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10 - Different Constructional Approaches in Practice

A Comparative Study

from Part III - Case Studies in Constructional Morphosyntax

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2025

By
Remi van Trijp
Edited by
Mirjam Fried  and
Kiki Nikiforidou
Mirjam Fried
Affiliation:
Univerzita Karlova
Kiki Nikiforidou
Affiliation:
University of Athens, Greece
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Summary

Ever since its conception in the 1980s, the scope of what is understood by ‘construction grammar’ has evolved to a point where the constructional enterprise has become a full branch of linguistics in its own right. It can therefore be a daunting challenge for newcomers to come to grips with different research directions that have been pursued under a constructional banner, and even seasoned construction grammarians are at risk of misunderstanding each other. The goal of this chapter is therefore to offer a comparative guide for navigating the constructional landscape and to show that the existence of different constructional flavors is a healthy and necessary response to the problem of analyzing complex linguistic structures, provided that the community maintains a consensus about its core concepts.

Keywords

comparisonsyntax–semanticsinterfaceformalizationtheoretical foundation

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The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar , pp. 249 - 289
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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