Valency – item-specificity and idiom principle
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Thomas Herbst
Abstract
This article discusses the role of valency as a lexico-grammatical phenomenon which can only be fully accounted for in terms of such concepts as Sinclair’s idiom principle. It is argued that insights from corpus linguistics and foreign language linguistics can be accommodated in cognitive approaches such as Construction Grammar. The article outlines various levels of abstraction involved in a valency description and argues that although to a certain extent generalizations can be made, the idiosyncratic nature of valency should not be underestimated. Using largely data from the Valency Dictionary of English, it is shown that this is true of practically all levels of a valency description, ranging from correspondences of valency patterns and the meanings of the items to the lexical realization of particular complements.
Abstract
This article discusses the role of valency as a lexico-grammatical phenomenon which can only be fully accounted for in terms of such concepts as Sinclair’s idiom principle. It is argued that insights from corpus linguistics and foreign language linguistics can be accommodated in cognitive approaches such as Construction Grammar. The article outlines various levels of abstraction involved in a valency description and argues that although to a certain extent generalizations can be made, the idiosyncratic nature of valency should not be underestimated. Using largely data from the Valency Dictionary of English, it is shown that this is true of practically all levels of a valency description, ranging from correspondences of valency patterns and the meanings of the items to the lexical realization of particular complements.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
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Part I. Setting the scene
- Technology and phraseology 15
- Corpus-driven approaches to grammar 33
- Valency – item-specificity and idiom principle 49
- Fowler’s Modern English Usage at the interface of lexis and grammar 69
- The psycholinguistic reality of collocation and semantic prosody (1) 89
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Part II. Considering the particulars
- The lexicogrammar of present-day Indian English 117
- The semantic and grammatical overlap of as and that 137
- The historical development of the verb doubt and its various patterns of complementation 153
- The grammatical properties of recurrent phrases with body-part nouns 171
- A corpus-based investigation of cognate object constructions 189
- Revisiting the evidence for objects in English 211
- Lexico-functional categories and complex collocations 229
- Polysemy and lexical priming 247
- Local textual functions of move in newspaper story patterns 265
- Loud signatures 289
- Index 317
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Setting the scene
- Technology and phraseology 15
- Corpus-driven approaches to grammar 33
- Valency – item-specificity and idiom principle 49
- Fowler’s Modern English Usage at the interface of lexis and grammar 69
- The psycholinguistic reality of collocation and semantic prosody (1) 89
-
Part II. Considering the particulars
- The lexicogrammar of present-day Indian English 117
- The semantic and grammatical overlap of as and that 137
- The historical development of the verb doubt and its various patterns of complementation 153
- The grammatical properties of recurrent phrases with body-part nouns 171
- A corpus-based investigation of cognate object constructions 189
- Revisiting the evidence for objects in English 211
- Lexico-functional categories and complex collocations 229
- Polysemy and lexical priming 247
- Local textual functions of move in newspaper story patterns 265
- Loud signatures 289
- Index 317
