Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure

【Abstract】 The construction grammar proposed by Goldberg has drawn large attention in the domestic and overseas linguistic communities. The essay is going to explain some advantages of the construction grammar and analyze the reason why it is superior to other mainstream grammars. Despite of the approval of its theoretic values， there are also some criticism about the construction grammar.

【Key words】 construction grammar; argument sense; argument role; participant role

【作者簡介】吴敏，南京师范大学中北学院。

1. Introduction

The construction grammar proposed by Goldberg has been robust in recent years. It has increasingly attracted attention from different interested groups in linguistic communities. The current construction grammar can possibly be decided into four branches and the cognitive construction grammar represented by Goldberg has drawn widespread attention. In virtue of Goldbergs theory， a lot of the syntactic phenomenon are able to be explained. While with the approvals of its theoretic values， many linguists have questioned and criticized the theory.

2. The Advantages of Construction

A construction is a gestalt， a cognitive schema， whose meaning as a whole is contributed to by its component parts， but not equal to the addition of its componential meaning. He argues that the construction is considered as the basic unit in the construction grammar. Generally speaking， construction grammar is superior to other approaches to grammar in two aspects. One of them is that， “the construction approach avoids the problem of positing implausible verb senses”. This advantage can be explained by examples as follows：

a. Tom tells a story to his children.

b. The man promises low price for the customer.

c. The police fathered the poor girl on him.

In the above three sentences， none of them have verbs which require the direct object complement. If we use the traditional approach to account for three sentences， we must hypothesize that the verb “tell”， has three-argument sense， ‘X causes Y to move Z by some words. While for verb “promise”， it argues that we need to add additional sense of talk， ‘X causes Y to become Z by talking. To account for the verb “father”， we still have to postulate an additional sense， for that father requires three arguments， namely， an agent， a theme， and an intended recipient （Goldberg，1995：9）.

Construction grammar is advantageous also lie in that that it avoids a certain circularity of analysis because it makes it clear why one single verb can exist in different sentences. Lets take the following “kick” sentences as examples.

a. Tom kicked the door.

b. Tom kicked Jack black and blue.

c. Tom kicked the football into the room.

d. Tom kicked at the football.

e. Tom kicked his foot against the wall.

g.The horse kicks.

h. Tom kicked his way out of the classroom.

Some theories argue that syntax is a projection of lexical requirement. Thus， it may be believed that in the sentence a， b， d， e， g and h， “kick” is a binary relation with agent and patient arguments which can have the transitive syntax. And in examples c and f， the verb “kick” is a three-argument. We can see there are some differences among these sentences.

However， the adoption of the construction approach to the argument structure can keep us away from this puzzling problem， or， specially speaking， the circularity. For the reason that the ternary relation can be related with the tree-structural DC， also the verb has the connection with the senses （one or a few basic senses） that need to be integrated into the meaning of the construction.

3. Conclusion

The construction grammar by Goldberg brings with a refreshing insight into linguistics. It helps us avoid some puzzling problems， such as circularity. For the reason that the ternary relation can be related with the tree-structural DC， also the verb has the connection with the senses （one or a few basic senses） that need to be integrated into the meaning of the construction. The argument role and the participant role in construction also have a great impact on the meaning of verbs.

References：

[1]陸俭明.构式语法理论的价值与局限[J].南京师范大学文学院学报，2008（03）.