Editing Construction grammar (section)

== Some construction grammars ==
As mentioned above, Construction grammar is a "family" of theories rather than one unified theory. There are a number of formalized Construction grammar frameworks. Some of these are:

===Berkeley Construction Grammar===
Berkeley Construction Grammar (BCG: formerly also called simply Construction Grammar in upper case) focuses on the formal aspects of constructions and makes use of a unification-based framework for description of syntax, not unlike [[head-driven phrase structure grammar]]. Its proponents/developers include Charles Fillmore, Paul Kay, [[Laura Michaelis]], and to a certain extent [[Ivan Sag]]. Immanent within BCG works like Fillmore and Kay 1995<ref>Fillmore, Charles J. and Paul Kay. 1995. A Construction Grammar Coursebook. Unpublished ms, University of California, Berkeley.</ref> and Michaelis and Ruppenhofer 2001<ref>Michaelis, L. A., & Ruppenhofer, J. 2001. Beyond alternations: A constructional account of the applicative pattern in German. Stanford: CSLI Publications.</ref> is the notion that phrasal representations—embedding relations—should not be used to represent combinatoric properties of lexemes or lexeme classes. For example, BCG abandons the traditional practice of using non-branching domination (NP over N' over N) to describe undetermined nominals that function as NPs, instead introducing a determination construction that requires ('asks for') a non-maximal nominal sister and a lexical 'maximality' feature for which plural and mass nouns are unmarked. BCG also offers a unification-based representation of 'argument structure' patterns as abstract verbal lexeme entries ('linking constructions'). These linking constructions include transitive, oblique goal and passive constructions. These constructions describe classes of verbs that combine with phrasal constructions like the VP construction but contain no phrasal information in themselves.

===Sign-based construction grammar===

In the mid-2000s, several of the developers of BCG, including Charles Fillmore, Paul Kay, Ivan Sag and Laura Michaelis, collaborated in an effort to improve the formal rigor of BCG and clarify its representational conventions. The result was Sign Based Construction Grammar (SBCG). SBCG<ref>Boas, H.C. and Sag, I.A. eds., 2012. Sign-based construction grammar (pp. xvi+-391). CSLI Publications/Center for the Study of Language and Information.</ref><ref>Michaelis, L.A., 2009. Sign-based construction grammar. The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis, pp.155-176.</ref> is based on a multiple-inheritance hierarchy of typed feature structures. The most important type of feature structure in SBCG is the sign, with subtypes word, lexeme and phrase. The inclusion of phrase within the canon of signs marks a major departure from traditional syntactic thinking. In SBCG, phrasal signs are licensed by correspondence to the mother of some licit construct of the grammar. A construct is a local tree with signs at its nodes. Combinatorial constructions define classes of constructs. Lexical class constructions describe combinatoric and other properties common to a group of lexemes. Combinatorial constructions include both inflectional and derivational constructions. SBCG is both formal and generative; while cognitive-functional grammarians have often opposed their standards and practices to those of formal, generative grammarians, there is in fact no incompatibility between a formal, generative approach and a rich, broad-coverage, functionally based grammar. It simply happens that many formal, generative theories are descriptively inadequate grammars. SBCG is generative in a way that prevailing syntax-centered theories are not: its mechanisms are intended to represent all of the patterns of a given language, including idiomatic ones; there is no 'core' grammar in SBCG. SBCG a licensing-based theory, as opposed to one that freely generates syntactic combinations and uses general principles to bar illicit ones: a word, lexeme or phrase is well formed if and only if it is described by a lexeme or construction. Recent SBCG works have expanded on the lexicalist model of idiomatically combining expressions sketched out in Sag 2012.<ref>Sag, Ivan A. (2012) Sign-Based Construction Grammar: An informal synopsis, in H. C. Boas and I. A. Sag, (eds), Sign-Based Construction Grammar. Stanford: CSLI Publications). 69-202</ref>

===Goldbergian/Lakovian construction grammar===
The type of construction grammar associated with linguists like Goldberg and Lakoff looks mainly at the external relations of [[grammatical construction|constructions]] and the structure of constructional networks. In terms of form and function, this type of construction grammar puts psychological plausibility as its highest desideratum. It emphasizes experimental results and parallels with general cognitive psychology. It also draws on certain principles of cognitive linguistics. In the Goldbergian strand, constructions interact with each other in a network via four inheritance relations: [[polysemy]] link, subpart link, metaphorical extension, and finally instance link.<ref name="goldberg1995" />

===Cognitive grammar===
Sometimes, Ronald Langacker's [[cognitive grammar]] framework is described as a type of construction grammar.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y07ieD2tyk&t=549s  |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/6y07ieD2tyk| archive-date=2021-12-12 |url-status=live|title=Trees, Assemblies, Chains, and Windows |last=Langacker |first=Ronald |date=2016-10-05 |website=YouTube |publisher=FrameNet Brazil |access-date=2021-05-07 |quote=}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Cognitive grammar deals mainly with the semantic content of constructions, and its central argument is that conceptual semantics is primary to the degree that form mirrors, or is motivated by, content. Langacker argues that even abstract grammatical units like [[part-of-speech]] classes are semantically motivated and involve certain conceptualizations.

===Radical construction grammar===
[[William A. Croft]]'s radical construction grammar is designed for [[linguistic typology|typological]] purposes and takes into account cross-linguistic factors. It deals mainly with the internal structure of constructions. Radical construction grammar is totally non-[[reductionism|reductionist]], and Croft argues that constructions are not derived from their parts, but that the parts are derived from the constructions they appear in. Thus, in radical construction grammar, constructions are linked to [[wikt:gestalt|Gestalt]]s. Radical construction grammar rejects the idea that syntactic categories, roles, and relations are universal and argues that they are not only language-specific, but also construction specific. Thus, there are no universals that make reference to formal categories, since formal categories are language- and construction-specific. The only universals are to be found in the patterns concerning the mapping of meaning onto form. Radical construction grammar rejects the notion of syntactic relations altogether and replaces them with semantic relations. Like Goldbergian/Lakovian construction grammar and cognitive grammar, radical construction grammar is closely related to cognitive linguistics, and like cognitive grammar, radical construction grammar appears to be based on the idea that form is semantically motivated.

===Embodied construction grammar===
Embodied construction grammar (ECG), which is being developed by the [http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/NTL/ Neural Theory of Language (NTL)] group at ICSI, UC Berkeley, and the University of Hawai{{okina}}i, particularly including Benjamin Bergen and Nancy Chang, adopts the basic constructionist definition of a grammatical construction, but emphasizes the relation of constructional semantic content to [[Embodied cognition|embodiment]] and [[sensorimotor rhythm|sensorimotor]] experiences. A central claim is that the content of all linguistic signs involves [[mental simulation]]s and is ultimately dependent on basic [[image schema]]s of the kind advocated by [[Mark Johnson (professor)|Mark Johnson]] and George Lakoff, and so ECG aligns itself with cognitive linguistics. Like construction grammar, embodied construction grammar makes use of a [[unification-based]] model of representation. A non-technical introduction to the NTL theory behind embodied construction grammar as well as the theory itself and a variety of applications can be found in Jerome Feldman's ''From Molecule to Metaphor: A Neural Theory of Language'' (MIT Press, 2006).

===Fluid construction grammar===
[[Fluid construction grammar]] (FCG) was designed by [[Luc Steels]] and his collaborators for doing experiments on [http://www.fcg-net.org the origins and evolution of language].<ref>{{cite book | editor=Steels, Luc| title=Design Patterns in Fluid Construction Grammar| location=Amsterdam | publisher=John Benjamins| year=2011 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | editor=Steels, Luc| title=Computational Issues in Fluid Construction Grammar| location=Heidelberg | publisher=Springer| year=2012 }}</ref> FCG is a fully operational and computationally implemented formalism for construction grammars and proposes a uniform mechanism for parsing and production. Moreover, it has been demonstrated through robotic experiments that FCG grammars can be grounded in embodiment and sensorimotor experiences.<ref>{{cite book |editor1=Steels, Luc |editor2=Hild, Manfred | title=Language Grounding in Robots| location=New York | publisher=Springer| year=2012 }}</ref> FCG integrates many notions from contemporary [[computational linguistics]] such as [[feature structure]]s and unification-based language processing. Constructions are considered bidirectional and hence usable both for parsing and production. Processing is flexible in the sense that it can even cope with partially ungrammatical or incomplete sentences. FCG is called 'fluid' because it acknowledges the premise that language users constantly change and update their grammars. The research on FCG is conducted at [http://csl.sony.fr Sony CSL Paris] and the AI Lab at the [[Vrije Universiteit Brussel]].
===Implemented construction grammar===
Most of the above approaches to construction grammar have not been implemented as a computational model for large scale practical usage in [[Natural Language Processing]] frameworks but interest in construction grammar has been shown by more traditional computational linguists as a contrast to the current boom in more opaque [[deep learning]] models. This is largely due to the representational convenience of CxG models and their potential to integrate with current tokenizers as a perceptual layer for further processing in neurally inspired models.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Karlgren |first1=Jussi |last2=Kanerva |first2=Pentti |title=High-dimensional distributed semantic spaces for utterances |journal=Natural Language Engineering |date=2019 |volume=25 |issue=4 |url=https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.00424 |access-date=28 September 2023}}</ref> Approaches to integrate constructional grammar with existing Natural Language Processing frameworks include hand-built feature sets and templates and used computational models to identify their prevalence in text collections, but some suggestions for more emergent models have been proposed, e.g. in the 2023 Georgetown University Roundtable on Linguistics. <ref>{{cite web |title=Workshop on CxG + NLP |url=https://gurt.georgetown.edu/gurt-2023/program/# |website=Georgetown University 2023 Roundtable on Linguistics |publisher=Georgetown University |access-date=28 September 2023}}</ref>