Constructiegrammatica

Constructiegrammatica is a family of linguistic theories that treats grammar as a collection of constructions—conventional pairings of form and meaning that span from morpheme-like units to multi-word sequences and idioms. In this view, knowledge of language consists of memories of these form-meaning correspondences, rather than a system of abstract rules separate from lexical items.

Core assumptions emphasize usage and cognition. Constructions vary in schematic generality and lexical specificity, and language production and comprehension rely on selecting and combining constructions based on communicative intent, frequency, and social context. Grammar and lexicon are not strictly distinct modules; they form an integrated network where idiomatic expressions, fixed frames, and productive patterns all participate in conveying meaning. This approach highlights cross-linguistic variation, idioms, collocations, and constructional patterns as central data for grammatical description.

Historically, construction grammar emerged from cognitive linguistics in the late 20th century, with key figures such as Charles Fillmore and Adele Goldberg contributing to its development. They argued that linguistic knowledge is usage-based and that constructions can be as grammatical as rule-governed structures. The field has since expanded to several variants and implementations, including Embodied Construction Grammar and Lexical-Construction Grammar, and it interfaces with corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics to analyze language data.

Applications of constructiegrammatica include descriptive linguistics, second language acquisition, and natural language processing, particularly in areas involving idioms, metaphor, and construction-based parsing. Critics note potential challenges in providing universal constraints and in defining productive versus idiosyncratic constructions. Overall, constructiegrammatica offers a framework for describing how form and meaning are learned, stored, and used in real-time language use.