USAGE-BASED FOUNDATIONS OF CONSTRUCTION GRAMMAR
Abstract
This article discusses the usage-based foundations of construction grammar as a new theory of language. In recent years, construction grammar has become the linguistic mainstream represented by a growing quantity and variety of studies in the field. The theoretical overview of the basic principles of the usage-based theory and their incorporation by construction grammar presents a systematized and comprehensive account of the theoretical and methodological premises of the constructionist approach; presents the definition of the construction as a complex linguistic sign, a conventional pairing of form and meaning; defines the integrative approach to the study of constructions; substantiates the understanding of the language as a network of constructions of different degree of complexity and schematicity. The paper enlists the main schools of contemporary construction grammar, considers their common fundamental tenets and basis dissimilarities and discloses the usage-based orientation of construction grammar by outlining the key concepts of the usage-based theory of language. The paper introduces the principal assumptions of the usage-based approach: the language system is shaped by usage; usage data are important for the language theory; linguistic representations are emergent, but not fixed entities; the interrelation between the language system and nonlinguistic cognitive systems; the decisive role of the context in the language system functioning. The conclusions of the conducted study highlight the potential of construction grammar as an innovative theoretical approach of contemporary linguistics, that applies integrative approach to linguistic units and presents the language system as a whole. In our future research we will apply the procedural apparatus of usage-based construction grammar to examine the English detached constructions with explicit subject on the basis of extensive corpus data with the use of quantitative methods (collostruction analysis) to obtain new objective findings on their linguistic nature and usage.
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