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Case Studies in Fluid Construction Grammar: The verb phrase
Edited by Luc Steels and Katrien Beuls
[Benjamins Current Topics 106] 2019
► pp. 5–52

Basics of Fluid Construction Grammar

Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG) is a fully operational computational platform for developing grammars from a constructional perspective. It contains mechanisms for representing grammars and for using them in computational experiments and applications in language understanding, production and learning. FCG can be used by grammar writers who want to test whether their grammar fragments are complete and coherent for the domain they are investigating (for example verb phrases) or who are working in a team and have to share grammar fragments with others. It can be used by computational linguists implementing practical language processing systems or exploring how machine learning algorithms can acquire grammars. This paper introduces some of the basic mechanisms of FCG, illustrated with examples.

Keywords: Construction Grammar, Computational Construction Grammar, Fluid Construction Grammar
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The semiotic cycle
    • 2.1Components of the semiotic cycle
    • 2.2Linguistic pathways
  • 3.Transient structures
    • 3.1Feature structures
      • Units
      • Symbols
      • Values
      • Variables
  • 4.Construction schemas
    • 4.1Rewrite rules using feature structures
    • 4.2Representing construction schemas
    • 4.3Interfacing
  • 5.Constructional processing
    • 5.1Adding meaning
    • 5.2The formulation and comprehension lock
    • 5.3An example of comprehension
    • 5.4An example of formulation
  • 6.Argument structure constructions
    • 6.1The double object construction
    • 6.2A formulation example
    • 6.3A comprehension example
  • 7.Other grammatical perspectives
  • 8.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 9 October 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.106.cf.00002.ste
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