Coordinated by Remi van Trijp 
The operationalization of construction grammar presents a daunting challenge for computer science, computational linguistics and artificial intelligence. This atelier offers a technical introduction to Fluid Construction Grammar (www.fcg-net.org), a state-of-the-art computational formalism for implementing robust and bidirectional models of deep language processing, learning and evolution from a constructionist perspective.

The goal of the atelier is to provide its participants with a deep understanding of how FCG represents linguistic knowledge and how constructions can be employed for processing utterances in both parsing and production, and to show how FCG’s meta-architecture can be used for addressing issues concerning language change and evolution.

The atelier will focus on a challenging case study, such as the English verb phrase or long-distance dependencies. The many issues involved in the case study will be tackled in a stepwise fashion, each time through a sample grammar of increasing complexity that the participants can inspect and test themselves.

Background lectures & Relation to the other ateliers

The atelier will assume that the participants have followed the other technical atelier and that they are familiar with the concepts and overall framework of agent-based modeling for language evolution (cfr. the School's opening lecture by Luc Steels). Participants should also attend the background lecture of Remi van Trijp before the lunch break. Additionally, the lectures by Mirjam Fried, Freek Van de Velde and Martin Hilpert are highly recommended.

Recommended reading

Luc Steels. “Introducing Fluid Construction Grammar.” Design Patterns in Fluid Construction Grammar. Ed. Steels, Luc. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. 3-30.http://www.fcg-net.org/wp-content/papercite-data/pdf/steels2011introducing.pdf

Steels, Luc. “A First Encounter with Fluid Construction Grammar.” Design Patterns in Fluid Construction Grammar. Ed. Steels, Luc. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. 31-68.  http://www.fcg-net.org/wp-content/papercite-data/pdf/steels2011encounter.pdf

Steels, Luc. “Design Methods for Fluid Construction Grammar.” Computational Issues in Fluid Construction Grammar. Ed. Steels, Luc. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2012.http://www.fcg-net.org/wp-content/papercite-data/pdf/steels2012design-methods.pdf