Talk by Prof. Dr. Alexander Ziem at the RTG
Constructicography is what it’s all about
The Research Training Group Dimensions of Constructional Space hosted Prof. Dr. Alexander Ziem from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf on January 24th. His engaging presentation highlighted key developments at the intersection of frame semantics, construction grammar, and computational linguistics.
Professor Ziem shared valuable insights from his research across several critical areas, drawing from his experience in developing the German FrameNet and German Constructicon. He demonstrated how frame semantics can enhance our understanding of constructional meaning, presenting compelling examples of frame-construction interaction. The talk featured innovative computational methods for construction mining in large corpora, showcasing how these approaches can systematically identify construction candidates. A notable highlight was his discussion of implementing BERT-based models to explore potential variations within constructional slots.
A particularly interesting aspect of the presentation was the discussion of cross-linguistic approaches to studying constructions, with Professor Ziem illustrating how constructions and frames interact across different languages. He also presented cutting-edge constructicographic methods for documenting constructions in digital repositories.