The Grammar Network

Provides a dynamic network model of grammar that explains how linguistic structure is shaped by language use.

Grade 12.

"Networks of Language" will interest all those concerned with the acquisition and everyday operations of language, in particular scholars and advanced students in linguistics, psychology, and cognitive

This volume brings together ten contributions by leading experts who present their current usage-based research in Diachronic Construction Grammar. All papers contribute to the discussion of how to conceptualize constructional networks best and how to model changes in the constructicon, as for example node creation or loss, node-external reconfiguration of the network or in/decrease in productivity and schematicity. The authors discuss the theoretical status of allostructions, homostructions, constructional families and constructional paradigms. The terminological distinction between constructionalization and constructional change is revisited. It is shown how constructional competition but also general cognitive abilities like analogical thinking and schematization relate to the structure and reorganization of the constructional network. Most contributions focus on the nature of vertical and horizontal links. Finally, contributions to the volume also discuss how existing network models should be enriched or reconceptualized in order to integrate theoretical, psychological and neurological aspects missing so far.

Grade 8.

Construction Grammar as a framework offers a new perspective on traditional historical questions in diachronic linguistics and language change: how do new constructions arise, how should competition in diachronic variation be accounted for, how do constructions fall into disuse, and how do constructions change in general, formally and/or semantically, and with what implications for the language system as a whole? This volume offers a broad introduction to the confluence of Construction Grammar and historical syntax, and also detailed case studies of various instances of syntactic change modeled within Construction Grammar. The volume demonstrates that Construction Grammar as a theory is particularly well suited for modeling historical changes in morphosyntax, and it also documents challenging new phenomena that require a theoretical account within any competing framework of syntactic change.

For nearly half a century, Professor M. A. K. Halliday has been enriching the discipline of linguistics with his keen insights into the social semiotic phenomenon we call language. This ten volume series presents the seminal works of Professor Halliday. This first volume contains seventeen papers, including a new chapter entitled 'A Personal Perspective', in which Halliday offers his own current perspective on language and linguistic theory. The first part of the book presents early papers (1957-66) on basic concepts such as system, structure, class and rank. The second part highlights how, over the span of two decades (the 1960s to mid-1980s), Halliday developed systemic theory to account for linguistic phenomena extending upward through the ranks from word to clause to text. The last part, 'Construing and Abstracting', includes more recent work, in which Halliday discusses the issues confronting those who study linguistics, using Firth's description of linguistics - 'language turned back on itself'.