Exploring the creative potential of computional construction grammar
Paul Van Eecke & Katrien Beuls
This web demo accompanies the paper:
Van Eecke, Paul & Beuls, Katrien. (submitted). Exploring the creative potential of computional construction grammar.
This interactive web demonstration shows in full detail the examples used in the paper Exploring the creative potential of computational construction grammar. In this paper, two types of creativity are adressed. The first type concerns creativity that results from the free combination of the constructions in the grammar, and the second type concerns creative language use that cannot be accounted for by the existing constructions of the grammar, but for which novel constructions need to be created. The first type of creativity was illustrated by the resultative utterance Firefighters cut the man free, as illustrated in paragraph 2 of this web demo. The second type was illustrated by the generalisation of the idiomatic not-the-sharpest-tool-in-the-box-construction into the more general not-the-x-est-y-in-the-z-construction, as shown in paragraph 3 below.
2. The free combination of constructions
Goldberg (2006: 22) writes that "the infinitely creative potential of language" is accounted for in construction grammar by "allowing constructions to combine freely as long as there are no conflicts". This is exactly how constructional processing is implemented in Fluid Construction Grammar. We will now show the concrete representations and mechanisms that are involved, using the example utterance 'Firefighters cut the man free.'. This utterance is used as an example of creative language use through the free combination of constructions by Hoffmann (this volume). It exhibits two interesting phenomena. First, the word firefighters fills the slot of both the argument role 'agent' in the resultative construction and of the 'cutter' in the verb-specific cut-construction. Second, the cut.object argument role of the verb-specific cut-construction is left unexpressed (definite null instantiation).
In order to see the constructions that are involved in the processing of this utterance, click on FCG CONSTRUCTION SET (7) below. This will show the constructions as blue boxes. Click one of the boxes to expand the construction, and then click the encircled + to reveal all features in the construction. The construction application process, shown in green can also be expanded into the individual construction applications, which can be expanded again to show the transient structure before construction application, the applied construction, and the transient structure after construction application. The meaning that the analysis attributes to the utterance is shown at the bottom.
The example clearly shows how the different constructions fit together to process the utterance. The resultative-cxn is conditioned on the activation of the firefighter-cxn as well as the plual-n-cxn for its subject unit. Its oblique unit is filled by the unit introduced by the definite-np-cxn, which in turn depends on the man-sg-cxn. FCG implements constructional language processing in a bidirectional way, in the sense that the same constructions and processing mechanisms are used for both comprehending and producing utterances. Below, the processing of the example utterance is shown in comprehension first, and in production underneath.
3. The appriopriate violation of usual constraints
The free combination of the existing constructions of the grammar can only account for a very small part of the creativity observed in human language use. Additional mechanisms are needed to invent novel constructions, for example by changing one or more constraints in an existing construction. This kind of creativity is crucial for a language to emerge and evolve. The following example shows how the idiomatic 'not-the-sharpest-tool-in-the-box'-cxn can be generalised to the 'not-the-x-est-y-in-the-z'-cxn by relaxing its constraints on the semantic field of the metaphor and on the specific words that are used. All the other constraints in the construction remain in place.
The following example shows the comprehension process of the utterance 'he's not the sharpest tool in the box', which can be processed by the existing constructions of the grammar. The resulting meaning indicates that a male person is not smart, as conveyed by a metaphorical expression in the semantic field of hardware.
Comprehending "he 's not the sharpest tool in the box"
Now, we want to comprehend the utterance 'he's not the quickest bunny in the forest'. This utterance cannot be processed by the existing constructions of the grammar, and requires the generalization of the 'not-the-sharpest-tool-in-the-box'-cxn into the 'not-the-x-est-y-in-the-z'-cxn. The original construction is shown on top, and the novel, generalised construction below. Click the encircled plus to expand all features in the construction. Note that the constraints on the specific lex-ids of the words sharp, tool and box have disappeared. Moreover, the semantic field of these words and of the predicate itself is not required to be hardware anymore, but it is still required that the semantic field is the shared among these words. The generalization of a construction is performed automatically using FCG's build-in anti-unification algorithm, but the constructions below have been adapted to use symbols that are easier to read by humans, than the ones generated by the algorithm. The comprehension process of the utterance 'he's not the quickest bunny in the forest', using the generalised 'not-the-x-est-y-in-the-z'-cxn, is shown below. The resulting meaning is the same as in the original construction, but indicates now that the semantic field of the metaphor is 'animals'.
In formulation, the generalized construction can be triggered by changing the semantic field of the metaphor in the meaning representation. FCG will then freely combine the constructions of the grammar and find a solution that satisfies both the semantic field of the metaphor and all the other constraints in the construction, e.g. that x, y and z need to be of the same semantic field, that x needs to be a positive property expressed as a superlative, that y needs to be some kind of object and that z needs to be some kind of container. By setting the semantic field to clothing and food respectively, we get the following two interesting, creative utterances.