Constructional Creativity and Predictive Processing

As part of the IDAES-UVigo doctoral programme, Prof Alexander Bergs (Universität Osnabrück, Germany) delivered an engaging talk on 1 December 2025 titled “Beyond Prediction: Constructional Creativity and Predictive Processing?”. He explored how language users are not merely transmitters of information but inventive players who bend and stretch linguistic rules. This sparks the key question of how language can function simultaneously as a stable, rule-governed system and a space for boundless creativity. Professor Bergs proposed a usage-based constructional model, enhanced by insights from predictive-processing research, to account for this balance, while also pointing to ongoing challenges such as the dark-room problem and the creativity–productivity puzzle.