Review article
Language use and the architecture of grammar: a Construction Morphology perspective
Geert Booij
orcid.org/0000-0003-1197-0259
; Leiden University, The Netherlands
Abstract
This article motivates a usage–based account of morphological knowledge, and its place in
the architecture of grammar. I–language, the abstract linguistic competence, and E–language,
that is, actual language use, stand in a dialogic relationship. Morphology must be usage–
based in order to understand the knowledge and creation of complex words. Construction
Morphology is a theory about the place of morphology in the architecture of grammar that
assumes a hierarchical lexicon, with various degrees of schematicity that do justice to actual
language use in the domain of word formation. Since there are productive phrasal lexical
constructions as well, and word formation may be based on paradigmatic relationships with
such phrasal lexical units, there is no sharp divide between lexicon and grammar, although
the formal distinction between syntactic and morphological constructs must be preserved.
Arguments are given for second order schemas. They represent a multi–dimensional network of
relationships between linguistic constructional schemas, both morphological and syntactic ones.
The model of Construction Morphology is shown to allow for the graceful integration of
findings concerning lexical knowledge in various subdomains of linguistics such as language
acquisition, change, and processing.
Keywords
competence; performance; lexical knowledge; Construction Morphology; Construction Grammar
Hrčak ID:
131343
URI
Publication date:
22.12.2014.
Visits: 2.105 *