Constructielexicon

Constructielexicon is a term used in construction grammar to denote a structured lexicon that inventories constructions—conventional form-meaning pairings that range from fixed idioms to abstract syntactic schemas. It treats grammar as a repertoire of constructions rather than a separate set of rules and lexemes, and it is central to the view that language structure emerges from usage.

Entries in a constructielexicon typically include a construction label, the syntactic pattern or schema, the lexical realization (where applicable), the associated meaning or pragmatic function, typical argument structure, usage notes or restrictions, and representative examples. Many implementations are machine-readable and designed for integration with corpora and language-processing tools. Cross-linguistic versions exist to support comparative research and typology.

A key idea is that a construction governs both form and meaning, and that new constructions can be learned from usage data. As such, the constructielexicon supports linguistic analysis, language teaching, and natural language processing tasks such as parsing and generation by providing a centralized, extensible repository of form–meaning pairings. It complements traditional lexicons by focusing on patterns that go beyond single words.

In practice, researchers build constructielexicons for particular languages or multilingual projects, documenting constructions across domains such as syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. These resources are used to study how language is patterned in real usage, to compare languages, and to improve computational models of language understanding and production.