ABSTRACT
This chapter begins the Cognitive Grammar account of grammatical constructions and finds out how the relationships between the component parts of complex words, phrases and clauses are accounted for. It focuses on the nature of grammatical constructions at the phrase level and at the word level. In Cognitive Grammar a complex composite symbolic structure is a construction, which could be a complex word, a phrase or a clause. The chapter explores the nature of the units that comprise grammatical constructions and the nature of the relationships between them. It looks at how autonomy and dependence give rise to clause level constructions, as well as accounting for the distinction between complements and modifiers at the clause level. The chapter addresses passive constructions and saw that these are analysed in Cognitive Grammar in terms of marked coding which effects a trajector-landmark reversal. Recall that Langacker describes valency relations as binary, an idea that captures the 'layered' structure of complex constructions.
