Contents 
List of tables and figures ix 
Acknowledgements x 
To readers: Why you shouldn't pick up, let alone read, this book xi 
1 Introducing Construction Grammar 1 
1.1 What do you know when you know a language? 1 
1.1.1 Idiomatic expressions permeate ordinary 
language 3 
1.1.2 Idiomatic expressions are more than fixed strings 5 
1.1.3 Idiomatic expressions are productive 7 
1.1.4 The growth of the appendix 7 
1.2 What is a construction? 8 
1.2.1 Defining constructions: a first try 9 
1.2.2 Defining constructions: beyond 
non-predictability 12 
1.3 Identifying constructions 14 
1.3.1 Does the expression deviate from canonical 
patterns? 14 
1.3.2 Does the expression carry non-compositional 
meaning? 16 
1.3.3 Does the expression have idiosyncratic 
constraints? 18 
1.3.4 Does the expression have collocational 
preferences? 20 
1.4 Summing up 22 
1.5 Outline of the following chapters 23 
Study questions 23 
Further reading 24 
2 Argument structure constructions 25 
2.1 Analysing ‘simple sentences’ 25 
2.2 Argument structure 26 
2.3 Valency-increasing constructions 31 
2.3.1 The DITRANSITIVE construction 31 
2.3.2 The CAUSED MOTION construction 35 
2.3.3 The WAY construction 36 
2.4 Valency-decreasing constructions 39 
2.4.1 The PASSIVE 39 
2.4.2 The IMPERATIVE construction 42 
2.4.3 NULL INSTANTIATION 44 
2.5 Relations between argument structure constructions 45 
2.6 Summing up 47 
Study questions 49 
Further reading 49 
3 Inside the construct-i-con 50 
3.1 Meaningless constructions? 50 
3.2 The construct-i-con: a network of interlinked 
constructions 57 
3.2.1 Inheritance 57 
3.2.2 Kinds of inheritance links 60 
3.2.3 Complete inheritance vs. redundant 
representations 65 
3.3 ‘Normal syntax’ in Construction Grammar 67 
3.4 Summing up 71 
Study questions 72 
Further reading 73 
4 Constructional morphology 74 
4.1 More than a theory of syntax 74 
4.1.1 one wug, two wugs 74 
4.1.2 skypable 75 
4.1.3 shpants 77 
4.1.4 a what-the-heck-is-wrong-with-you look 79 
4.2 Morphological constructions and their properties 80 
4.2.1 Morphological productivity 81 
4.2.2 Paradigmatic organisation 83 
4.2.3 Non-compositional meanings 85 
4.2.4 Simultaneous affixation 86 
4.3 Constructional solutions to morphological puzzles 88 
4.3.1 Affix ordering 88 
4.3.2 Compounding 93 
4.4 Summing up 97 
Study questions 99 
Further reading 100 
5 Information packaging constructions 101 
5.1 The pragmatic side of Construction Grammar 101 
5.1.1 Information packaging: the basics 104 
5.1.2 Presupposition and assertion 105 
5.1.3 Activation 107 
5.1.4 Topic and focus 109 
5.2 Information packaging and grammar 111 
5.2.1 Cleft constructions 112 
5.2.2 Dislocation and related constructions 117 
5.3 Island constraints 123 
5.4 Summing up 126 
Study questions 128 
Further reading 128 
6 Constructions and language processing 130 
6.1 The quest for behavioural evidence 130 
6.2 Evidence from language comprehension 132 
6.2.1 Constructions explain how hearers understand 
novel denominal verbs 132 
6.2.2 Constructional meanings are routinely accessed 
in sentence comprehension 134 
6.2.3 Constructions explain knowledge of grammatical 
unacceptability 137 
6.2.4 Constructions explain incidental verbatim 
memory 142 
6.3 Evidence from language production 144 
6.3.1 Constructions explain reduction effects in 
speech 144 
6.3.2 Constructions explain syntactic priming, and 
exceptions to syntactic priming 145 
6.3.3 Constructions explain how speakers complete 
sentences 148 
6.4 Summing up 151 
Study questions 154 
Further reading 154 
7 Constructions and language acquisition 155 
7.1 Construction Grammar for kids 155 
7.1.1 Item-based learning 156 
7.1.2 The sociocognitive foundation of language 
learning 158 
7.2 Evidence for the item-based nature of language learning 163 
7.3 From item-based schemas to constructions 169 
7.4 The acquisition of complex sentences 172 
7.5 Summing up 176 
Study questions 178 
Further reading 178 
8 Language variation and change 179 
8.1 Language myths 179 
8.2 Constructional variation 181 
8.2.1 There’s more than one way to do it 181 
8.2.2 Variation in syntactic constructions: the example 
of relative clauses 183 
8.2.3 Analysing variation between constructions 185 
8.3 Constructional variation across groups of speakers 191 
8.4 Constructional change: variation across time 194 
8.5 Summing up 199 
Study questions 200 
Further reading 201 
9 Concluding remarks 202 
References 205 
Index 217