Constructions at Work: The nature of generalization in language

This book investigates the nature of generalization in language and examines how language is known by adults and acquired by children. It looks at how and why constructions are learned, the relation between their forms and functions, and how cross-linguistic and language-internal generalizations about them can be explained. Constructions at Work is divided into three parts: in the first Professor Goldberg provides an overview of constructionist approaches, including the constructionist approach to argument structure, and argues for a usage-based model of grammar. In Part II she addresses issues concerning how generalizations are constrained and constructional generalizations are learned. In Part III the author shows that a combination of function and processing accounts for a wide range of language-internal and cross-linguistic generalizations. She then considers the degree to which the function of constructions explains their distribution and examines cross-linguistic tendencies in argument realization. She demonstrates that pragmatic and cognitive processes account for the data without appeal to stipulations that are language-specific.This book is an important contribution to the study of how language operates in the mind and in the world and how these operations relate. It is of central interest for scholars and graduate-level students in all branches of theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics. It will also appeal to cognitive scientists and philosophers concerned with language and its acquisition.

Table of Contents:
Part One: Constructions 1: Overview 2: Surface Generalizations 3: Item Specific Knowledge and Generalizations Part Two: Learning Generalizations 4: How Generalizations are Learned 5: How Generalizations are Constrained 6: Why Generalizations are Learned Part Three: Explaining Generalizations 7: Island Constraints and Scope 8: Grammatical Categorization: Subject Auxiliary Inversion 9: Cross-linguistic Generalizations in Argument Realization 10: Variations on a Constructionist Theme 11: Conclusion References Index

About the Author :
Adele E. Goldberg is Professor of Linguistics at Princeton University. She is author of Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure (University of Chicago Press, 1995), which won the 1996 Gustave O. Arlt Book Award in the Humanities.

Review :
`Bursting with original ideas - a real testament to the richness and power of the constructionist approach, and required reading for anyone interested in psychologically plausible models of grammar.' Michael Tomasello, Co-Director, Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology `This is an extremely important book that marks a significant advance in language science. Goldberg asks two deep questions: How do learners acquire generalizations that make it possible to produce and comprehend utterances outside their direct experience? and Why are languages the way they are? She brings an impressive array of data to bear on these issues, including language-internal facts, cross-linguistic patterns, and psycholinguistic experiments. In the process, she successfully confronts a number of difficult challenges head on, dealing with a number of long-standing and difficult phenomena. The result is deeply satisfying. Even more, it is convincing.' Jeffrey L. Elman, Chancellors' Associates Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego `In Adele Goldberg's new book, Construction Grammar comes of age. Goldberg combines traditional linguistic argumentation with all the tools of cognitive science: statistical and corpus-based analysis, data from experiments on processing and language acquisition (many carried out by the author herself), and evidence from broader-based phenomena in cognition. The vision of language embodied in Constructions at Work emerges as a robust alternative to mainstream thought in linguistics, one that maintains high aspirations to explanation in psychological as well as crosslinguistic terms.' Ray Jackendoff, Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University