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Introduction to Construction Grammar (group A)

Class at Faculty of Arts |
ABO300349

Syllabus

Major topics (a.k.a. rough syllabus):

Functional-cognitive vs. formal theories of grammar

Arguments for CxG

Basic concepts and terminology

Nominal constructions

Valence constructions

Phrasal syntax (phrases, clauses, sentences)

Constructional maps

Diachronic analysis in CxG

Annotation

This course is a primer in Construction Grammar (CxG), a cognitively and functionally oriented framework in which syntactic representations are understood as conventionalized associations between form and function. Focus will be on the framework’s analytic methods and on articulating generalizations about speakers’ linguistic knowledge.

We will also examine the ways in which variation in grammatical form can be systematically captured and explained. Using material from English, Czech, and from various less familiar languages, we will explore what typologically different grammars share and in what sense the constructional approach can serve as a universal model of language.