Construction-Based Compositional Grammar

Abstract

The paper presents a system for construction classification representing multiple levels of specification, such as grammatical functions, grammatically reflected actants, and lexical semantics, aligned with a compositional system of sign combination mediating between a construction perspective and a valence perspective. The system uses a feature structure formalism based on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) but with essential elements from Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG; cf. Bresnan in Lexical functional syntax. Blackwell, Oxford, 2001), and has as implementation background large scale HPSG grammars. While on the one extreme being able to encode word level selection in multi-word patterns, the system on the other provides a compact format for construction specification, allowing for cross-language comparison both in construction and valence frame inventories. Pivotal in these capacities as well as in sign formalization in general are the grammatical functions. The paper motivates the usefulness of the various functionalities and illustrates the way in which they work together in a formally uniform system.