Constructing a Second Language: Analyses and Computational Simulations of the Emergence of Linguistic Constructions From Usage

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of interactions in the usage, structure, cognition, coadaptation of conversational partners, and emergence of linguistic constructions. It focuses on second language development of English verb‐argument constructions (VACs: VL, verb locative; VOL, verb object locative; VOO, ditransitive) with particular reference to the following: (a) Construction learning as concept learning following the general cognitive and associative processes of the induction of categories from experience of exemplars in usage obtained through coadapted micro‐discursive interaction with conversation partners; (b) the empirical analysis of usage by means of corpus linguistic descriptions of native and nonnative speech and of longitudinal emergence in the interlanguage of second language learners; (c) the effects of the frequency and Zipfian type/token frequency distribution of exemplars within the Verb and other islands of the construction archipelago (e.g., [Subj V Obj Obl path/loc ]), by their prototypicality, their generic coverage, and their contingency of form‐meaning‐use mapping, and (d) computational (emergent connectionist) models of these various factors as they play out in the emergence of constructions as generalized linguistic schema.