The Grammar Network
How Linguistic Structure Is Shaped by Language Use

Provides a dynamic network model of grammar that explains how linguistic structure is shaped by language use.

Holger Diessel (Author)

9781108498814, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 August 2019

306 pages, 87 b/w illus. 19 tables
23.4 x 15.5 x 2 cm, 0.56 kg

'… well?worth?reading.' Tore Nesset, Linguistics Issues

Cognitive linguists and psychologists have often argued that language is best understood as an association network; however while the network view of language has had a significant impact on the study of morphology and lexical semantics, it is only recently that researchers have taken an explicit network approach to the study of syntax. This innovative study presents a dynamic network model of grammar in which all aspects of linguistic structure, including core concepts of syntax (e.g. phrase structure, word classes, grammatical relations), are analyzed in terms of associative connections between different types of linguistic elements. These associations are shaped by domain-general learning processes that are operative in language use and sensitive to frequency of occurrence. Drawing on research from usage-based linguistics and cognitive psychology, the book provides an overview of frequency effects in grammar and analyzes these effects within the framework of a dynamic network model.

1. Introduction
Part I. Foundations: 2. Grammar as a network
3. Cognitive processes and language use
Part II. Signs as Networks: 4. The taxonomic network
5. Sequential relations
6. Symbolic relations
Part III. Filler-Slot Relations: 7. Argument structure and linguistic productivity
8. A dynamic network model of parts of speech
9. Phrase structure
Part IV. Constructional Relations: 10. Construction families
11. Encoding asymmetries of grammatical categories
12. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Grammar, syntax & morphology [CFK]