La constructionnalisation comme reconfiguration des rapports entre théorie et empirie : histoire des idées et épistémologie du changement linguistique

Constructionalization theory has played a decisive role in renewing explanatory models of language change by bringing variation, usage, and historicity together into a unified non-teleological framework. This article offers an epistemologically situated synthesis of the approach, highlighting its ontological assumptions, its grounding in an experientialist and constructivist paradigm, and its implications for the conceptualization of linguistic change. It argues that constructionalization should be understood neither as a mere extension of grammaticalization theory nor as a simple terminological reformulation, but rather as a major theoretical reorientation that reshapes the relations between theory, empirical inquiry, and linguistic history. In so doing, the article contributes to a broader reflection on the history of linguistic thought and on the conditions that have made contemporary models of language change possible, while, at a structural level, reproducing the original framing with which it begins.