Development dynamics and cognitive-semantic parameters of English ditransitive construction: verification from the perspective of corpus linguistics

doi:10.18413/2313-8912-2021-7-4-0-7

Abstract

Highlights

Corpus linguistics developed into a separate discipline within the framework of Language Studies during the last decades of the previous century
We argue that the "symbiosis" of the corpus-based and cognitive-semantic analysis will make it possible to find out which conceptual scenarios underlying and determining the semantics of ditransitive construction instantiations are the primary ones, what linguistic means are used for their objectivation and how the dynamics of their representation in the language have been changing
That is why diachronic corpusbased analysis of 8172 utterances from The Early English Books Online Corpus (EEBO) is employed in the current study to ascertain when cognitive scenarios of ditransitive construction went into interpersonal verbal communication of native speakers

Summary

Introduction

Corpus linguistics developed into a separate discipline within the framework of Language Studies during the last decades of the previous century. Wilson define corpus as a most exhaustive nonrandom collection of linguistic utterances compiled in a way which allows to highlight the peculiarities of a certain language, variety of its literary styles, types of texts, etc. Representativeness of sample means the degree to which the sample reflects the variability of the plurality, i.e. a sample is considered representative if the data obtained from the analysis of its contents can be extrapolated to the general sample (Biber, 1993: 243). This makes the samples no larger and no less than a "reduced version of a large plurality" (McEnery, Wilson, 2001: 19)

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