Studies in Language · 2012 · 153 citations · 0 references
Language StudiesComputer ScienceLinguisticsComputational LinguisticsCorpus LinguisticsSyntaxCorpus AnalysisSyntactic AnalysisAnalytical PerspectiveCo-occurrence AnalysisCo-occurrence Modeling
Collostructional analysis applies association measures to corpus co‑occurrence data from a usage‑based perspective, yet it has faced criticism for perceived shortcomings and for favoring raw frequencies over association measures. The study aims to refute Bybee’s criticism and to develop a new construction perspective based on a spectrum of analytical approaches derived from frequency data. The authors analyze frequency data to map a cline of analytical approaches and propose a new construction perspective grounded in this spectrum.
In the last few years, a particular quantitative approach to the syntax-lexis interface has been developed: collostructional analysis (CA). This approach is an application of association measures to co-occurrence data from corpora, from a usage-based/cognitive-linguistic perspective. In spite of some popularity, this approach has come under criticism in Bybee (2010), who criticizes the method for several perceived shortcomings and advocates the use of raw frequencies/percentages instead. This paper has two main objectives. The first is to refute Bybee’s criticism on theoretical and empirical grounds; the second and further-reaching one is to outline, on the basis of what frequency data really look like, a cline of analytical approaches and, ultimately, a new perspective on the notion of construction based on this cline.