The chapter summarises the study described in the book. It discusses the contribution of the study to Construction Grammar and the applications of this grammar to discourse analysis and to language teaching. The contribution of the study to Systemic Functional Grammar is then discussed, with a comparison between this study and proposals by Halliday and Matthiessen. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the study might be extended in future work.

The chapter explains the process of annotating constructions for semantic roles. Constructions expressing nine semantic fields have been annotated, with each noun phrase, adjective phrase, or clause in the construction given one of a finite set of labels. The process is compared with approaches to role identification taken in Corpus Pattern Analysis (Hanks), Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday and Matthiessen), Local Grammar (Barnbrook, Su) and FrameNet (Fillmore). The role names used in this book, with their definitions, are listed for each of the nine semantic fields used as examples.

The chapter introduces the key concepts in the book. It explains corpus lexicography and the concept of Pattern Grammar, Construction Grammar and its relation to verb argumentation, and Systemic Function Grammar. It illustrates how the three can be brought together, unifying disparate approaches to the description of English. The chapter includes notes on the websites, corpora, and conventions used in the book.