Computational Construction Grammar
A Usage-Based Approach

This Element shows that construction grammars are learnable while providing a Python package for working with grammars.

Jonathan Dunn (Author)

9781009233767, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 June 2024

110 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 0.6 cm, 0.172 kg

This Element introduces a usage-based computational approach to Construction Grammar that draws on techniques from natural language processing and unsupervised machine learning. This work explores how to represent constructions, how to learn constructions from a corpus, and how to arrange the constructions in a grammar as a network. From a theoretical perspective, this Element examines how construction grammars emerge from usage alone as complex systems, with slot-constraints learned at the same time that constructions are learned. From a practical perspective, this work is accompanied by a Python package which enables linguists to incorporate construction grammars into their own corpus-based work. The computational experiments in this Element are important for testing the learnability, variability, and confirmability of Construction Grammar as a theory of language. All code examples will leverage the cloud computing platform Code Ocean to guide readers through implementation of these algorithms.

1. Representing constructions
2. Learning constructions
3. Forming the constructicon
4. Conclusions
References.

Subject Areas: Linguistics [CF]