Language as an Emergent Construction-Network. A Close-Up on Italian Idioms.

Abstract

In this contribution, I investigated the structure of Italian idioms from a perspective that combines insights from constructionist and dynamic-systems approaches to language. First of all, I empirically analyzed the occurrences of a sample of constructions downloaded from the it TenTen corpus, interrogated via the online corpus-query system Sketch Engine. On the basis of the tendencies observed in the analysis, I observed that the patterns of stability and variation of idioms in use can be satisfactorily accounted for in dynamic-systems terms. I then argue that the use of idiomatic constructions is governed by a principle of causal circularity, whereby the attractor state constrains the possible use of a construction, but at the same time the bulk of occurrences of an idiom shapes the attractor in an ongoing, nonlinear process of self-organization. Looking beyond idioms, I propose that similar mechanisms may regulate the functioning of the linguistic system as a whole, consistent with the constructionist view of language as a network of interconnected units.