Resumen de The Future of Usage-Based Approaches
This chapter aims to present the main achievements of usage-based approaches and to suggest possible future directions in two major contributions of this framework to general linguistic theory: the cognitive importance of frequency in shaping language structure and the reassessment of the conception of basic meta-linguistic categories. It outlines the basic tenets of usage-based approaches and compares them to structuralism. The role of frequency as a mechanism of phonological variation and change is then presented and the contributions of usage-based approaches to the knowledge of meta-linguistic categories (e.g., the grammatical relation of subject) are described. Next, suggestions are proposed for future research in two areas of usage-based studies: the role of frequency in syntactic variation and change, and the reassessment of other grammatical categories and constructions from the perspective of emergent grammar.
