SLE 2012 workshop proposal: Meaning Construction in the 21st Century

Tue Nov 1 08:01:25 UTC 2011

*45th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea*

29 August - 1 September 2012

University of Stockholm

*Proposal for workshop: *“Meaning Construction in the 21st Century: Common
Grounds, Internal Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction”

*Convenors:*

Annalisa Baicchi (University of Pavia) – annalisa.baicchi at gmail.com

Alba Luzondo Oyón (University of La Rioja) – alba.luzondo at gmail.com

The central assumption of this workshop is that cognitive and/or functional
accounts of language have enough points in common for cooperation to be
possible. This assumption, although not new –as evident from Nuyts (2005,
2007) and Gonzálvez & Butler (2006), and references therein– has not yet
given rise to any major integration, except perhaps work carried out within
the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM; Ruiz de Mendoza & Mairal, 2008,
2011; Mairal & Ruiz de Mendoza, 2009; Ruiz de Mendoza & Baicchi 2007;
Baicchi & Ruiz de Mendoza 2010; Mairal & Gonzálvez, 2010; Gonzálvez, 2011).
The architecture of the LCM assigns different places and functions to
lexical structure and to constructions at the argument structure,
implicational, illocutionary and discourse levels. It is interdisciplinary
since it makes connections with pragmatics, discourse analysis and
cognitive science in general (cf. Eddington & Ruiz de Mendoza, 2010),
including the field of language-based knowledge engineering for natural
language processing (cf. Periñán & Mairal, 2009).

In line with such an all-encompassing attempt, in this workshop we seek to
engage scholars from both the cognitive and/or functional camps and from
different fields and subfields of linguistics in creating a collaborative
environment where it is possible to bridge gaps and to surmount theoretical
and/or methodological discrepancies. For example, one of the points of
divergence between cognitive and functional accounts of language lies in
the way they approach the role of verbal semantics in syntax. Functionalist
theories generally assume that much of syntactic structure can be predicted
on the basis of the information coded by the lexical predicates in
conjunction with a set of linking rules, thus disregarding the role that
other higher-level constructs, such as argument-structure constructions,
may play in predicting morphosyntactic structure. By contrast,
constructionist accounts, such as Goldberg’s Construction Grammar (CxG; cf.
Goldberg, 1995, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2006), postulate the existence of such
higher-level configurations, called constructions, which are capable of
adding arguments to those arising from verbal structure. In this process,
the final overall meaning (e.g. the caused-motion/resultative sense in the
example *They scorned him into a depression*) is not derivable from verbal
projection (i.e. the argument structure of the verb *scorn*). On the other
hand, construction-based approaches have not yet fully explained what it is
that either licenses or constrains the unification between a given
syntactic pattern and a lexical entry. For example, no fine-grained account
has been provided of the perfect acceptability of instantiations of the
middle construction such as *The bread cuts easily*, *The window breaks
easily *in contrast to the ungrammaticality of **The building destroys
easily*. Such problems have led scholars such as Boas (2003, 2008ab) to
argue for finer-grained analyses within constructionist approaches. As a
result, much of the present debate within CxG revolves around two
apparently opposing views, namely the so-called “lumper” and “splitter”
approaches. While the former concentrates on a macroscopic picture of
lexical-constructional fusion mechanisms in which the role of verbal
predicates is largely taken for granted, the latter contends that, in
addition to broad-scale, abstract constructions *à la* Goldberg,
constructions also need to be formulated at more delicate levels of
resolution, whether as verb-class-specific or even verb-specific
constructions (e.g. Croft, 2003) or in the form of ‘mini-constructions’
(cf. Boas, 2003), which are but instantiations of the former type. As
things stand now, however, none of these proposals has been fully built
into a linguistic model in which both fine-nuanced analyses and broad-scale
generalizations in the form of constraints coexist, much less beyond
argument structure configurations. It is therefore necessary (i) to strike
a balance between the rather extreme projectionist and constructionist
accounts, (ii) to resolve the tension between the lumper and the splitter
approaches in achieving explanatory adequacy, and (iii) to make explicit
the connections between the different areas of linguistic description and
the various disciplines that deal with communication and cognition.

Within this context, this workshop aims to foster a constructive dialogue
not only between functionalism and cognitively-oriented constructionism in
linguistics, but also between research in linguistics and research in
communication theory and the cognitive sciences in general. We thus seek to
insightfully combine apparently divergent theoretical views so as to
achieve a more powerful descriptive and explanatory framework. In sum, our
objective is to move away from what Arppe *et al.* (2010: 3) label
“methodological monism” in order to find a holistic and comprehensive
understanding of language capable of merging evidence types and methods
that address different aspects of linguistic behavior and knowledge (cf.
Arppe *et al.*, 2010).

With these (hopefully) thought-provoking ideas in mind, the present
workshop is intended to promote interaction and collaboration among
researchers interested in one or more of the following issues or in other
related topics:

1. Argument structure constructions vs. other constructional configurations
(e.g. illocutionary, discourse): in search for a holistic view and/or
unified approach to meaning construction. What kinds of non-argument
structure constructions can be proposed (e.g. morphological, illocutionary,
discoursive, etc.)? What is their theoretical status?

2. The “lumper” vs. “splitter” approaches: from thesis and antithesis to
synthesis.

3. What robust generalizations can be made on the principled interaction
across the various levels of description in meaning construction (e.g.
lexical and constructional structure, pragmatic and discourse activity,
whether construction-based or inferential)?

4. What factors constrain the interaction between lexical and
constructional structure across descriptive levels?

5. What is the role of constructions in a usage-based view of
grammaticalization?

6. What are the prospects for mutual co-operation between usage-based
constructionist and non-constructionist approaches to language?

* *

* *

*Important dates*

* *

Abstracts are invited for 20 minute presentations with 10 minute
discussion. Interested researchers and linguists are invited to email both
convenors -  annalisa.baicchi at gmail.com, alba.luzondo at gmail.com - with
their name, affiliation and provisional abstract of 500 words by 10
November 2011.

- Submission of provisional abstract: November 10, 2011

Should the workshop proposal be accepted, all abstracts will need to be
submitted to SLE by 15th January 2012

- Notification of acceptance/rejection by SLE:  March 31, 2012

- Conference dates: August, 29 - September 1, 2012

*Selected references*

* *

Arppe, A., G. Gilquin, D. Glynn, M. Hilpet, & A. Zeschel (2010). Cognitive
corpus linguistics: Five points of debate on current theory and methodology*.
**Corpora 5*, 1-2.

Baicchi A., & F.J. Ruiz de Mendoza (2010). The cognitive grounding of
illocutionary constructions within the theoretical perspective of the
Lexical Constructional Model. *Textus* XXIII (3), 543-564.

Boas, H. C. (2003). *A Constructional Approach to Resultatives*. Stanford:
CSLI Publications.

Boas, H. C. (2008a). Resolving form-meaning discrepancies in Construction
Grammar. In J. Leino (Ed.), *Constructional reorganization*. Amsterdam &
Philadelphia, John* *Benjamins: 11-36.* *

Boas, H.C. (2008b). Determining the structure of lexical entries and
grammatical constructions in Construction Grammar. *Annual Review* *of
Cognitive Linguistics *6, 113-144.

Croft, W. (2003). Lexical rules vs. constructions: A false dichotomy. In H.
Cuyckens, T. Berg, R. Dirven & K. Panther (Eds.), *Motivation in* *language.
Studies in Honour of Gunter Radden*. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, John
Benjamins: 49–68.

Eddington, D., F.J. Ruiz de Mendoza (2010). Argument constructions and
language processing: evidence from a priming experiment and pedagogical
implications. In S. De Knop, F. Boers & T. De Rycker (Eds.), *Fostering
Language Teaching Efficiency through Cognitive* *Linguistics. *Berlin & New
York, Mouton de Gruyter: 213-238.

Goldberg, A. E. (1995). *Constructions. A Construction Grammar Approach to
Argument Structure*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Goldberg, A. E. (1997). Relationships between verb and construction. In M.
Verspoor & E. Sweetser (Eds.), *Lexicon and Grammar*. Amsterdam &
Philadelphia, John Benjamins:* *383-398.

Goldberg, A. E. (2002). Surface generalizations: An alternative to
alternations. *Cognitive Linguistics *13 (4), 327-356.

Goldberg, A. E. (2003). Constructions: A new theoretical approach to
language. *Trends in Cognitive Sciences *7 (5), 219–224.

Goldberg, A. E. (2006). *Constructions at work: The nature of
generalization in language*. New York: Oxford University Press.

Gonzálvez, F. (2011). Metaphor and metonymy do *not* render coercion
superfluous: Evidence from the subjective-transitive construction. *
Linguistics* 49 (6). 1305–1358.

Gonzálvez, F. & C.S. Butler (2006). Mapping functional cognitive space. *Annual
Review of Cognitive Linguistics* 4: 39-96.

Mairal, R. & F. Gonzálvez (2010) .Verbos y construcciones en el espacio
cognitivo-funcional del siglo XXI. In J.F. Val Álvaro, M.C. Horno Chéliz *La
Gramática del Sentido: Léxico y Sintaxis en la Encrucijada. /Conocimiento,
Lenguaje y Comunicación / Knowledge, Language and Communication*, 3,
Zaragoza, Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza: 123-152.

Mairal, R. & F.J. Ruiz de Mendoza (2009). Levels of description and
explanation in meaning construction. In C. S. Butler, & J. Martín Arista
(Eds.), *Deconstructing Constructions*. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John
Benjamins: 153-198.

Nuyts, J. (2005). Brothers in arms? On the relations between cognitive and
functional linguistics. In F.J. Ruiz de Mendoza, M.S. Peña (Eds.) *Cognitive
Linguistics: Internal Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction*.
(Cognitive linguistics research.) Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter,
69-100.

Nuyts, J. (2007). Cognitive linguistics and functional linguistics. In Dirk
Geeraerts and Hubert Cuyckens (Eds.) 2007. *The Oxford Handbook of
Cognitive Linguistics*. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 543-565.

Periñán, C. & R. Mairal (2009). Bringing Role and Reference Grammar to
natural language understanding. *Procesamiento del* *Lenguaje Natural *43,
265-273.

Ruiz de Mendoza, F.J. & A. Baicchi. (2007), Illocutionary
constructions. Cognitive
motivation and linguistic realization. In Kecskes I., L. Horn  (eds.),
*Explorations
in Pragmatics**,* Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter, 95-128.

Ruiz de Mendoza, F.J. & R. Mairal (2008). Levels of description and
constraining factors in meaning construction: An introduction to the *Lexical
Constructional Model*. *Folia Linguistica *42 (2),* *355-400.

Ruiz de Mendoza, F.J. & R. Mairal (2011). Constraints on syntactic
alternation: lexical-constructional subsumption in the
Lexical-Constructional Model. In P. Guerrero (Ed.), *Morphosyntactic*
*Alternations
in English. Functional and Cognitive Perspectives*. London, UK/ Oakville,
CT, Equinox: 62-82.

* *

-- 
Francisco J. Ruiz-de-Mendoza
www.cilap.es
www.lexicom.es

-- 

Annalisa