Distinctive collexeme analysis and diachrony

Abstract

Introduction This discussion note argues that distinctive collexeme analysis (Gries and Stefanowitsch 2004) can be applied to analyses of diachronic corpus data, and that such an application makes it a useful tool for the study of grammaticalizing constructions. In analyses of synchronic corpus data, distinctive collexeme analysis demonstrates how several given constructions differ from each other with respect to conventionally associated lexical material. Different collocational preferences are taken to reflect semantic differences between the investigated constructions. Applied diachronically, the method can be used to compare the collocational preferences of a single construction in different periods of time. Systematic differences in the collocational preferences can be interpreted as an ongoing change in the constructional semantics.