Constructing Meaning through Grammar. Observations on Constructional Complexity

The paper shows that meaning is not encoded sic et simpliciter in linguistic units, but linguistic units are prompts language users rely upon in order to construct meaningful conceptual representations in their mind; linguistic units are conceived as points of access to more elaborate conceptual structures that enable us to elaborate and construct meaning. Understanding entails a process of completion. In the syntactic pattern that conveys the meaning of caused motion, the co-predication of verb plus preposition gives rise to a meaning of motion that is not encoded in the two co-predicators, which share the same argument conflating the roles of affected object and actor; this entails that the meaning of the pattern is not derivable from the semantics of the predicate but is a contribution of the construction; what is underspecified is the lexical item, i.e. the verb, which does not make explicit the causative agent, the direction, and the type of force needed to carry out the motion action; only the construction and the verb in combination provide us with a richer gestalt-like representation than the one we can obtain from the parts.