Relational Morphology: A Cousin of Construction Grammar

Abstract

Relational morphology (RM) is a novel approach to word structure that bears a close relation to construction grammar (CxG). Based on the parallel architecture framework, its basic question is: what linguistic entities are stored in long-term memory, and in what form? Like CxG, RM situates the "rules of grammar" in an extended lexicon, right along with words, multiword expressions such as idioms and collocations, and meaningful syntactic constructions. However, its notion of schema enriches CxG's notion of construction in a number of respects, including (a) the possibility of purely formal schemas that lack meaning, (b) a more precise way of specifying relations among lexical items than standard inheritance, (c) the possibility of "horizontal" relations between individual words and between schemas, (d) a clearer characterization of the distinction between productive and nonproductive phenomena, and (e) more explicit integration with theories of language processing and of other domains of cognition.

Morphosyntactic underspecification affects the processing of verbal forms at different levels of abstraction in L1 and L2 German

“…However, an alternative interpretation exists. The ability to independently prime abstract morphosyntactic configurations in L1 complies also with Relational Morphology (Jackendoff & Audring, 2020) and other constructionist approaches positing generalized morphosyntactic schemas in the extended lexicon. Such assumptions offer a solid base for explaining observed priming of abstract morphosyntactic configurations in L1.…”

Morphology in a Parallel, Distributed, Interactive Architecture of Language Production

“…An architecture with these characteristics is widely accepted in psycholinguistics (Dell, 1985 , 1986 ; Martin, 2007 ; Nozari, 2020 ), and is also adopted in constructionist linguistic theories, which assign a central role to direct form-meaning mappings. These include Network Theory (Bybee, 1985 , 2001 ), Clamoring for Blends (Kapatsinski, 2013 ), Usage-based Construction Grammar (Goldberg, 1995 , 2006 ), Construction Morphology (Booij, 2010 ; Booij and Audring, 2018 ), and Relational Morphology (Jackendoff and Audring, 2016 , 2019 , 2020 ). Aside from the commitment to chunking, these assumptions are also shared with the LDL model (Baayen et al, 2019 ; Chuang et al, 2021a , b ; Heitmeier et al, 2021 ), and surface-oriented constraint-based approaches like Multiple Correspondence Theory (Burzio, 1998 , 2005 ), Functional Phonology (Boersma, 1998 ), and Bidirectional Optimality Theory (Boersma, 2011 ).…”

“…There are several points of comparison for the proposed architecture. The primary point of comparison are morphological architectures proposed within constructionist approaches to linguistics, such as Relational Morphology (Jackendoff and Audring, 2016 , 2019 , 2020 ), Construction Morphology (Booij, 2010 ; Booij and Audring, 2018 ), Network Theory (Bybee, 1985 , 2001 ), Word-based Morphology (Ford et al, 1997 ), Cognitive Grammar (Nesset, 2008 ), and the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model (Schmid, 2020 ); see also Cappelle ( 2006 ), Diessel ( 2019 , 2020 ) and Goldberg ( 2002 ) for related issues in syntax. These approaches take the Constructionist Hypothesis as their starting point, making use of direct form-meaning mappings.…”

Morfologia Relacional: o que é e como se faz

“…Nos termos de Jackendoff e Audring (2017, p. 469), "as abordagens construcionistas argumentam que as regras gramaticais são, elas mesmas, itens lexicais -ou seja, a gramática é parte do léxico" e, por isso mesmo, essa assunção é explicitamente assumida pela Morfologia Relacional (cf. JACKENDOFF; AUDRING, 2016AUDRING, , 2017AUDRING, , 2020. Demonstrando que, em praticamente todas as teorias linguísticas, "uma palavra contém peças de estrutura sobre três níveis: sua estrutura semântica, seus recursos sintáticos e sua fonologia" (cf.…”

“…A questão do formalismo será abordada, com muito mais vagar, no próximo tópico, que também tem o propósito de mostrar o alcance desse modelo mais novo no âmbito da GC. Consideremos, por fim, um contraste que Jackendoff e Audring (2016Audring ( , 2020 concebem como "ponto final mais filosófico": ao contrário de muitas outras abordagens construcionistas (cf. GOLDBERG, 2006), a MR admite a possibilidade de princípios de linguagem específicos de cada nível de descrição da estrutura linguística.…”