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Abstract

Advantages and Challenges of a Diachronic Constructicon

The aim of most Constructicons (= repositories of form-function structures) is to categorize and analyze the standard inventory of constructions of an individual language. Although they thus offer great value – Constructicons provide a wide range of phenomena of varying schematicity and idiomaticity in a network structure (cf. Goldberg 2003: 219) – they also limit themselves to a relevant extent by focusing on standard contemporary language data: just like the language itself, Constructicons are dynamic and construction grammar is, in turn, an approach whose success is characterized by and also depends on a holistic, dynamic understanding of language. In addition, relevant parameters in construction grammar (such as the degree of entrenchment of a construction, cf. Ziem & Lasch 2013: 150) cannot be adequately captured without a diachronic perspective. Furthermore, every usage-based model is diachronic anyway, because language use changes over time (cf. Croft 2021: 274).

This talk addresses the necessity of a diachronic perspective for Constructicons as well as the advantages and challenges of working with historical language data in a Constructicon resource. Specifically, the challenges associated with different writing systems, present language trained taggers and parsers, the lack of historical expertise in many Constructicon teams and the risk of overfilling the Constructicon are addressed. The network structures on which a Constructicon is based are in turn a key advantage: The constructional network helps to organize, locate and analyze existing as well as new constructions. Working with and in a constructional network structure will be exemplified with historical and contemporary German conditional constructions.

References

Croft, William (2021): Ten Lectures on Construction Grammar and Typology, Leiden, Boston: Brill.

Goldberg, Adele (2003): Constructions: a new theoretical approach to language, in: Trends in cognitive sciences 7(5), S. 219–224.

Ziem, Alexander und Alexander Lasch (2013): Konstruktionsgrammatik. Konzepte und Grundlagen gebrauchsbasierter Ansätze, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.