La gramática de construcciones

Abstract

Construction Grammar is a theory of linguistic knowledge, diversified into a family of theories that share an interest in the concept of construction. From the point of view of construction grammar, a construction is a form-meaning pairing. In Construction Grammar the concepts of form and meaning go beyond the conception of traditional syntax and semantics: form encompasses the set of phonological, morphological and syntactic features that characterize linguistic utterances; meaning, in turn, includes semantic, pragmatic and discursive features. Constructions are not limited to word combinations: a sentence or a phrase is as much a construction as a word or a morpheme is. Moreover, constructions are structured at different levels of abstraction. Thus, there are maximally saturated constructions such as Salome had John killed and maximally schematic ones (e.g., the causative construction [X verb Y Z] “X causes Y to reach Z”). Between the schematic causative construction and the one explicitly formulated with words, there are other more or less saturated constructions such as “X made kill Z” or “X made INF Z”. Construction Grammar aims to account for the network of constructions that comprise the linguistic knowledge of speakers. These constructions, collected in the constructicon, constitute a continuum between lexicon and grammar which allows us to postulate the same analysis for any construction. Also, Construction Grammar deals with constructions that are part of core grammar, as well as with others considered peripheral.