SILEBR 2009 005.

SIL Electronic Book Reviews 2009-005

Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in
language
By Adele E. Goldberg
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. 160. paper $34.95. ISBN 0199268525.
Reviewed by David J. Weber
SIL International

Adele Goldberg’s Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language (Oxford
University Press, 2006) is an important book, one that all linguists interested in grammar should
read, especially those who do linguistic fieldwork. It is not a tutorial on Construction Grammar
(CG).1 Fieldworkers should be particularly encouraged by it: now they can appreciate the gold
dust that runs through their fingers, the fine-grained details that have been brushed off the scale
by those who only value big generalizations. But big-generalization theorists should also take
note because the enterprise of capturing generalizations by means of abstract forms and
derivations is now hanging in the balance: “Minnie Minnie, tickle a parson.”2
Goldberg brings together a great deal of research to consolidate “constructivist approaches” to
grammar, ones founded on the proposition that “Speakers’ knowledge of language consists of
systematic collections of form-function pairings that are learned on the basis of the language they
hear around them” (p. 227) and motivated by the conviction that, since constructions (formmeaning pairings) can account for what some call “peripheral” aspects of language, they should

also be able to account for the “core” (p. 230).
Goldberg's goal is “to investigate the nature of generalization in language,” that is, “how and
why constructions can be learned and how cross-linguistic and language-internal generalizations
can be accounted for” (p. 3). Two questions prevail: (1) How do learners acquire generalizations
such that they can produce an open-ended number of novel utterances based on a finite amount
of input? and (2) Why are languages the way they are? (p. 11). Throughout, the constructionist
approach is argued to provide the most adequate answers, and it is into this warp that Goldberg
weaves data-based arguments, with the thread of argument structure frequently surfacing, a
thread that Goldberg has carefully spun in previous studies.
Goldberg gives an overview of the book at the outset of chapter 1 and a wonderful summary in
the final chapter. The summary given below draws especially from the latter, often quoting it.
(For the real thing, read the book!)
There are three main parts. The first part, chapters 1-3, is about constructions.

In Chapter 1, Goldberg gives an overview of constructionist approaches, ones for which the
pairing of form and meaning or function (which everyone accepts for lexical items) is extended
to all levels of grammar. Thus, expressions like “The more the merrier,” “The higher they climb,
the harder they fall,” and so forth, are instances of a construction. It is formed by juxtaposing two
NPs, each beginning with “the” and followed by a comparative phrase. This form is paired with a
meaning, roughly as follows: each NP expresses a variable; the second varies according to the

first. Note that this rich meaning (really amazing for such a simple form!) is not the result of the
words in the phrases, but belongs to the construction itself.
In Chapter 2, Goldberg advances the claim that broader and more robust generalizations hold
for surface forms than for any form from which the surface might be claimed to be syntactically
or semantically derived. She argues this convincing in the domain argument structure,
considering (among others) the Ditransitive construction (e.g., Mina bought Mel a book) and the
Caused-Motion construction (e.g., Mina sent Mel a book).
In Chapter 3, Goldberg argues for usage-based models of grammar, one that includes both itemspecific information and generalizations. This is required to account for speakers’ full knowledge
of language, including both instances and generalizations over instances. It is supported by
linguistic facts as well as by what is known about the nature of non-linguistic categories, which
also involve knowledge of both instances and generalizations. A speaker’s knowledge of
language, from the particular to the most general, forms an integrated and motivated network
(often an inheritance hierarchy).
The second part, chapters 4-6, is about how constructions are learned.
In Chapter 4, Goldberg “reports experimental evidence that indicates that constructions can in
fact be learned on the basis of the input, and further explores empirical evidence for parallels in
the learning of non-linguistic categories” (p. 12). Studies show that children skillfully employ “a
host of pragmatic and cognitive abilities,” including the ability “to make statistical generalizations”
and to “use semantics and pragmatics to help guide interpretation and generalization” (p. 227).
Further, “children are experts at observing statistical correlations and making predictions on the

basis of them, and they are also experts at interpreting others’ intentions” (p. 227). It is argued
that learners are guided toward generalizations by “skewed input,” that is, by one or a few
instances of a construction that occur remarkably more frequently than others accounted for by
the generalization. Such skewed input has been found to be common in the input children
receive.
An example: A few years ago in east Africa I saw a bumper sticker “Grace happens” on a
seminary professor’s door. I asked some African students what they thought it meant but none of
their responses came close to how I understand it, based on a similar bumper sticker that I see
now and then, one that Wikipedia characterizes as “a simple existential observation that life is
full of imperfections.” It was my exposure to this bumper sticker that induced in me the
constructional meaning that makes “Grace happens” a clever and profound statement.
In Chapter 5, Goldberg explores the question of how generalizations are constrained. We’ve all
heard a language learner extend a generalization too far, like a child saying “goed” (generalizing

the -ed ‘past’) instead of “went.” Children do not receive much explicit feedback about their
utterances, so how do they avoid or recover from overgeneralization? The answer is that children
receive indirect negative evidence in the form of “statistical preemption,” that is, other things
being equal, “more specific knowledge always pre-empts general knowledge” (p. 94). For
example, if learners encounter “went” in contexts where they might be tempted to say “goed,”
then “went” pre-empts “goed.” Statistical pre-emption isn’t the whole story, but it is a good part

of it.
In Chapter 6, Goldberg provides motivation for why constructions are learned, exploring the
advantage that constructions give language users. Answers are sought without reference to
“universal grammar” and “innate syntactic knowledge.” Goldberg’s answer, argued from the
domain of argument structure, is mostly based on “the fact that constructions are highly valuable
both in predicting meaning, given the form, and in predicting form, given the message to be
conveyed” (p. 228). Simply put, constructions are valued because they make it possible to
understand and produce utterances, so those who aspire to communicate must learn them.
The third part, chapters 7-9, seeks explanations for generalizations.
Chapter 7: Beyond just enabling the encoding of meanings, languages afford constructions to
structure (“package”) information for various purposes: to introduce and manage discourse
participants, to profile importance or degree of commitment, to direct attention or meet
attentional expectations, and so forth. Within the generative tradition, the structures of various
types of information packaging have generally been treated as strictly structural phenomena
without concern for the cognitive (“discourse”) status of the information; a case in point is longdistance dependencies. If it is permitted to “move” sentence parts that semantically relate to each
other a long way from each other, as in “Who did Mary say the report was written by?” (cf. “Mary
said the report was written by X”), how does one constrain the movement to disallow cases such
as “*Who did she see the report that was about?” (cf. “She saw the report that was about X”)?
Goldberg argues that constraints on long-distance dependencies strongly correlate with the
information-structure properties of the constructions involved. For example, “Background

constructions are islands [to extraction—DJW]” (p. 135) is true because (1) Movement generally
makes the moved item more discourse-prominent, and (2) “[It] is pragmatically anomalous to
treat an element as at once backgrounded and discourse-prominent” (p. 135).
Goldberg’s basic claim is that, if we put aside two cases for which long distance dependencies
are possible, namely parts that (1) are the primary topic or (2) are within the focus domain, then
all the other parts are not eligible for long-distance dependencies. This, she claims, accounts for
the facts at least as well as purely syntactic account.
By the way, in this chapter (and elsewhere) I occasionally found myself objecting to the
grammaticality judgments Goldberg has assigned to sentences; for example, Goldberg marks
“Who did John give the book?” (p. 142) as less than fully grammatical (“??”) but for me it is
fine. Well, decades of argumentation based on native-speaker intuitions have taught us that such
discrepancies are inevitable, so we must be willing to read on without throwing the baby out with
the bath water.

Chapter 8: Many approaches to grammar focus on form. Constructionist approaches, on the
other hand, emphasize the individual functions that constructions serve (as well as their forms).
Goldberg demonstrates the importance of function with respect to subject-auxiliary inversion
(SAI), as in “Where did he go?” (as opposed to the ill-formed “Where he did go?”). SAI has
heretofore been regarded as a strictly syntactic phenomena, not tied to a particular function.
Those who make no reference to functional motivation generally just stipulate the formal

contexts where subject-verb inversion applies without providing an explanation for its distribution.
The challenge, then, is to identify whether a single (or closely related) set of function(s) relate
the various syntactic contexts where SAI applies, found in diverse contexts like these: (1) Did
she go?; Where did she go? (2) Had she gone, they would be here by now. (3) Seldom had she
gone there… (4) May a million fleas infest his armpits! (5) Boy did she go! (6) He was faster at it
than was she. (7) Neither do they vote. (8) So does he.
Goldberg gives an account in terms of the particular functions of each of these (sub)structures.
What they share is that they all contrast with so-called “prototypical” sentences, assuming that
prototypical sentences have predicate focus and are positive, assertive, independent, and
declarative. They share “departure from prototypical” but depart from it in functionally different
ways. Some cases depart in the same way, forming sub-cases, and this is something that a good
analysis should capture. Constructionist approaches capture them by means of inheritance
hierarchies: “Broad generalizations are captured by constructions that are inherited by many
other constructions; subregularities are captured by positing constructions that are at various
midpoints of the hierarchical network” (p. 13).
In Chapter 9, Goldberg discusses how cross-linguistic generalizations can be explained,
particularly with reference to argument linking. So why―across languages―are Agents
generally favored to become subjects and Patients to become direct objects? Does this reflect
(innate) “universal grammar” or does it reflect a learning process shaped by non-linguistic
factors? Goldberg argues that they result from “general cognitive, pragmatic or processing

attributes of human cognition” and that “generalizations about the linking between form and
function provides no evidence for a genetically determined ‘universal grammar’ related to
argument structure generalizations” (p. 184).
This chapter deals less directly with constructions than previous chapters, but conveys (rather
subtly) that a constructionist approach to grammar is the framework most consistent with facts
emerging from non-linguistic domains. And her discussion abounds with citations; indeed, this
chapter could serve as a portal to various relevant subdomains with which many readers might
not be familiar (readers like me!). Goldberg apologizes that “the discussion here also only
scratches the surface” but it is certainly a good introduction.
Chapter 10 is an interesting comparison of theories. First Goldberg identifies three “mainstream
generative grammar frameworks” that use the pairing of form and meaning beyond that of lexical
items, due to (1) Hale and Keyser, (2) Borer, and (3) Maranz; see the book for references. She
compares these with construction grammar (broadly defined by seven “basic tenets”). Each
framework is found wanting. Goldberg concludes that “the problem” with them is that they
“have effectively legislated the idiosyncratic out of existence” (p. 213).

Then Golberg considers “more closely constructionist approaches”: Unification Construction
Grammar (Fillmore, Kay), Cognitive Grammar (Langacker), Radical Construction Grammar
(Croft), and Cognitive Construction Grammar (Lakoff, Goldberg); again, see the book for
references. Key differences include (1) whether aspects of the grammar are redundantly specified

in various constructions, (2) whether the grammar is more generally usage-based or not, (3)
whether motivation is sought for the relationship between form and function, and (4) whether or
not unification is adopted as the formal means for representing constructions. Surprisingly, for
each of these differences, Unification Construction Grammar, the progenitor of the other three,
stands apart from the lot; this is summarized in Table 10.1 on page 215. The discussions of the
various approaches are very interesting and inspiring, somewhat like restaurant menus that, with
each dish offered, include an enticing description.
Goldberg has included a substantial bibliography. At the end of the first chapter she writes,
“There is a growing body of work within the constructionist framework, broadly construed”
(p. 17): followed by a list of citations. For the reader who wishes to sample these, the references
are included at the end of this review (ordered by year of publication).
This is a remarkable book, one that I highly recommend. That said, I have a few quibbles.
When claims are bolstered with references to other sources, kind authors include page or section
numbers in the citations, to help the reader find the pertinent section. In this book, virtually all
the citations lack page numbers. (There are a few exception, e.g., “Gundel (1985:35)” on page
129.) This is but one of several symptoms of editorial haste and inattention.
This book begs for a list of abbreviations, including acronyms. On page 145 one reads “In accord
with the BCI,…” So what does BCI mean? …the reader searches. In the index? No entry. Well,
after scanning backwards, one finally finds it introduced on page 135, where “(BCI)” is tacked
onto the end of the statement numbered (14). (Note, I haven’t found it used between its

introduction on page 135 and its use on page 145. If it’s there, I didn’t see it.)
Oh, and a list of figures, too. When I read page 135 and encountered the reference to Figure 7.1,
I had trouble finding it. When I read the previous page (134), I had missed this figure’s caption.
It is printed with smaller-than-normal letters at the very bottom of the page.
And that brings me to another quibble: this book does not follow a consistent style. For example,
in some places emphasis is indicated by italic type while in others by bold. Sometimes examples
are indented, sometimes not. Well, this is not surprising since some chapters drew heavily on
previous publications.
There are a few places where the text is difficult or misleading. For example, on page 8 the text
says, “In Massai, an External Possessor (“possessor raising”) construction allows a second object
of the verb to be interpreted as a possessor of the other object” (emphasis mine―DJW). When
one looks at the Massai example, however, one finds that the first object corresponds to the
possessor and the second object corresponds to the theme; the order is “woman” followed by
“animal skin.” What the reader must understand is that “second” does not refer to order, but to

coming “after” the “prior” thematic object. (Ah, there’s a generative metaphor lurking behind
this use of “second.”)
The following sentence, on page 140, struck me as awkward: “Only if there is lexical stress
(contrastive focus) on the recipient argument can a given ditransitive recipient be construed to be
part of the focus domain.” If I understand this correctly, the following would be better: “Only if

there is lexical stress (contrastive focus) on a ditransitive recipient argument can it be construed
to be part of the focus domain.”
This work has benefited from new technology; there’s even an index entry for the “Google
Search Engine,” now increasingly used as to search the world’s largest and most amorphous
corpus; see pages 137 and 174. But it has suffered from technology, too; errors like “move”
instead of “more” (p. 192, footnote 6) and “Reenan” instead of “Keenan” (p. 244 in the entry for
Gross) are probably due to faulty OCR followed by editorial inattention.
Then there are some simple errors: on page 29, in example (18)b. there should be “it” or “so”
after “instead he did”. On page 64, in “Culicover’s proposal is essential a version” there should
by “ly” after “essential.” On page 101, “more often that” should be “more often than.” On page
167, “necessary and sufficient definitions” should probably be “necessary and sufficient
conditions.” There are a few more minor errors that a copy-editor should have caught.
These quibbles do not diminish the importance of this book, nor should they discourage anyone
from reading it. It is too good to miss.

Goldberg’s growing-body-of-work list
― 1988 ―
Fillmore, C. J., Kay, P. and O’Connor, M. C. 1988. “Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical
constructions: the case of let alone” Language 64:501–538.
― 1992 ―

Goldberg A. E. 1992. “The inherent semantics of argument structure: the case of the English
ditransitive construction” Cognitive Linguistics 3:37-74.
― 1994 ―
Lambrecht, K. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Michaelis, L. A. 1994. “A case of constructional polysemy in Latin” Studies in Language
18:23-48.
Pizer, K. 1994. “Perception verb complementation. A construction-based account” Chicago
Linguistic Society 30.

Williams, E. 1994. “Remarks on lexical knowledge” Lingua 92:7-34.
Zwicky, A. M. 1994. “Dealing out meaning: fundamentals of syntactic constructions” Berkeley
Linguistics Society 20: 611-625.
― 1995 ―
Goldberg A. E. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structur e.
Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Zadrozny, W. and Ramer, A. M. 1995. “Idioms as constructions and universal grammar”
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY.
― 1996 ―
Gleitman, L., Henry, G., Miller, C. and Ostrin, R.. 1996. “Similar and similar concepts”
Cognition 321-376.
Michaelis, L. A. and Lambrecht, K. 1996a. “The exclamative sentence type in English” in
A. E. Goldberg (ed.) Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language . Stanford, CA: Center for
the Study of Language and Information, 375-398.
― 1997 ―
Bates, E. and Goodman, J. 1997. “On the inseparability of grammar and the lexicon: evidence
from acquisition, aphasia, and real-time processing” Language and Cognitive Processes 12 (5/6):
507-586.
Riehemann, S. 1997. Idiomatic Constructions in HPSG. Unpublished manuscript, Stanford
University.
Sag, I. A. 1997. “English relative clause constructions” Journal of Linguistics 33:431-484.
― 1998 ―
Rappaport Hovav, M. and Levin, B. 1998. “Building verb meanings” in M. Butt and W. Geuder
(eds.) The Projection of Arguments: Lexical and Compositional Factors . Stanford, CA: CSLI
Publications 97-134.
Schultze-Berndt, E. 1998. “Making sense of complex verbs: generic verb meaning and the
argument structure of complex predicates in Jaminjung” Unpublished manuscript, Max Planck
Institute, Nijmegen.
Zhang, N. 1998. “The interaction between construction meaning and lexical meaning”
Linguistics 36:957-980.

― 1999 ―
Barðdal, J. 1999. “Case in Icelandic―a construction grammar approach” Tijdschrift voor
Skandinavistiek 20 (2): 65-100.
Kay, P. and Fillmore, C. 1999. “Grammatical constructions and linguistic generalizations: the
what’s X doing in Y? construction” Language 75:1-34.
Shibatani, M. 1999. “Dative subject constructions 22 years later” Studies in the Linguistic
Sciences 29: 45-76.
― 2000 ―
Bencini, G. M. L. and Goldberg, A. E. 2000. “The contribution of argument structure
constructions to sentence meaning” Journal of Memory and Language 43:640-651.
Boas, H. C. 2000. “Resultative constructions in English and German” Unpublished Ph. D.
dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Davidse, K. 2000. “A constructional approach to clefts” Linguistics 38:1101-1131.
Iwata, S. 2000. Locative Alternation and Two Levels of Verb Meanings. Unpublished
manuscript, Gifu University, Japan.
Kaschak, M. P. and Glenberg, A. M. 2000. “Constructing meaning: the role of affordance and
grammatical constructions in sentence comprehension” Journal of Experimental Psychology:
General 133:450-467.
― 2001 ―
Chung, Y.-S. 2001. “Tough constructions in English: a construction grammar approach”
Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Croft, W. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schmid H. J. 2001. “Presupposition can be a bluff: how abstract nouns can be used as
presupposition triggers” Journal of Pragmatics 33:1529-1552.
― 2002 ―
Booij, G. 2002. “Constructional idioms and periphrasis: the aan het infinitive construction in
Dutch” Paper presented at the Periphrasis and Paradigm Workshop, University of California, San
Diego, April 12-13.
Fried, M. 2002. “Issues in Representing Flexible Word Order: Beyond Information Structure”
Presentation at ICCG2 Conference in Helsinki.

Jackendoff, R. 2002. Semantic Structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kay, P. 2002a. “English Subjectless Tagged Sentences” Language 78:453-581.
Mughazy, M. 2002. “On the periphery of syntax: the N-P-N constructions in Egyptian Arabic”
Paper presented at the Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language conference at Rice
University.
Rowlands, R. C. 2002. “Swarming with bees: property predication and the swarm alternation”
Unpublished MA thesis, University of Canterbury.
Rudanko, R. 2002. Complements and Constructions. New York: University Press of America.
Schmid, H. J. and Ungerer, F. 2002. “NP+Complement and NP+Be+Complement as
Constructions” Paper presented at the 2nd International Conference on Construction Grammar,
Helsinki.
Toivonen, I. 2002. “The directed motion construction in Swedish” Journal of Linguistics 38(2).
Verhagen, A. 2002. “From parts to wholes and back again” Cognitive Linguistics 13:403-39.
― 2003 ―
Choi, S. 2003. “A constructional approach to English and Korean tough constructions” Paper
presented at the Chicago Linguistic Society.
― 2004 ―
Michaelis, L. A. 2004. “Implicit and explicit type-shifting in construction grammar” Cognitive
Linguistics 14:45-70.
― 2005 ―
Davies, L. 2005. “A constructional-grammatical analysis of impersonalization in Russian”
Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University.
― Soon to come ―
Dominey, P. F. and Inui, T. (submitted) “Miniature language learning via mapping of
grammatical structure to visual scene structure in English and Japanese” manuscript.
Fillmore, C., Michaelis, L., and Sag, I. (forthcoming) Construction Grammar . Stanford, CA:
CSLI Publications.

Notes
1 Readers unfamiliar with Construction Grammar could acquaint themselves with it at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_grammar but is written to be read even by those
who know little or nothing about CG.
2 Daniel 6:25-28 “This is the writing that is inscribed: MENE MENE TEKEL UPHRSIN. And this
is its meaning: MENE―God has numbered [the days of] your kingdom and brought it to an
end; TEKEL―you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting; PERES―your
kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”