Taking Construction Grammar One Step Further: Families, Clusters, and Networks of Evaluative Constructions in Russian
We present a case study of grammatical constructions and how their function in a single language (Russian) can be captured through semantic and syntactic classification. Since 2016 an on-going joint project of UiT The Arctic University of Norway and the National Research University Higher School of...
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10037/19977 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.574353 |
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ftunivtroemsoe:oai:munin.uit.no:10037/19977 2023-05-15T18:49:27+02:00 Taking Construction Grammar One Step Further: Families, Clusters, and Networks of Evaluative Constructions in Russian Endresen, Anna Janda, Laura Alexis 2020-11-20 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/19977 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.574353 eng eng Frontiers Media Frontiers in Psychology https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.574353/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Fronti Endresen A, Janda LA. Taking Construction Grammar One Step Further: Families, Clusters, and Networks of Evaluative Constructions in Russian. Frontiers in Psychology. 2020;11:1-22 FRIDAID 1850252 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.574353 1664-1078 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/19977 openAccess Copyright 2020 The Author(s) VDP::Humanities: 000::Linguistics: 010 VDP::Humaniora: 000::Språkvitenskapelige fag: 010 Journal article Tidsskriftartikkel Peer reviewed publishedVersion 2020 ftunivtroemsoe https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.574353 2021-06-25T17:57:48Z We present a case study of grammatical constructions and how their function in a single language (Russian) can be captured through semantic and syntactic classification. Since 2016 an on-going joint project of UiT The Arctic University of Norway and the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow has been collecting and analyzing multiword grammatical constructions of Russian. The main product is the Russian Constructicon (https://site.uit.no/russian-constructicon/), which, with over two thousand two hundred constructions (and more being continuously added), is arguably the largest openly available constructicon resource for any language. The combination of this large size with depth of analysis, containing both syntactic and semantic tags, makes it possible to view the interrelation of constructions as families and to discover trends in their behavior. Our annotation includes 53 semantic tags of varying frequency, with three tags that are by far more frequent than all the rest, accounting for 30% of the entire inventory of the Russian Constructicon. These three semantic types are Assessment, Attitude, and Intensity, all of which convey a speaker’s evaluation of a topic, in contrast to most of the other tags (such as Time, Manner, and Comparison). Assessment and Attitude constructions are investigated in greater detail in this article. Secondary semantic tags reveal that negative evaluation among these two semantic types is more than twice as frequent as positive evaluation. Examples of negative evaluations are: for Assessment VP tak sebe , as in Na pianino ja igraju tak sebe “I play the piano so-so [lit. thus self]”; for Attitude s PronPers-Gen xvatit/xvatilo (NP-Gen) , as in S menja xvatit “I’m fed up [lit. from me enough].” In terms of syntax, the most frequent syntactic types of constructions in the Russian Constructicon are clausal constructions [constituting an independent clause like s PronPers-Gen xvatit/xvatilo (NP-Gen) ] and constructions with the anchor in the role of adverbial modifier (like VP tak sebe ). Our semantic and syntactic classification of this large body of Russian constructions makes it possible to postulate patterns of grammatical constructions constituting a radial category with central and peripheral types. Classification of large numbers of constructions reveals systematic relations that structure the grammar of a language. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic University of Norway UiT The Arctic University of Norway University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive Arctic Norway Frontiers in Psychology 11 |
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University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive |
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English |
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VDP::Humanities: 000::Linguistics: 010 VDP::Humaniora: 000::Språkvitenskapelige fag: 010 |
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VDP::Humanities: 000::Linguistics: 010 VDP::Humaniora: 000::Språkvitenskapelige fag: 010 Endresen, Anna Janda, Laura Alexis Taking Construction Grammar One Step Further: Families, Clusters, and Networks of Evaluative Constructions in Russian |
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VDP::Humanities: 000::Linguistics: 010 VDP::Humaniora: 000::Språkvitenskapelige fag: 010 |
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We present a case study of grammatical constructions and how their function in a single language (Russian) can be captured through semantic and syntactic classification. Since 2016 an on-going joint project of UiT The Arctic University of Norway and the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow has been collecting and analyzing multiword grammatical constructions of Russian. The main product is the Russian Constructicon (https://site.uit.no/russian-constructicon/), which, with over two thousand two hundred constructions (and more being continuously added), is arguably the largest openly available constructicon resource for any language. The combination of this large size with depth of analysis, containing both syntactic and semantic tags, makes it possible to view the interrelation of constructions as families and to discover trends in their behavior. Our annotation includes 53 semantic tags of varying frequency, with three tags that are by far more frequent than all the rest, accounting for 30% of the entire inventory of the Russian Constructicon. These three semantic types are Assessment, Attitude, and Intensity, all of which convey a speaker’s evaluation of a topic, in contrast to most of the other tags (such as Time, Manner, and Comparison). Assessment and Attitude constructions are investigated in greater detail in this article. Secondary semantic tags reveal that negative evaluation among these two semantic types is more than twice as frequent as positive evaluation. Examples of negative evaluations are: for Assessment VP tak sebe , as in Na pianino ja igraju tak sebe “I play the piano so-so [lit. thus self]”; for Attitude s PronPers-Gen xvatit/xvatilo (NP-Gen) , as in S menja xvatit “I’m fed up [lit. from me enough].” In terms of syntax, the most frequent syntactic types of constructions in the Russian Constructicon are clausal constructions [constituting an independent clause like s PronPers-Gen xvatit/xvatilo (NP-Gen) ] and constructions with the anchor in the role of adverbial modifier (like VP tak sebe ). Our semantic and syntactic classification of this large body of Russian constructions makes it possible to postulate patterns of grammatical constructions constituting a radial category with central and peripheral types. Classification of large numbers of constructions reveals systematic relations that structure the grammar of a language. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Endresen, Anna Janda, Laura Alexis |
author_facet |
Endresen, Anna Janda, Laura Alexis |
author_sort |
Endresen, Anna |
title |
Taking Construction Grammar One Step Further: Families, Clusters, and Networks of Evaluative Constructions in Russian |
title_short |
Taking Construction Grammar One Step Further: Families, Clusters, and Networks of Evaluative Constructions in Russian |
title_full |
Taking Construction Grammar One Step Further: Families, Clusters, and Networks of Evaluative Constructions in Russian |
title_fullStr |
Taking Construction Grammar One Step Further: Families, Clusters, and Networks of Evaluative Constructions in Russian |
title_full_unstemmed |
Taking Construction Grammar One Step Further: Families, Clusters, and Networks of Evaluative Constructions in Russian |
title_sort |
taking construction grammar one step further: families, clusters, and networks of evaluative constructions in russian |
publisher |
Frontiers Media |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/10037/19977 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.574353 |
geographic |
Arctic Norway |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Norway |
genre |
Arctic University of Norway UiT The Arctic University of Norway |
genre_facet |
Arctic University of Norway UiT The Arctic University of Norway |
op_relation |
Frontiers in Psychology https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.574353/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Fronti Endresen A, Janda LA. Taking Construction Grammar One Step Further: Families, Clusters, and Networks of Evaluative Constructions in Russian. Frontiers in Psychology. 2020;11:1-22 FRIDAID 1850252 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.574353 1664-1078 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/19977 |
op_rights |
openAccess Copyright 2020 The Author(s) |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.574353 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Psychology |
container_volume |
11 |
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1766243044227547136 |