Typer och kategorier som länkningssystem inom flerspråkig konstruktikografi

Abstract

A language can be seen as a multitude of different constructions, which consist of one or more lexical units often tied together by grammatical principles. Constructicons are online databases covering some of these language-specific constructions. This work explores the possibility of connecting different languages’ constructicons with the help of Crofts (2018) comparative concepts. These concepts serve the function of describing language traits not specific to certain languages. The grammatical categories and so-called types of the Swedish constructicon are being compared with these concepts to see how well they could serve multilingually. The types, more so than the grammatical categories, hold up decently against these concepts. This indicates a possibility of utilising this form of categorisation in connecting different languages’ constructicons to achieve, for example, easier translation of more complex language constructions. The type system, however, needs to be adjusted and expanded somewhat in order to achieve this goal. Firstly, each type needs a definition in order for clear boundaries to be set for which constructions to include. Secondly, several types would need to be adjusted or added for the system to conform to the comparative concepts.