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Article In: Constructions and Frames: Online-First Articles

How do construction grammar and dependency grammar fit together?

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Abstract
This short paper reviews differences and points of convergence between Construction Grammar and Dependency Grammar, with the aim of fostering a dialogue between the two frameworks. Steps towards such a dialogue have already been taken with regard to Word Grammar, and dependency-based concepts such as the catena have been discussed against the background of constructional approaches. Furthermore, the compatibility of the two frameworks has been suggested in recent psycholinguistic work. To contextualize these issues, this paper discusses four points of divergence between Construction Grammar and Dependency Grammar, namely the assumption of phrasal constructions vs. dependency structure, the place of meaning, the autonomy of the language system, and the treatment of idiosyncratic syntactic constraints.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Construction grammar and word grammar
  • 3.Constructions and catenae
  • 4.Utterances with long dependencies between words are hard to process
  • 5.Points of agreement, points of divergence
    • 5.1Phrasal constructions vs. dependency structure
    • 5.2The place of meaning
    • 5.3The autonomy of language as a cognitive system
    • 5.4What about constructional constraints?
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Author queries
  • References
References (43)
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