Fluid construction grammar as a biological system

Abstract Mapping insights and frameworks from one scientific domain to another is often useful because it encourages communication between different scientific fields and acts as a conduit for the exchange of mathematical and computational tools. This paper introduces analogies between concepts and mechanisms from molecular biology and language processing. The main purpose is to find ways for understanding language as a ‘living’, dynamically evolving, self-organizing system. The analogies have been the main source of inspiration for a computational implementation of construction grammar, called Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG). The paper describes briefly the biological analogies underlying FCG and discusses the opportunities for further research that these analogies open up.

[1]  William Croft,et al.  Explaining language change : an evolutionary approach , 2000 .

[2]  W. Bruce Croft.  Radical Construction Grammar , 2001 .

[3]  Franziska Frankfurter,et al.  Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure: Adele E. Goldberg, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995. xi + 265 pp , 1998 .

[4]  Kevin Knight,et al.  Unification: a multidisciplinary survey , 1989, CSUR.

[5]  A. Goldberg,et al.  The English Resultative as a Family of Constructions , 2004 .

[6]  Luc Steels,et al.  Basics of Fluid Construction Grammar , 2017, Benjamins Current Topics.

[7]  Jerome A. Feldman,et al.  Best-fit constructional analysis , 2008 .

[8]  Luc Steels,et al.  Ambiguity and the origins of syntax , 2015 .

[9]  K. Tuyls,et al.  How to reach linguistic consensus: a proof of convergence for the naming game. , 2006, Journal of theoretical biology.

[10]  M. Pigliucci,et al.  Evolution, the Extended Synthesis , 2010 .

[11]  Luc Steels,et al.  Design patterns in fluid construction grammar , 2011 .

[12]  Charles J. Fillmore,et al.  The Mechanisms of “Construction Grammar” , 1988 .

[13]  Lan Shuai,et al.  Studying Language Change Using Price Equation and Pólya-urn Dynamics , 2012, PloS one.

[14]  E. Conklin.  PROBLEMS OF BIOLOGY. , 1898, Science.

[15]  Benjamin K. Bergen,et al.  Embodied Construction Grammar in Simulation-Based Language Understanding , 2003 .

[16]  S. Mufwene.  Competition and Selection in Language Evolution , 2002 .

[17]  James H. Martin,et al.  Speech and language processing: an introduction to natural language processing , 2000 .

[18]  Pieter Wellens,et al.  PRIMING THROUGH CONSTRUCTIONAL DEPENDENCIES A CASE STUDY IN FLUID CONSTRUCTION GRAMMAR , 2010 .

[19]  Luc Steels,et al.  Multilevel Alignment Maintains Language systematicity , 2012, Adv. Complex Syst..

[20]  August Schleicher,et al.  Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft , 1863 .

[21]  Jinyong Lee,et al.  Template Construction Grammar: From Visual Scene Description to Language Comprehension and Agrammatism , 2013, Neuroinformatics.

[22]  Laura A. Michaelis.  Sign-based Construction Grammar , 2015 .

[23]  Vittorio Loreto,et al.  Journal of Statistical Mechanics: An IOP and SISSA journal Theory and Experiment Sharp transition towardsshared vocabularies in multi-agent systems , 2006 .

[24]  Joan L. Bybee,et al.  Language, Usage and Cognition , 2010 .

[25]  C. Van Petten,et al.  Prediction during language comprehension: benefits, costs, and ERP components. , 2012, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[26]  Ivan A. Sag,et al.  Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction , 1999, Computational Linguistics.

[27]  R. Gray,et al.  Replicators and vehicles? Or developmental systems? , 1994, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[28]  Holger Diessel,et al.  14. Usage-based construction grammar , 2015 .

[29]  Holger Diessel,et al.  Usage-based construction grammar , 2014 .

[30]  Luc Steels.  Fluid Construction Grammar , 2013 .

[31]  C. Wilke,et al.  Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems , 2006 .

[32]  Luc Steels,et al.  Experiments in cultural language evolution , 2012 .

[33]  Shih-Feng Tsai,et al.  Quantitative Proteomic Analysis of Metabolic Regulation by Copper Ions in Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath)*[boxs] , 2004, Journal of Biological Chemistry.

[34]  W. Levelt,et al.  Monitoring and self-repair in speech , 1983, Cognition.

[35]  C. F. Hockett.  A Course in Modern Linguistics , 1959 .

[36]  Adele E. Goldberg.  Constructions: a new theoretical approach to language , 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[37]  Simon Kirby,et al.  Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: An experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[38]  Luc Steels,et al.  Unify and Merge in Fluid Construction Grammar , 2006, EELC.

[39]  Josefina Sierra Santibáñez.  Computational Issues in Fluid Construction Grammar , 2012, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[40]  Katrien Beuls.  Construction sets and unmarked forms , 2011 .

[41]  Toshio Yanagida,et al.  From Single Molecule Fluctuations to Muscle Contraction: A Brownian Model of A.F. Huxley's Hypotheses , 2012, PloS one.