WT 4.4

construction

the basic unit of morphosyntactic analysis; a construction is a conventional pairing of form and function -- its form is morphosyntactic structure, and its function is a combination of meaning (semantic content) and information packaging (Section 1.1). When combined with a modifier describing a specific construction, [Modifier] construction refers to any pairing of form and function in a language (or any language) used to express a particular combination of semantic content and information packaging denoted by the modifier of construction (Section 1.4). Example: the numeral modification construction exemplified by three tree-s consists of a form which: (i) can be described schematically as [Num Noun-number]; (ii) performs the function of referring to a group of objects of the type denoted by the noun (tree), and modifying that information with the additional information that the cardinality of the group is the amount denoted by the number (three). Specific constructions (a.k.a. criteria, tests, evidence) are used to define word classes. (Section 1.2.3)

Construction

#62

Function

Has As Function

information packaging

meaning

Expression

Has As Expression

encoding strategy

fusion

overt coding, overtly coded

Hierarchy