC_paper.pdf |pages=121–138 |doi=10.1007/978-3-642-36086-2_6 |isbn=978-3-642-36085-5 |access-date=2020-03-04}}</ref><ref name=Zehentner_2019>{{cite book |last=Zehentner |first=Eva |year=2019| title=Competition in Language Change: the Rise of the English Dative Alternation |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |isbn=978-3-11-063385-6 }}</ref><ref name="MacWhinney_2015">{{cite book |last=MacWhinney |first=Brian|editor-last1=MacWhinney |editor-first1=Brian |editor-last2=O'Grady |editor-first2=William|title=Handbook of Language Emergence |publisher=Wiley |date=2015 |pages=1–31 |chapter= Introduction – language emergence |isbn= 9781118346136 }}</ref><ref name="Peschek_2010">{{cite journal |last=Peschek|first=Ilka |date=2010 |title=Die Konstruktion als kulturelle Einheit |journal=Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik |volume=38 |issue=3 |pages=451–457 |doi=10.1515/ZGL.2010.031|s2cid=143951283 }}</ref> It is argued that construction grammar is not an original model of cultural evolution, but for essential part the same as [[memetics]].<ref name="Blackmore_2008" />  Construction grammar is associated with concepts from cognitive linguistics that aim to show in various ways how human [[Rationality|rational]] and [[Creativity|creative]] behaviour is automatic and not planned.<ref name="Lakoff&Johnson_1999">{{cite book |last1=Lakoff|first1=George|last2=Johnson|first2=Mark |title=Philosophy in the Flesh : the Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought |publisher=Basic Books |date=1999|isbn=0465056733}}</ref><ref name="Dahl_2004" />