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Grammar and Cognition: Dualistic models of language structure and language processing
Edited by Alexander Haselow and Gunther Kaltenböck
[Human Cognitive Processing 70] 2020
► pp. 133–155

Chapter 4
Dual processing in a functional-cognitive theory of grammar and its neurocognitive basis

| University of Copenhagen
| University of Copenhagen

Functional-cognitive linguists are typically more interested in what is shared between grammar and other aspects of language than in what is special about grammar. Construction grammar as the currently most prominent functional-cognitive theory of grammar explicitly downplays the grammar-lexicon distinction and suggests a model based on the notion of ‘constructicon’ as a unified inventory of linguistic expressions. In a neurocognitive perspective, this goes naturally with the idea of a single processing mechanism. Neurolinguistic evidence does not support this extreme position, however, but rather suggests a significant difference between lexical and grammatical processing. There is thus a need for a more well-developed functional-cognitive theory of the neurocognitive underpinning of the grammar-lexicon distinction. In this chapter we present a theory of the specific nature of grammar, which integrates three recent theories: a usage-based linguistic theory of the grammar-lexicon distinction (Boye & Harder 2012), a theory of the distinction between declarative and procedural memory (Ullman 2001, 2004), and a theory of brain organization (Mogensen 2011).

Keywords: grammar, procedural knowledge, functional-cognitive linguistics, construction grammar
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Construction grammar and the distinction between lexicon and grammar
  • 3.Our proposal: Secondary prominence and dependency
  • 4.Modularity vs. parallel distributed processing
  • 5.A neurocognitive framework: The REF model
  • 6.Two aspects of the language ability: The ability to retrieve from the cognitive store – and the ability to combine retrieved items
  • 7.Grammar in a differentiated spectrum of ‘dualities’
  • 8.Summary and conclusions
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 12 November 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.70.04boy
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