Article published in:
Cognitive Linguistic Studies
Vol. 5:2 (2018) ► pp. 208–229

Is “to fish in a river” equivalent to “to fish a river”?

A study at the crossroads of cognitive sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics

| University of Toulouse | CNRS

Using the example of the alternation [to fish (det) river(s)]/[to fish prep (det) river(s)/], this paper adopts a corpus linguistics approach in order to show how it can contribute to studies in cognitive semantics, combining statistics with a more qualitative analysis. The main aim is to investigate whether these two constructions (with or without a preposition) correspond to a single meaning with alternations or to two distinct meanings. Two studies, both using the Web as corpus, were carried out to elucidate this issue. The first study compared occurrences of the two constructions on French and English websites and showed that, statistically speaking, the construction without a preposition occurs mainly in angling websites that have an emotional dimension, such as blogs. The second study, focusing solely on English websites, examined the lexical environment of the two constructions and identified certain distinct semantic classes for each construction, defining two semantic scenarios. These two semantic scenarios were found to correlate closely with the nature of the website. In light of the corpus evidence, the paper concludes in favor of two meanings, each concerned by one or the other construction (with or without a preposition). The role of the emotional dimension in the relationship between the angler and the river is crucial in determining the presence or absence of a preposition before river. Such a conclusion positions this study firmly in the perspective of cognitive sociolinguistics.

Keywords: cognitive sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, emotion, sociocognitive semantics, transitivity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The initial study: The influence of the type of website on the occurrence of the construction with or without a preposition
    • 2.1The study of the alternative constructions
    • 2.2Results
      • 2.2.1Statistical analysis: The chi-square test
      • 2.2.2Qualitative analysis: The location as an object
        • Syntactic tests
        • Semantic considerations
  • 3.One meaning or two?
    • 3.1Comparing the lexical environment of the two structures
      • 3.1.1Significant semantic classes in the “without-prep corpus”
      • 3.1.2Significant semantic classes in the “with-prep corpus”
    • 3.2Semantic profile of the two corpora
    • 3.3What about the fish?
    • 3.4Finally, one meaning or two?
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 February 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.00019.con
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