There is no such thing as a free combination: a usage-based study of specific construals in adverb–adjective combinations

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRITT ERMAN
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
Accurate Description ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Conceptual Structures ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

The study is aimed at revealing collocational adverb–adjective patterns in the British National Corpus (BNC). The adverbs selected for the study include the maximizers absolutely, completely, entirely, fully, perfectly, totally, utterly, wholly. The study involves searches on both the selected adverbs and the adjectives they modify in a bi-directional fashion. It is claimed that only a cognitive and usage-based approach in terms of underlying conceptual structures can provide an accurate description of collocational patterns. The results show that a large proportion of the adjectives have strong bonds with particular maximizers. This is explained through the basic conceptual structure of Boundedness/Scalarity, i.e. the degree to which the adjective lends itself to a bounded or a scalar construal and the adverb is biased towards a totality construal (which is the kind of construal to be expected from maximizers). The results support the hypothesis that a substantial part of the adverb–adjective combinations investigated are (semi)-prefabricated units, presumably easily accessed by native speakers because the combinations are the result of specific construals and their members have close associative and conceptual links in the mental lexicon.

L2-constructions that go together – more on valency constructions and learner language

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-30
Author(s):  
Armine Garibyan ◽  
Evelin Balog ◽  
Thomas Herbst
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Stimulus Word ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Verbal Stimulus ◽  
Test Battery ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Learner Language ◽  
National Corpus

Abstract This paper sets out to illustrate differences between learner language and the language of native speakers by a number of tests carried out with students of English at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. The first part of the experiment aims at testing knowledge of collocations: In order to compare to what extent combinations of certain words are stored in the constructica of native speakers and advanced learners of English, we used the test battery developed by Dąbrowska (2014): although, as was to be expected, on the whole, native speakers displayed a much greater competence at judging which combinations of words can be regarded as established collocations, interestingly, some learners outperformed some native speakers. The second part of the project was designed to explore the number and types of different valency constructions informants produce on being provided with a verbal stimulus. It is very interesting to see that, given the stimulus word caught, for example, the non-native speakers would predominantly produce sentences with police, thief, murderer, suspect etc. which do not rank amongst the 50 top collexemes of caught in the British National Corpus. We would thus argue that an analysis of the words used in particular slots of argument structure constructions (i.e. the collexemes or itecxes) provides a useful means of characterizing the language of advanced learners and to underscore the importance of collo-phenomena in language teaching.

Genitive coordinations with personal pronouns

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN PAYNE
Keyword(s):  
Single Unit ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Web Based ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Genitive Case ◽  
National Corpus

English genitive noun-phrase coordinations follow two patterns. The first is the single genitive, in which exponence of the genitive case occurs solely on the final coordinate, e.g. Mary and Jane's; and the second is the multiple genitive, in which exponence of the genitive case occurs on all coordinates, e.g. Mary's and Jane's. When either of the coordinates is a personal pronoun, difficult choices have to be made about the form of the pronoun. These difficulties arise especially with the single genitive, which is judged to be totally ungrammatical in coordinations like *my wife and I's or *my wife and my. On the other hand, the alternative use of the multiple genitive, my wife's and my, conflicts with a preference for the single genitive when the coordinates are felt to constitute a single unit. In this article, we first conduct a corpus-based analysis for genitive coordinations with personal pronouns, based on the British National Corpus. This, supplemented by some non-standard examples from web-based sources, gives some insight into the choices actually made by native speakers. We then provide a theoretical account of the syntactic problems that genitive coordinations with pronouns create. This account is shown to be compatible solely with an analysis of the English ’s genitive as an inflectional affix.

scholarly journals SEMANTICS OF THE CONSTRUCTIONS WITH SPLIT INFINITIVE

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (34) ◽  
Author(s):  
E.A FROLOVA ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Exact Number ◽  
Expert Assessments ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Integral Feature ◽  
National Corpus

Objective of this article is to define the exact number of split infinitives and the most common splitters in the construction, identify groups of studied constructions united by an integral feature and to determine the semantic features of constructions with a split infinitive. Applied methods. For the purpose of this research language material is collected on the basis of the corpora of texts such as the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English. The examples of the phenomenon are selected to conduct a semantic experiment using the method of expert assessments, which will reveal the semantic features of constructions with a split infinitive. The informants (native speakers) are asked to grade the sentences with the reference to the norm of standard English and leave their personal comments on the use of split infinitive constructions. Results The acquired data is analyzed from the viewpoint of semantics. As a result of the research the semantic features of split infinitives are described and the difference in semantics of split and usual infinitives is established. Conclusion. The construction with a split infinitive in comparison with the usual infinitive introduces different information to the sentence. Putting an adverb directly before a verb allows to clarify the statement, gives a narrow focus and establishes a semantic connection with a specific verb.

scholarly journals Transitivity of Try and V Construction in British and American English

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 197
Author(s):  
Faisal Mustafa ◽  
Syamsul Bahri Yusuf
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Base Form ◽  
Grammatical Rule ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Finite Verb

Try and V construction is prevalent in British and American English. This construction is found in both spoken and written English, although with different frequencies. The verb in this construction only appears in in the base form. The lack of research on this verb formation leaves many aspects unexplored, one of which is the transitivity of the verb. Therefore, this study is intended to find out the number of arguments informed by this construction by matching the number of arguments to the verb try and the verb following it after the conjunction and. Two verbs were used to test this match, i.e., give and bring, which are three-place predicate verbs, and other two two-place predicate verbs, i.e., see and answer, were used to validate the finding. British National Corpus (BNC) and Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) were used to collect the data. The findings show that the number of arguments matched the verb following the conjunction and. Therefore, it can be concluded the number of arguments in try and V construction is not unique to this construction, but it is similar to the try to V, where V is the non-finite verb which selects the number of arguments. This result suggests that try and V construction needs to be included in English grammar textbooks in order that non-native speakers can use and understand this rare grammatical rule in appropriate contexts.

scholarly journals L2 learner production and processing of collocation: A multi-study perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Siyanova ◽  
N Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
English Word ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
L2 Production ◽  
Study Perspective ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

This article presents a series of studies focusing on L2 production and processing of adjective-noun collocations (e.g., social services). In Study 1, 810 adjective-noun collocations were extracted from 31 essays written by Russian learners of English. About half of these collocations appeared frequently in the British National Corpus (BNC); one-quarter failed to appear in the BNC at all, while another quarter had a very low BNC frequency. Based on frequency data and mutual information (MI) scores, it was discovered that around 45% of all learner collocations were, in fact, appropriate collocations, that is, frequent and strongly associated English word combinations. When the study data were compared to data from native speakers, very little difference was found between native speakers (NS) and non-native speakers (NNS) in the use of appropriate collocations. Unfortunately, the high percentage of appropriate collocations does not mean that NNSs necessarily develop fully native-like knowledge of collocation. In Study 2, NNSs demonstrated poorer intuition than NS respondents regarding the frequency of collocations. Likewise, Study 3 showed that NNSs were slower than NSs in processing collocations. Overall, the studies reported here suggest that L2 learners are capable of producing a large number of appropriate collocations but that the underlying intuitions and the fluency with collocations of even advanced learners do not seem to match those of native speakers. © 2008 The Canadian Modern Language Review.

scholarly journals Forms and Meanings of Stative Verbs in Progressive Tense: a Corpus Linguistics Research

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-190
Author(s):  
Upi Laila Hanum
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
British English ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Mixed Categories ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

 AbstractSemantics is the field of linguistic concerned with the study of meaning in language. The aims of the research are to analyze the forms and meanings of the stative verbs in progressive tense in corpora. The data of this research were obtained from Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and British National Corpus (BNC). The data of the corpora used descriptive qualitative. The result of the research shows that the stative verbs are found and used in progressive tense. The stative verbs appeared in all types of progressive tense except future perfect progressive. The use of the stative verbs in progressive tense took place due to overgeneralization in the use of the native speakers’ form of American and British English. The stative verbs in progressive tense used to express temporariness, emotiveness, comprehension and mixed categories of meaning; temporariness and emotiveness, temporariness and tentativeness. Temporariness meaning almost appeared in all types of progressive. Stative verbs in progressive tense indirectly stated temporariness in stative sense of meaning, is contrary to the rules of English grammar.

Native and non-native uses of English modal particles. The case of "surely" and "for sure"

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Agata Rozumko
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Modal Particles ◽  
Scholarly Publications ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Native Student ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

AbstractIt has frequently been noted that non-native speakers of English find it difficult to express their views with the appropriate degree of conviction. However, many of the problems which non-native speakers have with specific modal expressions are still waiting to be identified. The aim of this paper is to compare native and non-native (student) uses of two English epistemics: "surely" and "for sure". The students' uses are mostly examined with reference to PICLE (the Polish subsection of the International Corpus of Learner English), while native uses are analyzed on the basis of two corpora of texts written by native speakers of English available at the PICLE website, the British National Corpus, and scholarly publications concerning the two particles. The study demonstrates that Polish students tend to wrongly assume the functions of surely and for sure to be identical with the functions of the Polish expression "na pewno" (a literal equivalent of "for sure" with a broader range of uses). In consequence, they use the challenging and pressure-building particle "surely" in contexts which require neutral epistemic adverbs, such as "clearly". They also tend to put "for sure" in positions characteristic of epistemic adverbs, and use it in formal discourse.

Based on Research Connecting Word Corpus of Spoken English

2014 ◽  
Vol 1030-1032 ◽  
pp. 2689-2692
Author(s):  
Yong Mei Peng ◽  
Yun Hua Qu
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Chinese Students ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
English Teaching ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
English Majors ◽  
Reference Corpus ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

This paper examines our spoken English Majors used to connect words and characteristics. Corpus used the "Chinese students Spoken and Written English Corpus (SWECCL2.0)" in the spoken corpus SECCL2.0, reference corpus used in the British National Corpus BNC spoken corpus BNC Spoken Corpus (BNC / S). The study found that of native speakers of English majors and English spoken words using both common connections are also differences. Meanwhile, China's English Majors spoken word there are multiple connections with the situation misuse. Based on the findings, the article on spoken English teaching some suggestions.

scholarly journals L2 learner production and processing of collocation: A multi-study perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Siyanova ◽  
N Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
English Word ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
L2 Production ◽  
Study Perspective ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

This article presents a series of studies focusing on L2 production and processing of adjective-noun collocations (e.g., social services). In Study 1, 810 adjective-noun collocations were extracted from 31 essays written by Russian learners of English. About half of these collocations appeared frequently in the British National Corpus (BNC); one-quarter failed to appear in the BNC at all, while another quarter had a very low BNC frequency. Based on frequency data and mutual information (MI) scores, it was discovered that around 45% of all learner collocations were, in fact, appropriate collocations, that is, frequent and strongly associated English word combinations. When the study data were compared to data from native speakers, very little difference was found between native speakers (NS) and non-native speakers (NNS) in the use of appropriate collocations. Unfortunately, the high percentage of appropriate collocations does not mean that NNSs necessarily develop fully native-like knowledge of collocation. In Study 2, NNSs demonstrated poorer intuition than NS respondents regarding the frequency of collocations. Likewise, Study 3 showed that NNSs were slower than NSs in processing collocations. Overall, the studies reported here suggest that L2 learners are capable of producing a large number of appropriate collocations but that the underlying intuitions and the fluency with collocations of even advanced learners do not seem to match those of native speakers. © 2008 The Canadian Modern Language Review.

The taboo topic in Kurdish language

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 435-455
Author(s):  
Bzhwen Yahya Mohamad
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Descriptive Method

The research is entitled (The topic of taboo in Kurdish language), it is an attempt to find the topic of taboo in Kurdish native speakers' mental, in order the most taboo expression to be recognized generally. Consequently, to find taboo and its order in mind, mental lexicon has been applied, which is in relation to being individually or in group has its particular sort. The present research is to explore that information in mental lexicon, which relies on the data and instruments that are uncovered in syntax and morphology of contexts. The study uses analytical descriptive method to analyze the phenomenon and its principle. The instrument of the study is Kurdish language _ slemani Dialect. The findings of the study shoe that the taboos have their own domain and in mental lexicon orders are kept and on the same sorts are expressed.

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