konstruksjonsgrammatikk

Konstruksjonsgrammatikk, often abbreviated as CxG, is a linguistic theory that views language as a lexicon of form-meaning pairings, called constructions. These constructions can range from single words to complex grammatical structures. Unlike traditional generative grammar, CxG posits that grammar is not an autonomous system separate from semantics and pragmatics, but rather an integral part of the lexicon.

The central tenet of konstruksjonsgrammatikk is that linguistic knowledge is embodied in these constructions. For example, the sentence "The cat sat on the mat" is not generated by abstract syntactic rules, but rather directly corresponds to a learned construction that links a specific form (the word order and inflections) with a specific meaning (an agent performing an action on a location). Smaller constructions, like individual words, are subsumed within larger ones.

Konstruksjonsgrammatikk emphasizes the probabilistic and schematic nature of language. Constructions are not all-or-nothing units; they can be more or less general, and speakers can extend existing constructions to new contexts. This theory also accounts for the acquisition of language by children, suggesting that they learn by identifying and generalizing these constructions from the input they receive. It offers an alternative perspective to purely rule-based or purely statistical models of language.