Explain Me This: Creativity, Competition, and the Partial Productivity of Constructions

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By Adele E. Goldberg

Published June 26, 2019

In this book, Adele E. Goldberg approaches a linguistic paradox and shows how cognitive mechanisms influence our language skills. Explain Me This: Creativity, Competition, and the Partial Productivity of Constructions (Princeton University Press) explains how memory and our implicit knowledge of language affect the learning mechanisms we use to create new language constructions.

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PAW’s December 2025 cover, with a photo of Michael Park ’98.
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December 2025

Judge Michael Park ’98; shifts in DEI initiatives; a night at the new art museum.