Construction Grammar
Why can you bake someone a cake but not explain them a problem?
Construction grammar treats a language as a network of constructions, learned pairings of form and meaning that range from single words and idioms to abstract sentence patterns.
A learner writes She explained me the problem. She has already met She gave me the book and He sent me a message, so the error is not random: she has found a pattern and stretched it. Construction grammar explains both the pattern and the stretch.
In this view a language is an inventory of constructions, conventional pairings of form and meaning at every size, from words and fixed phrases to idioms like let alone and fully abstract frames. Adele Goldberg (1995) argued that argument-structure patterns carry meaning themselves. The ditransitive frame (subject, verb, two objects) means roughly that someone causes someone else to receive something, which is why She baked him a cake reads as a cake intended for him. In her well-known caused-motion example, even sneeze can push a napkin off a table. Goldberg (2006) extended the claim: a pattern counts as a construction if its form or meaning cannot be predicted from its parts, or if it is frequent enough to be stored.
Usage-based SLA researchers such as Nick Ellis argue that learners build constructions from input, driven by frequency and by how reliably a form signals its meaning. Ellis and Ferreira-Junior (2009) found that naturalistic L2 learners first used the most frequent, prototypical verb in each pattern, such as put for putting something somewhere and give in the ditransitive. Goldberg suggests that errors like explain me the problem fade as learners repeatedly hear the alternative, explain it to me, where the ditransitive could have been used. For teachers, grammar and vocabulary become one continuum, and a sentence frame can be taught, like a word, with its meaning attached.
In actionA sensible overgeneralisation
- S
- Yesterday my boss explained me the new project.
- T
- Nice. She gave you the details, she sent you the plan, and she explained…?
- S
- She explained the project… to me?
- T
- Yes. Explain doesn’t take two objects in English. Explain it to me, describe it to me.
The learner has generalised the ditransitive’s ‘cause to receive’ meaning, a reasonable move that English happens to block for explain, a typical usage-based account of the error.
In the classroom
- 1
Write X gave Y Z, X sent Y Z and X baked Y Z on the board, elicit the shared ‘transfer’ meaning, then contrast verbs that resist the frame, such as explain, describe and donate.
- 2
Introduce a new pattern through its most typical verb (give for the ditransitive), then soon widen to other verbs. Input skewed towards one verb helped in Goldberg and colleagues’ lab studies, but Year and Gordon (2009) found a balanced mix worked better for Korean children in EFL classes.
- 3
Teach semi-fixed frames such as the more…, the more… and What’s X doing Y? as grammar with meaning, alongside the prefabricated chunks learners already notice.
Myth and reality
Construction grammar is just a fancy name for teaching more chunks and phrases.
It goes further: abstract patterns like the ditransitive are themselves meaningful units, learned much like words. Constructions run from fixed idioms to fully schematic frames, so there is no sharp line between grammar and lexis.
Reflect
Which grammar point in your syllabus do you teach as a meaningless rule that might be easier to learn as a pattern with a meaning?
Worth a minute before your next lesson, or a conversation in the staffroom.
SourcesChecked against Crossref and library records
Construction grammar grew out of 1980s Berkeley work by Charles Fillmore, Paul Kay and colleagues, notably this study of *let alone*. Adele Goldberg’s 1995 book extended it to argument structure and made it widely known.
Fillmore, C. J., Kay, P., & O’Connor, M. C. (1988). Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: The case of let alone. Language, 64(3), 501–538.
Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. University of Chicago Press.
The founding case for meaningful argument-structure constructions, including the ditransitive, caused-motion and resultative patterns.
Goldberg, A. E. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford University Press.
How constructions are learned and constrained, with chapters on skewed input, pre-emption and why some generalisations are blocked.
Ellis, N. C., & Ferreira-Junior, F. (2009). Construction learning as a function of frequency, frequency distribution, and function. The Modern Language Journal, 93(3), 370–385.
L2 learner data showing that the most frequent, prototypical verb leads the way into each construction.
Gries, S. Th., & Wulff, S. (2005). Do foreign language learners also have constructions?. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 3, 182–200.
Priming, corpus and sorting evidence that German learners of English store argument-structure constructions, not just verbs.
Year, J., & Gordon, P. (2009). Korean speakers’ acquisition of the English ditransitive construction: The role of verb prototype, input distribution, and frequency. The Modern Language Journal, 93(3), 399–417.
A classroom test of skewed input with young EFL learners that found a balanced range of verbs worked better: a useful corrective to lab findings.
ConnectionsSee it in the graph
- Usage-Based Learningnot yet writtenUsage-based SLA explains how learners build constructions from frequency in the input.
- Focus on FormInput floods and brief attention to form suit teaching constructions in meaningful contexts.
Know a teacher who’d like this?
Send them the card. It’s made for Facebook, Zalo, LinkedIn and Instagram, and links back here.