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The Meaning of Constructions

Expected online publication date:  20 May 2025

Benoît Leclercq
Affiliation:
University of Lille
Cameron Morin
Affiliation:
University of Paris-Cité

Summary

This Element offers a primer for the study of meaning in a Construction Grammar approach. It reviews the main principles of meaning shared across constructionist frameworks, including its ubiquity in grammatical structure, its usage-based formation, and its nature as the output of cognitive representations. It also reviews the importance given to meaning in construction-based explanations of sentence composition, innovative language use, and language change. Paradoxically, the Element shows that there is no systematic framework delineating the rich structure of constructional meaning, which has led to theoretical disagreements and inconsistencies. It therefore proposes an operational model of meaning for practitioners of Construction Grammar. It details the characteristics of a complex interface of semantic, pragmatic, and social meaning, and shows how this framework sheds light on recent theoretical issues. The Element concludes by considering ways in which this framework can be used for future descriptive and theoretical research questions.
Type
Element
Information
Online ISBN: 9781009499620
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

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The Meaning of Constructions
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