Between Grammars and Dictionaries: a Swedish Constructicon

• This paper introduces the Swedish Constructicon (SweCxn), a database of Swedish constructions currently under development. We also present a small study of the treatment of constructions in Swedish (paper) dictionaries, thus illustrating the need for a constructionist approach, and discuss three different methods used to identify potential constructions for inclusion in the constructicon. SweCxn is a freely available electronic resource, with a particular focus on semi-general linguistic patterns of the type that are difficult to account for from a purely lexicographic or a purely grammatical perspective, and which therefore have tended to be neglected in both dictionaries and grammars. Far from being a small set of borderline cases, such constructions are both numerous and common. They are also quite problematic for second language acquisition as well as LT applications. Accordingly, various kinds of multi-word units have received more attention in recent years, not least from a lexicographic perspective. The coverage, however, is only partial, and the productivity of many constructions is hard to capture from a lexical viewpoint. To identify constructions for SweCxn, we use a combination of methods, such as working from existing construction descriptions for Swedish and other languages, applying LT tools to discover recurring patterns in texts, and extrapolating constructional information from dictionaries.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

lexicography

construction

constructicon

Swedish

FrameNet

language technology

lexicography

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)