The lexical constructional model meets syntax: guidelines of the formalized lexical-constructional model (FL_CxG )

Abstract

This paper offers the basic guidelines of a formalized version of the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM; Ruiz de Mendoza & Mairal Usón, 2008, 2011; Ruiz de Mendoza & Galera, 2014), the Formalized Lexical-Constructional Grammar (FL_CxG), which will pave the way for future computational developments, such as parsers or lexical databases. The FL_CxG deploys (i) the typologically oriented syntactic apparatus of Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin, 2005; Van Valin & LaPolla, 1997), (ii) the catalogue of constructional units arranged in a 4-layer typology, as proposed by the LCM, and (iii) some insights for semantic representations from the Generative Lexicon Theory (Pustejovsky, 1995; Pustejovsky & Batiukova, 2019), and Minimal English (Goddard, 2018). All the components of the FL_CxG (lexical units and construct(ion)s) are formally encoded as Typed Feature Structures in the format of Attribute Value Matrixes. These units are to be understood as constraints operating in the unification processes which underlie the generation/decoding of a given fragment of language.