ABSTRACT
The article presents a study on the [(X) CHEGAR SN]FOC taxonomic construction network in Brazilian Portuguese and on the relations maintained between the [(X)VSN]FOC schema, the [(X) CHEGAR SN]FOC subschema and [(X) CHEGAR SN]FOC microconstructions of proper form/meaning characteristics. The research is developed under the Usage-Based Construction Grammar model, associated with Cognitive-Functional Linguistics, an area that defends the emergence of grammar as resulting from language experience and the role of Domain-General Cognitive Processes. We argue in favor of a network representation of [(X) CHEGAR SN]FOC microconstructions with meaning characteristics of presentation of time, event and nonspecific referents. These microconstructions are headed by the subschema [(X) CHEGAR SN]FOC of introductory/presentational meaning which is also headed by the more abstract schema [(X)VSN]FOC that has pragmatic nature strongly associated with informativiness, in particular regarding focus strategies. Thus the article discusses limits and possibilities for the cognitive representation of grammar, in a bottom-up perspective of language acquisition, and is based on the commitment to psychological realism and the limits of categorization. The discussion also touches on the assumptions originated in Perek (2015) about the usage-based valency hypothesis and the emergence of new representations with a higher degree of cognitive accessibility and emancipation.
Keywords:
Argument Structure Constructions; UBCG; Informativeness