Expanding Construction Grammar and Frame Semantics

Expanding Construction
Grammar and Frame
Semantics
Introduction:
Construction Grammar in
the 21 st Century
Hans C. Boas
University of Texas at Austin
http://hcb.gmc.utexas.edu

Overview
• Chomsky’s Principles and Parameters
framework (1981) and Minimalism (1995)
• Intro to Construction Grammar
• Constructions in detail
• Construction Grammar(s) – different
approaches to constructions
2

Chomsky’s Principles and
Parameters framework (1981)
• Competence and Performance
• Core and Periphery (Raising, Cleft, Relative
Clauses, Wh-clauses, Passive, etc.)
• Universal Grammar
• Modular Architecture of the Language
Faculty (aka “Autonomy of Syntax”)
• Derivational (step-by-step)
3

Division into competence & performance
“A grammar can be regarded as a theory of a
language; it is descriptively adequate to the
extent that it correctly describes the intrinsic
competence of the idealized native speaker.”
(Chomsky 1965: 24)
• John often kisses Mary.
• Who do you think Mary said John likes?
“Idealized” native speaker sentences occur with
low frequency in natural speech. Other patterns
that occur are typically ignored.
4

Chomsky’s Principles and
Parameters framework (1981)
(a) Subcomponents of the Rule System of
Grammar:
(i) Lexicon
(ii) Syntax
(a) Categorial component
(b) Transformational component
(iii) PF-component
(iv) LF-component
5

Chomsky (1981)
(b) Subsystem of Principles
(i) Bounding theory
(ii) Government theory
(iii) Θ-Theory
(iv) Binding Theory
(v) Case Theory
(vi) Control Theory
6

Chomsky (1981)
(c) Organization of Modules
7

Basic X-bar model
8

• Movement is “structure preserving”
• D-structure is recoverable from s-structure
• PF “reads” the s-structure to give the physical utterance
• Further “covert” operations (not reflected in the PF)
optionally apply to s-structure, yielding the LF (logical
form) … quantification etc.
9

Minimalism (Chomsky 1995)
• X-bar theory replaced by Bare Phrase Structure
(BPS)
• Elimination of D-structure/S-structure distinction
• Elimination of empty categories
• No language- or construction-specific syntax
• Focus on larger theoretical questions:
(a) To what extent is language optimally “designed”
according to minimalist design specifications?
(b) What are minimal design specifications? What is
optimal?
10

Minimalism
• Lexicon
• Operations (merge, agree, procrastinate, etc.)
• Derivations
The key is that everything is motivated by basic
principles of minimal design:
“UG provides a fixed system of principles and a
finite array of finitely valued parameters. The
language-particular rules reduce to choice of
values for these parameters. The notion of
grammatical construction is eliminated, and with
it, construction-particular rules.” (Chomsky 1993: 4)
11

Componential Model of the Organization
of a Grammar: Chomsky et al.
12

Differences between frameworks
Chomsky (1981/1995)
Modular (components and
levels)
Derivational
(“economy” / “minimal”)
Core-periphery distinction
Competence vs. Performance
No need for constructions –
principles and parameters
Arbitrariness only in the
lexicon
Construction Grammar
Non-modular
Non-derivational
No distinction between core
and periphery
Usage-based
Constructions are central
Arbitrariness in grammar and
lexicon (syntax-lexicon
continuum)
13

Symbolic link between form and
function in componential syntactic
theory
14

Symbolic link between form and
function in Construction Grammar
(later we’ll look at organization of constructional knowledge)
15

Part-whole structure of grammatical
units: the intransitive construction
16

Another difference
Although most of the aspects of language
are highly motivated, in the sense that
they are related to other aspects of the
grammar and are non-arbitrary,
Construction Grammar holds the view that
much of language is idiosyncratic to
varying degrees and must therefore be
learned. (Goldberg 1997)
17

What are constructions?
• Pairings of form with meaning
Difference in form is usually a difference in meaning!!
18

Uniform representation of all
grammatical knowledge
19

Definition
C is a CONSTRUCTION iff def C is a formmeaning
pair such that some aspect
of F i or some aspect of S i is not strictly
predictable from C’s component parts or from
other previously established constructions.
(Goldberg 1995: 4)
FORM is any type of form, not only syntactic!
20

wanna-contraction (Boas 2004)
21

wanna-contraction (Boas 2004)
22

All levels of grammatical analysis
involve constructions
(the syntax-lexicon continuum)
24

Accounting for the “periphery”
25

Organization of constructional
knowledge
• Constructions form a structured inventory
of a speaker’s knowledge of the
conventions of their language
• This structured inventory is represented in
terms of a taxonomic network of
constructions
• Each construction constitutes a node in
the taxonomic network of constructions
26

Organization of constructional
knowledge: Schematic and specific
constructions
• Any construction with unique idiosyncratic
properties must be represented as an
independent node in the constructional network
[Verb Phrase]
[Verb Obj]
[kick Obj]
[kick [ the habit ]]
27

Taxonomic relations allow us to
distinguish different types of
grammatical knowledge
28

Partial specifications of structure
• An utterance often has multiple parents in
the taxonomy of constructions
29

Combination of different
constructions
30

Constructions in detail:
Overview
• Goldberg’s (1995/2006) framework
• Caused-motion construction
• Identifying related constructions
• Other constructional approaches
31

Interaction between constructions and verbs:
Goldberg 1995/2006
A verb's argument structure may be expanded by an independently
existing meaningful construction.
(1) Pat sliced the carrots into the salad. (caused-motion)
(2) Pat sliced Chris a piece of pie. (ditransitive)
(3) Emeril sliced and diced his way to stardom. (way constructions)
(4) Pat sliced the box open. (resultative)
- Focus on argument structure constructions
- Role of Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1982)
(Goldberg 2006: 7)
32

Short intermission:
Frame Semantics
“A word’s meaning can be understood only
with reference to a structured background
of experience, beliefs, or practices.”
(Fillmore & Atkins 1992: 76)
• In order to understand the meanings of
words in a language we must have first
knowledge about the conceptual
structures, or semantic frames
33

Frame Semantics
•A “frame” is any system of concepts
related in such a way that to understand
any one concept results in all of them
becoming available (Petruck 1996).
GOAL:
• describe the semantic and syntactic
combinatorial properties of words
DATA:
• attested usage patterns
34

Lexical Description in Frame
Semantics
• A FRAME is described independently
of the words that use it.
• Words are described according to
frames that they evoke and the ways in
which the elements of their frames may
or must be realized in sentences built
up around the words.
35

Sample Event Frame:
Commercial Transaction
Initial state:
Seller has Goods, wants Money
Buyer wants Goods, has Money
Transition:
Seller transmits Goods to Customer
Buyer transmits Money to Vendor
Final state:
Seller has Money
Buyer has Goods
36

Commercial Transaction Frame
Money
Buyer Seller
Goods
Frame Elements: Buyer, Seller, Goods, Money
Verbs of that frame: buy, sell, pay, spend, cost, charge, ...
Nouns: receipt, payment, delivery, ...
Adjectives: cheap, expensive, ...
37

Different Perspectives
Lexical Units evoke different aspects of the frame
BUY focuses on Buyer and Goods, backgrounding
Seller and Money.
(3) Kim bought the book (from Pat)(for 40$).
SELL focuses on Seller and Goods,
backgrounding Buyer and Money.
(4) Pat sold the book (for 40$)(to Pat).
38

FrameNet
http://framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu
• Lexicographic database based on framesemantic
principles (corpus evidence)
• Distribution of lexical units (LU) is described with
respect to the frames they evoke
• Exhaustive documentation of the range of
semantic and syntactic combinatorial
possibilities (valencies) of each LU
• Short overview: Frame Description, Lexical Entry
Report, Annotation Report
39

Frame Description
40

Lexical Entry Report
41

Lexical Entry Report
42

Annotation Report
43

What’s Frame Semantic
Information good for in CxG?
• It helps us with figuring out what types of
constructions can “fuse” (“unify”) with what types
of verbs
• Frame-semantic information is crucial in
determining whether a verb’s basic semantics is
compatible with the semantics of a (Goldbergtype)
construction
• “Can the verb be construed as an instance of
construction X?”
44

Interaction between constructions and verbs:
Caused-motion construction in Goldberg (1995)
A verb's argument structure may be expanded by an independently
existing meaningful construction (certain constraints apply to restrict
productivity.
(5) Basic lexical entry of sneeze: < sneezer >
(6) Caused-Motion Construction (Goldberg 1995: 162)
(7) a. Frank sneezed. (intransitive Cx)
b. Frank sneezed the tissue off the table. (caused-motion Cx)
45

Polysemy at different levels: argument
structure constructions and verbs
• The idea: constructions may have
particular types of semantic extensions
and exhibit polysemy just like verb senses
have extensions (verbal polysemy)
• Caused-motion construction has a central
sense and four types of extensions
46

Constructional Polysemy of Caused-Motion
Construction (Goldberg 1995: 161-163)
A. 'X Causes Y to Move Z': Frank sneezed the
tissue off the table.
B. The condition of satisfaction associated with
the act denoted by the predicate entails: 'X
causes Y to move Z:' Sam ordered him out of
the house.
C. 'X ENABLES Y to MOVE Z': Sam allowed Bill
out of the room.
D. 'X PREVENTS Y from MOVING Comp(Z)':
Harry locked Joe into the bathroom.
E. 'X HELPS Y to MOVE Z': Sam helped him into
the car.
47

Constructional Polysemy of Caused Motion
(Goldberg 1995: 163)
48

A case-study in identifying constructions:
“A Hole through Y” (AHTY) (Boas 2008)
(3) You pushed a hole through the crazing.
(4) The army blew a hole in the barrier
around the embassy.
(5) He suggests we knock a hole through
the wall.
• Relationship between form and meaning???
[NP V NP PP] caused-motion semantics
49

Distribution of AHTY (class I verbs)
(6) a. *You pushed a hole.
b. ??You pushed through the crazing.
c. You pushed a hole through the crazing.
(7) a. *He suggests we knock a hole.
b. ??He suggests we knock through the wall.
c. He suggests we knock a hole through the wall.
(8) a. *The food won’t burn a hole.
b. ?The food won’t burn through you either.
c. The food won’t burn a hole through you either.
(9) a. *The fowl projectile has blown a hole.
b. ?The fowl projectile has blown through your chest.
c. The fowl projectile has blown a hole through your chest.
50

Distribution of AHTY (class II verbs)
(10) a. Using a hammer drill and carbide bit, drill a hole.
b. Using a hammer drill and carbide bit, drill through the sill plate.
c. Using a hammer drill and carbide bit, drill a hole through the sill
plate.
(11) a. The fluid is drained out from under the retina by creating a hole.
b. *The fluid is drained out from under the retina by creating through
the whole part of the eye.
c. The fluid is drained out from under the retina by creating a hole
through the whole part of the eye.
(12) a. Once I can make a hole.
b. *Once I can make through them.
c. Once I can make a hole through them.
(13) a. Meanwhile, Amy successfully digs a hole.
b. Meanwhile, Amy successfully digs through the oubliette, and
escapes.
c. Meanwhile, Amy successfully digs a hole through the oubliette,
and escapes.
51

Can we analyze AHTY as a sub-
type of caused-motion Cx?
C is a CONSTRUCTION iff def C is a formmeaning
pair such that some
aspect of F i or some aspect of S i is not
strictly predictable from C’s component
parts or from other previously established
constructions. (Goldberg 1995: 4)
‘X CAUSES Y TO MOVE Z by V-ing’
[NP V NP PP]
52

Verb classes
• Class II verbs share a common meaning
with “verbs of creation and transformation”
• Levin 1993: These verbs take “as one
argument an agent that creates or
transforms an entity.” They take “what are
called ‘effected objects’ – objects brought
into existence as a result of the action
named by the verb.”
53

Verb classes
• But not all of Levin’s verbs of creation and
transformation can occur in the AHTY Cx:
*Collin coined a hole through the window.
*Lila derived a hole through the door.
*Michael synthesized a hole through the
paper.
54

Sub-class of verbs
• Class II verbs form a sub-class of Levin’s
(1993) “Verbs of creation and
transformation”
• They differ with respect to the nature of
the effected object
• Since we can’t explain this distribution in
terms of more abstract constructions, we
need to posit an independent idiomatic
construction
55

The AHTY Construction
(decoding)
56

AHTY- Cx - encoding
• Class II verbs closely related in meaning
do not all occur in AHTY Cx
• They exhibit different idiosyncratic
subcategorization patterns that can not be
predicted on general grounds
57

Proposal
• Conventionalized meanings of Class II
verbs are encoded in terms of miniconstructions
that inherit their meaning
and form from the higher-level schematic
AHTY Cx.
• A mini-construction is a conventionalized
form-meaning pairing representing an
individual sense of a verb (see Boas 2003 on
resultative constructions)
58

Mini-constructions
• Extremely specific with respect to the types of
form-meaning pairings they represent.
• Contain detailed semantic, pragmatic, and
syntactic information about the types of event
participants that may occur with a specific sense
of a verb
• Differ in their complexity but are in principle the
same type of declaratively represented data
structure as other types of constructions (no
strict division between the lexicon and syntax)
59

Mini-constructions: distribution of
Class II verbs in AHTY Cx
60

Optional licensing of event participants –
differences between mini-constructions
(23) a. *Lila made through the wall.
b. Lila made a hole through the wall.
(24) a. Abbey drilled through the wall.
b. Abbey drilled a hole through the wall.
61

Mini-constructions capture item-specific knowledge
– yet they’re still specific instantiations of a higher
level schematic construction (redundancy)
62

AHTY with Class I verbs
• Cannot occur with a hole as their direct
object argument alone:
Brian pushed a car/*Brian pushed a hole.
• Class I verbs are licensed by their miniconstructions
acquiring new meanings
because they’re capable of unifying with
the AHTY construction
• Speaker employs existing grammatical
resources to create novel sentences
63

Joe knocked a hole through the wall.
AG: construable as exerting energy by striking with a sharp blow
PT: construable as exhibiting a surface
64

Partial Productivity of AHTY
(25) *Lila sneezed a hole through the peace
(26) *Collin pierced a hole through the
ocean.
(27) *The blanket blew a hole through the
atmosphere.
Constraints are needed to delimit productivity.
65

Partial Productivity – Constraint 1
Agent: construable as emitting energy.
(28)a. Then Googol sprawled wretchedly on a couch,
whispering of how a power axe had sliced a
hole through the door … (BNC)
b. The bullet blew a hole through the right ear.
c. He would draw the line over and over until he
wore a hole through the paper.
(29)a. *The blanket sliced a hole through the door.
b. *The book blew a hole through my desk.
c. *The peace wore a hole through her wall.
66

Constraint 2
• Energy emitted by the agent needs to
physically affect the patient so that it can
be construed as being able to affect the
physical integrity of the patient object
(30) Kim burned a hole through the blanket.
(31) *Michael talked a hole through the
chair.
67

Constraint 3
• Physical properties of the patient must be
construable as exhibiting a surface
(32) I’ve burned a hole through Mars’s moon
and singed fannies on Pluto.
(33) *Jen burned a hole through the air.
68

Constraint 4
• Result of the activity denoted by the verb has to
be construable as causing the creation of an
opening through the entire patient.
(34) Imagine their foot wearing a whole through
the carpet.
(35) A site must be running an NT-based firewall
or must provide a hole through the firewall.
(35) Cannot be construable as encoding AHTY
semantics.
69

Narrow scope of application /
Productivity
(36) a. But Oswald doesn't stop by this idea, he says there's a
shorter way than following the 2-dimensional tour and he eats
a hole through the apple.
b. They found that the bee uses its spiky, toothed mouth parts
to chew a hole through side of the corolla.
c. Perhaps they would’ve sizzled a hole through the gas ball,
but
would they have hit anything?
d. Dribbling a hole through the metal isn’t much different from
ramming a war hammer spike through it. e.
e. I’ve also put grease fittings in the ball ends, by EDMing a
hole through the outer race.
f. I think Tomken was worried about rubbing a hole through it.
g. With patience and persistence, you can piss a hole
through a rock.
70

Productivity and “The
Constructional View”
a. There is a cline of grammatical phenomena from the
totally general to the totally idiosyncratic.
b. Everything on this cline is to be stated in a common
format, from the most particular, such as individual
words, to the most general, such as principles for verb
position, with many sub-regularities in between. That
is, there is no principled divide between ‘lexicon’ and
‘rules’.
c. At the level of phrasal syntax, pieces of syntax
connected to meaning in a conventionalized and
partially idiosyncratic way are captured by
constructions. (Goldberg & Jackendoff 2004: 532-533)
71

Fillmore et al. (1988):
[the X-er the Y-er]
“In spite of the fact that it is host to a large
number of fixed expressions, the form has
to be recognized as fully productive. Its
member expressions are in principle not
listable: unlimitedly many new expressions
can be constructed within its pattern, their
meanings constructed by means of
semantic principles specifically tied to this
construction.” (1988: 507)
72

The productivity continuum
73

Construction Grammar(s)
• Constructions are the central organizational
units of language (form-meaning pairings)
• Constructional approaches differ from each
other (See Fried & Östman 2004 and Goldberg 2006 for details):
– Different notations
– Different (theoretical) goals
– Different views of language (metaphor, motivation,
etc.)
– Others …
74

Different constructionist approaches
75

Different constructionist approaches
76

Notational differences
(we’ve already seen Goldberg’s and Boas’ notations)
• Fillmore et al’s “Unification Construction Grammar”
- Uniform representation of all grammatical properties,
formal and functional
- Feature structures with features and values: [cat v], [gf –
subj]
77

syntax, semantics, phonology
78

Different sets of features: role, val, rel
79

Give-construction
(Kay & Fillmore 1999)
80

Thank you!
http://www.constructiongrammar.org
http://framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu
82