Constructionsuch

Constructionsuch is a term used in linguistics to describe a search method for linguistic constructions within large text corpora. In construction grammar, a construction is a form-meaning pairing that may be opaque or transparent. Constructionsuch aims to identify instances of these constructions by combining syntactic analysis, pattern-based matching, and statistical evaluation. The approach treats constructions as reusable patterns that can be detected across genres and registers, rather than only as single words.

Methodology: researchers define a set of constructions of interest (for example, ditransitive frameworks, idioms, or light-verb constructions). They then generate search templates with grammatical slots, lexical placeholders, and semantic constraints, and run these templates over a corpus using parsing results and surface forms. Candidate instances are ranked by plausibility, contextual fit, and frequency, and are then manually or semi-automatically annotated with meaning and usage notes. Outputs typically include concordance lines, frequency counts, and networked representations of construction usage.

Applications include linguistic research into construction grammar, development of lexicographic resources, language teaching materials, and enhancements to natural language processing systems for idiom detection and multiword expressions. Challenges include ambiguity and polysemy, cross-linguistic variation in construction inventories, data sparsity for rare constructions, and the computational cost of large-scale parsing. The concept remains evolving, with ongoing work on standardizing construction inventories and improving automatic annotation.