This book investigates the nature of generalization in language and examines how language is known by adults and acquired by children. It looks at how and why constructions are learned, the relation between their forms and functions, and how cross-linguistic and language-internal generalizations about them can be explained. Constructions at Work is divided into three parts: in the first Professor Goldberg provides an overview of constructionist approaches, including the constructionist approach to argument structure, and argues for a usage-based model of grammar. In Part II she addresses issues concerning how generalizations are constrained and constructional generalizations are learned. In Part III the author shows that a combination of function and processing accounts for a wide range of language-internal and cross-linguistic generalizations. She then considers the degree to which the function of constructions explains their distribution and examines cross-linguistic tendencies in argument realization. She demonstrates that pragmatic and cognitive processes account for the data without appeal to stipulations that are language-specific.This book is an important contribution to the study of how language operates in the mind and in the world and how these operations relate. It is of central interest for scholars and graduate-level students in all branches of theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics. It will also appeal to cognitive scientists and philosophers concerned with language and its acquisition.

Drawing on work in linguistics, language acquisition and computer science, this book proposes that grammatical constructions play a central role in the relation between the form and meaning of simple sentences. The author demonstrates that the syntactic patterns associated with simple sentences are imbued with meaning - that the constructions themselves carry meaning independently of the words in a sentence. Goldberg provides an account of the relation between verbs and constructions, offering ways to relate verb and constructional meaning, and to capture relations among constructions and generalizations over constructions. Prototypes, frame semantics and metaphor are shown to play crucial roles. In addition, Goldberg presents specific analyses of several constructions, including the ditransitive and the resultative constructions, revealing systematic semantic generalizations. Through a comparison with other current approaches to argument structure phenomena, this book narrows the gap between generative and cognitive theories of language.

構文文法の基本文献
He joked his way into the meeting.などのway構文で、動詞自体には「移動」の意味はないにもかかわらず、文全体としては「移動」を意味するようになるのはなぜであろうか。統語上の形式に過ぎないとされてきた「構文」そのものが独自の意味を持ち、動詞の意味と融合して文の意味を形成するというのが構文文法の考え方であり、形式中心から意味へという言語研究の近年の大きな流れを担う言語理論と言える。

We use words and phrases creatively to express ourselves in ever-changing contexts, readily extending language constructions in new ways. Yet native speakers also implicitly know when a creative and easily interpretable formulation—such as “Explain me this” or “She considered to go”—doesn’t sound quite right. In this incisive book, Adele Goldberg explores how these creative but constrained language skills emerge from a combination of general cognitive mechanisms and experience.
Shedding critical light on an enduring linguistic paradox, Goldberg demonstrates how words and abstract constructions are generalized and constrained in the same ways. When learning language, we record partially abstracted tokens of language within the high-dimensional conceptual space that is used when we speak or listen. Our implicit knowledge of language includes dimensions related to form, function, and social context. At the same time, abstract memory traces of linguistic usage-events cluster together on a subset of dimensions, with overlapping aspects strengthened via repetition. In this way, dynamic categories that correspond to words and abstract constructions emerge from partially overlapping memory traces, and as a result, distinct words and constructions compete with one another each time we select them to express our intended messages.
While much of the research on this puzzle has favored semantic or functional explanations over statistical ones, Goldberg’s approach stresses that both the functional and statistical aspects of constructions emerge from the same learning mechanisms.

Covers Smalltalk language and concepts from Xerox PARC.

This distinctive book presents a history of an increasingly important class of computers, personal workstations. It is a history seen from the unique perspective of the people who pioneered their development.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 243-260) and index.
Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 1992.