Constructions, Collocations, and Patterns: Alternative Ways of Construction Identification in a Usage-based, Corpus-driven Theoretical Framework (2023)

Abstract: There is a serious theoretical and methodological dilemma in usage-based construction grammar: how to identify constructions based on corpus pattern analysis. The present paper provides an overview of this dilemma, focusing on argument structure constructions (ASCs) in general. It seeks to answer the question of how a data-driven construction grammatical description can be built on the collocation data extracted from corpora. The study is of meta-scientific interest: it compares theoretical proposals in construction grammar regarding how they handle co-occurrences emerging from a corpus. Discussing alternative bottom-up approaches to the notion of construction, the paper concludes that there is no one-to-one correspondence between corpus patterns and constructions. Therefore, a careful analysis of the former can empirically ground both the identification and the description of constructions.

## introduction if there is a dichotomy between construction grammar and nlp technologies, it can be considered a multidirectional theoretical problem as well. on the one hand, nlp models and methods need constant theoretical support from cxg approaches to language. on the other hand, constructionist frameworks also need to devote more attention to data extraction techniques, because this may result in a more appropriate bottom-up modelling of the complex system of the constructicon. the present paper aims at bridging the gap between data-driven collocation analysis and the theoretical endeavor of construction grammar, focusing on argument structure constructions (ascs). thus, the following pages (merging the genres of a metatheoretical proposal and a critical review) provide the reader not with an empirical analysis of a specific issue, but with an overview of how we can refine our knowledge of constructions based on collocation patterns. in the most general sense, grammatical constructions are form-meaning pairs that are at least partially arbitrary @xcite , i.e., some aspect of their form or function cannot be predicted from their components or from other existing constructions @xcite . building on this definition, constructionist grammatical approaches model our knowledge of the language as a network of constructions of varying complexity: morphemes, word forms and syntactic structures @xcite . this kind of fluidity and flexibility certainly has a liberating effect on theorizing, since a single concept can explain an extremely wide range of phenomena previously isolated into rigid taxonomies. however, it may paralyse corpusdriven research based on data analysis, since it does not even provide the researcher with clear concepts for defining and/or identifying the central phenomenon. what should be the size (and complexity) of the structure whose occurrences are to be analyzed? how large a sample should we take? what quantifiable data will be relevant in mapping the diversity of the phenomenon? illustrating the emerging problems with a specific example, consider the following issues: is the noun of the expression kick the bucket a construction in its own right, or can it only be ## collocation-based construction analysis: alternative proposals three alternative theories of construction grammar that attempt to link the notions of construction and collocation are discussed here: radical construction grammar, the valence-based construction approach, and pattern grammar. while these theories initiate collocation-based construction identification in different ways, a common point is that extracting collocation patterns serves as the initial step to exploring higher levels of argument structure constructions. @xcite ) presents an analysis in which he considers two types of dependencies: coded and collocational dependencies. as shown in examples (1a-b), these relations are essentially syntactic in nature. in both cases, the verb open has a subject and an object argument. the reflexive usage of the verb in (1b) demonstrates, however, that the process of opening the eye instantiates differently. in the first case, the multi-word unit can be interpreted as 'to see the truth', but in the second case, the meaning of the structure is 'open the eyes/begin to see'. the examples thus show that the encoded and collocational dependencies do not coincide (despite all apparent similarities). ## conclusion this meta-theoretical and methodological study attempted to reflect on the interpretation of the concept of construction from a corpus-driven perspective. the main question of the study was how verb argument constructions can be identified in corpus analysis, and which expressions can be said to be (potential) constructions. closely related to this is the question of whether there is a data type in corpus linguistics that can be equated with the broad notion of construction. if the reader considers my attempt successful, they will probably agree with the following two more general conclusions. first, the notion of construction can be used in empirical research neither without reflection nor on the basis of some theoretical consensus. in a corpus-driven approach, the researcher does not rely on a pre-given model of the phenomenon under investigation but arrives at a definition and description of the phenomenon after observing and processing the data. this does not mean, of course, that we should not be aware of the diversity of linguistic constructions. it is, however, suggested that for any given construction under investigation, attributing the label of construction to a set of linguistic phenomena should not be the starting point but the end point (or at least the intermediate result) of an analysis. secondly, the corpus does not provide the constructions directly, therefore, a procedure needs to be developed to move from the raw data of the corpus to the constructions. collocations can be interpreted as dependency relations with varying degrees of symbolization, valency patterns, or recurrent and grammatically more or less transparent patterns. their precise analysis can lead us to the identification of more generic formmeaning pairings. whichever proposal is adopted (or even if we develop our own analytical approach), the corpus contains only patterned verb-word combinations, so we should think in two steps: first, by exploring these combinations to identify constructions, and then, by further methods (e.g., by collostructional analysis), to perform a comprehensive description of the identified constructions. these two steps need not necessarily follow each other, but it is still important not to assume a priori constructions in a corpus-driven analysis. construction grammar and corpus linguistics can therefore be integrated in a number of ways, and we need large-scale investigation to decide which way of them will be the most appropriate. the integration is by no means pre-given, however, by achieving it we will have a better understanding of the organization of the construction.