Usage and Grammatical Meaning

Abstract

In CL, the nature of grammar is a subject of some controversy, as among, for example, the construction grammars of Lakoff (1987) and Goldberg (1995; 2006), the radical construction grammar of Croft (2001) and the cognitive grammar of Langacker (1987). However, all these approaches share some core views of what grammar is, how it is acquired and how it is used to shape utterances that we can understand. These views can be summarised as follows: A grammar consists of what Langacker calls symbolic complexes, or, meanings that combine others are thus themselves symbolic. The principles of schematicity and inheritance are fundamental to the nature of grammatical meaning. Both grammatical and lexical meanings are conceptually shaped as categories that construe a situation in a given manner. Grammar is acquired through usage, and, because usage varies from speaker to speaker, different individuals may possess different mental representations of the same form. In this chapter I will first explore how these principles could be elaborated as the basis of a pedagogical grammar. To do this I will look more closely at the construction as the central grammatical form and will then consider how such forms are acquired through usage as a type from tokens.