37.2661, Confs: Theme session at ÖLT 2026 - Modeling Idiomatic Construction Networks in German, Chinese and X: Corpus, Cognition, and Cross-linguistic Comparison (Austria)

Thu Aug 13 10:05:02 UTC 2026

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2661. Thu Aug 13 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2661, Confs: Theme session at ÖLT 2026 - Modeling Idiomatic Construction Networks in German, Chinese and X: Corpus, Cognition, and Cross-linguistic Comparison (Austria)

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Date: 13-Aug-2026
From: Bin Zhang [bin.zhang at tu-dresden.de]
Subject: Theme session at ÖLT 2026 - Modeling Idiomatic Construction Networks in German, Chinese and X: Corpus, Cognition, and Cross-linguistic Comparison

Theme session at ÖLT 2026 - Modeling Idiomatic Construction Networks
in German, Chinese and X: Corpus, Cognition, and Cross-linguistic
Comparison
Short Title: ÖLT 2026
Theme: Modeling Idiomatic Construction Networks in German, Chinese and
X: Corpus, Cognition, and Cross-Linguistic Comparison

Date: 20-Nov-2026 - 21-Nov-2026
Location: Salzburg, Austria
Contact: Bin Zhang
Contact Email: bin.zhang at tu-dresden.de
Meeting URL:
https://www.plus.ac.at/linguistik/tagungen-und-vortraege/tagungen/

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; Computational Linguistics;
General Linguistics; Linguistic Theories; Syntax
Subject Language(s): Chinese (zho)
                     English (eng, stan1293)
                     German (deu)

Submission Deadline: 20-Sep-2026

Friday, 20 November 2026, 13:30–18:00 (incl. 30-minute coffee break)
University of Salzburg, Austria
Topic:
Idioms have long been treated as exceptions to grammar: fixed
expressions that must be memorized rather than systematically
explained. This workshop argues that such a view is no longer tenable.
Within usage-based Construction Grammar, all linguistic knowledge
consists of form-meaning pairings (constructions) organized into
interconnected networks shaped by cognitive processes such as analogy
and categorization (Goldberg 1995; Bybee 2010; Diessel 2023).
Constructions vary along a continuum from fully fixed to highly
schematic patterns with productive slots. Idioms occupy this
intermediate space, making them particularly suitable for
cross-linguistic comparison.
German and Chinese provide an ideal test case. German research has
shown that idiomatic expressions and phrasemes form constructional
families with shared discourse and semantic functions (Finkbeiner
2012; Mollica & Stumpf 2022). Likewise, Chinese four-character idioms
(Chéng Yǔ) are increasingly understood as constructional units whose
semantics are shaped by historical, cultural, and prosodic factors
(Luo 2015; Feng 2018). Corpus-based studies further demonstrate that
frequency, morpheme order, and semantic regularities contribute to
idiomatic productivity (Zhang 2023). Importantly, both languages
contain productive idiomatic templates with constrained variability,
such as the Chinese yī + X + yī + Y pattern and German correlative
constructions (e.g., je … desto, wer … der …). Despite their
similarities, these constructional networks have rarely been modeled
within a unified cross-linguistic framework (Chen 2022, 2025).
To address this gap, the workshop proposes a replicable analytical
pipeline integrating Construction Grammar, corpus linguistics, and
computational methods. First, idioms are represented in semantic space
using contextualized embeddings from pretrained large language models,
allowing semantically related idioms to cluster into constructional
families. Second, idiomatic compositionality is quantified by
comparing idiom embeddings with the embeddings of their constituent
elements. Cosine similarity provides a continuous measure of semantic
transparency, enabling systematic comparisons across constructional
templates. Third, covarying collexeme analysis identifies
statistically preferred slot-fillers in productive idiomatic patterns,
revealing the semantic constraints that underpin partially schematic
constructions.
Together, these methods allow idioms to be analyzed simultaneously as
holistic expressions and as productive constructional patterns with
measurable internal structure. The workshop therefore moves beyond
traditional descriptions of idioms toward a quantitative,
reproducible, and cross-linguistic framework for modeling
constructional networks.
References:
Bybee, J. (2010). Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge University
Press.
Chen, A. C.-H. (2022). Words, constructions and corpora: Network
representations of constructional semantics for Mandarin space
particles. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 18(2), 209–235.
Chen, A. C.-H. (2025). From sequentiality to schematization:
Network-based analysis of covarying collexemes in Mandarin degree
adverb constructions. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 21(3),
475–515.
Diessel, H. (2023). The constructicon: Taxonomies and networks.
Cambridge University Press.
Feng, S. (2018). Prosodic morphology in Mandarin Chinese. Routledge.
Finkbeiner, R. (2012). Evaluative meaning: German idiomatic patterns,
context, and the category of cause. Pragmatics & Cognition, 20(1),
107–134.
Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions: A Construction Grammar approach
to argument structure. University of Chicago Press.
Luo, J. (2015). On the interaction between the structure and the
prosody of Chinese 1+3 idioms. In Chinese lexical semantics: 16th
workshop, CLSW 2015, Beijing, China, revised selected papers (pp.
340–351). Springer.
Mollica, F., & Stumpf, S. (2022). Families of constructions in German:
A corpus-based study of constructional phrasemes with the pattern [XNP
attribute]. In C. Mellado Blanco (Ed.), Productive patterns in
phraseology and construction grammar: A multilingual approach (pp.
79–106). De Gruyter.
Zhang, B. (2023). Metapherntheorie und Konstruktionsgrammatik: Ein
vierdimensionaler Ansatz zur Analyse von Metaphern und metaphorischen
Konstruktionen (Metaphor Theory and Construction Grammar: A
Four-Dimensional Approach to the Analysis of Metaphors and
Metaphorical Constructions) (Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik, Volume
587). Narr.
Call for Contributions:
We invite contributions from corpus linguistics, cognitive
linguistics, and computational linguistics that test, refine, or
extend this approach to idiomatic and constructional networks. We
particularly welcome studies on Austronesian, Sinitic, Germanic, and
other underrepresented language families, with the broader goal of
advancing a multilingual, interoperable Constructicon.
Rather than following a conventional paper-session format, this theme
session is conceived as a half-day collaborative working session. It
will comprise five focused presentations (20 minutes each, followed by
10 minutes of Q&A), a discussant’s response, and an open roundtable
addressing a question that the field has postponed for too long: What
would it take to build a shared, searchable, and multilingual
Constructicon?
The workshop offers early insight into results emerging from two
ongoing international research collaborations. The first is an NSTC
(National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan) and DAAD (German
Academic Exchange Service, Germany) funded mobility project entitled
“Building a Cross Linguistic Constructicon: A Corpus-Based Study of
Idiomatic Construction Networks in German and Chinese,” running from
January 2026 to December 2027. The second is an NSTC (National Science
and Technology Council, Taiwan) and DFG (German Research Foundation,
Germany) funded international collaboration project entitled “The
Network of Idiomatic Constructions: A Quantitative Corpus-Based
Approach,” running from June 2025 to June 2026.
Submission Guidelines:
 - Abstract length: maximum 500 words, excluding references, tables,
and figures.
 - Deadline: 20 September 2026 (Anywhere on Earth).
 - Submission: please send your abstract as a PDF by E-mail directly
to both organizers (contact details below).
 - Notification of acceptance will follow shortly after the submission
deadline.
Contact:
 - Alvin Cheng-Hsien Chen: alvinchen at ntnu.edu.tw
 - Bin Zhang: bin.zhang at tu-dresden.de

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