Grammatical Constructions as Relational Categories

This paper argues that grammatical constructions, specifically argument structure constructions that determine the “who did what to whom” part of sentence meaning and how this meaning is expressed syntactically, can be considered a kind of relational category. That is, grammatical constructions are...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Topics in cognitive science 2017-07, Vol.9 (3), p.776-799
Main Author: Goldwater, Micah B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analogy
Behavior
Child
Construction grammar
Grammar
Grammatical constructions
Humans
Language
Language Development
Learning
Relational categories
Semantics
Structural priming
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Summary:This paper argues that grammatical constructions, specifically argument structure constructions that determine the “who did what to whom” part of sentence meaning and how this meaning is expressed syntactically, can be considered a kind of relational category. That is, grammatical constructions are represented as the ion of the syntactic and semantic relations of the exemplar utterances that are expressed in that construction, and it enables the generation of novel exemplars. To support this argument, I review evidence that there are parallel behavioral patterns between how children learn relational categories generally and how they learn grammatical constructions specifically. Then, I discuss computational simulations of how grammatical constructions are ed from exemplar sentences using a domain‐general relational cognitive architecture. Last, I review evidence from adult language processing that shows parallel behavioral patterns with expert behavior from other cognitive domains. After reviewing the evidence, I consider how to integrate this account with other theories of language development. This paper documents parallel behavioral patterns between how children learn relational categories generally, and how they learn grammatical constructions specifically. Computational simulations illustrate how grammatical constructions can be ed from exemplar sentences using a domain general relational cognitive architecture. Evidence from adult language processing shows parallel behavioral patterns with expert behavior from other cognitive domains. This account readily integrates with other theories of language development.
ISSN:1756-8757
1756-8765
DOI:10.1111/tops.12272