Embodied Construction Grammar in Simulation-Based Language Understanding

We present Embodied Construction Grammar, a formalism for linguistic analysis designed specifically for integration into a simulation-based model of language understanding. As in other construction grammars, linguistic constructions serve to map between phonological forms and conceptual representations. In the model we describe, however, conceptual representations are also constrained to be grounded in the body’s perceptual and motor systems, and more precisely to parameterize mental simulations using those systems. Understanding an utterance thus involves at least two distinct processes: analysis to determine which constructions the utterance instantiates, and simulation according to the parameters specified by those constructions. In this report, we outline a construction formalism that is both representationally adequate for these purposes and specified precisely enough for use in a computational architecture. f This technical report is an interim version (completed October 2001) of a book chapter; in due course we expect the final version to appear in: Jan-Ola Östman and Mirjam Fried (eds.), Construction Grammar(s): Cognitive and Cross-Language Dimensions. Johns Benjamins. g University of Hawaii at Manoa, Dept. of Linguistics, Moore 569, 1890 East-West Rd., Honolulu, HI 96822; [email protected] h University of California at Berkeley and International Computer Science Institute, 1947 Center Street, Suite 600, Berkeley, CA 94704; [email protected]