One of the purposes (and benefits) of the ATEG listserv is that it allows
discussion of diferent perspectivies on grammar, which can only be of help
to those who teach grammar.  The exchange over the last few days on
"constructions" and "consruction grammar" has been very interesting, but I
suspect that I am not the only one who is confused on two counts.


        1. What is a construction?
        2. How would a learner recognize that what appears to be a
construction in one case is not a       construction in another?        In
other words, how does construction grammar address the issue of
learnablility?

        On 8/3, Johanna described a construction as a "specialization of
meaning" and "a sort of fossilization of phrase structure." Johanna went on
to describe constructions as similar to idioms but also says that the
meaning of a construction is more closely tied to the meaning of its parts
than is the case with idioms. It seems that constructions have properties of
both unanalyzed wholes and expressions whose interpretation depends on some
sort of formal analysis (which all things being equal, construction grammamr
would prefer not to do.) Obviously, a construct with these conflicting
properties would be hard to identify.
        At least for me, both of the candidate expression types discussed so
far have not made a case for how "construction grammar" would be of interest
to grammar teachers.  The "go Xing" structure  doesn't seem to be a good
candidate because its interpretation depends on an analysis into different
semantic cagetories (leisure activities vs. other types of activity - go
canoeing vs *go housecleaning). Also, it seems to me that the intepretation
of these reflexive structures that Bob Yates presented is absolutely
dependent on some kind of formal analysis.



It doesn't appear that either the "go Xing" structure or reflexives count as
"constructions" according to the definition provided by Johanna. Even
Johanna's discussion of the interpretation of reflexives makes use of
considerable formal analysis. In addition, apart from the debate over the
methodology used by grammarians is the bigger question of how learners would
recognize constructions without recourse to liberal use of some kind of
formal analysis - which Construction Grammar apparently resists.  This issue
of learnability seems to me to be really important - especially for
discussions on this list.


        I appreciate that Johanna is not an "expert" in Construction Grammar
but brought it up on the list as an interesting idea to consider. Perhaps we
could see some other examples of structures which would be more transparent
to learners if presented as (relatively) unanalyzed wholes.

                Jim Kenkel, Eastern Kentucky University

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