Beyond modal idioms and modal harmony: a corpus-based analysis of gradient idiomaticity inmod+advcollocations

Abstract

How do we know thatwould ratherandmay wellare more idiomatic thanwould wellorwill really? Can this intuition be measured systematically in usage data? Traditionally, modal idioms suchhad/’d better,would/’d ratherormight (as) wellare seen as distinct from more compositional collocations, which may be modally harmonic (could possibly,will probably) or not (could also,might even). Yet the collocation of modal auxiliaries + adverbs (mod + adv)is more complex than suggested by a binary classification into idioms and non-idioms. This article uses data from COCA and the method of collostructional analysis to show that the difference between qualitatively distinct types ofmod + advis a matter of degree. Modal idiomaticity should be seen as gradient along a continuum from strong association (would rather) to strong dissociation (would well). The results support assumptions that statistical information about the collocational behavior of modal auxiliaries is a cue for the scope of adverbial modification and is thus an important aspect of speakers’ knowledge of modal meaning. The study contributes to recent approaches to modality from a ‘combinatorial’ perspective, which recognizes the importance of the lexical environment in core areas of grammar.