Embodied Construction Grammar in Simulation-Based Language Understanding

We present Embodied Construction Grammar, a formalism for linguistic analysis designed specifi-cally 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 representa-tions. 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 us-ing 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 rep-resentationally adequate for these purposes and specified precisely enough for use in a computational architecture.