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Article published In:
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 27:3 (2022) ► pp.349–379

Use words, not constructions!

A new perspective on the unit of analysis in collostructional analysis

ORCID logo | Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

The aim of collostructional analysis or, more precisely, simple collexeme analysis, is to quantify the statistical association between a construction c and a lexeme l that occurs in a particular slot of the construction. The analysis is based on 2×2 contingency tables that ought to represent a cross-classification of the units of analysis. So far, the units of analysis have been identified either as all constructions in the corpus or all instances of a class C of constructions to which construction c belongs. In practice, it is often not possible or feasible to identify these constructions. Therefore, the sample size is typically approximated by heuristic estimates. The bottom-right cell of the contingency table is most affected by these approximations. I suggest that the units of analysis be defined on the word level, instead, as the class W of word forms that satisfy the restrictions on the collexeme slot of c.

Keywords: collostructional analysis, collexeme analysis, contingency table, unit of analysis, sample size
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Analysis of cooccurrence data with contingency tables
    • 1.2Collostructional analysis
  • 2.The unit of analysis in simple collexeme analysis
    • 2.1Constructions as the unit of analysis
    • 2.2Approximating the sample size
    • 2.3Problems arising from approximating the sample size
    • 2.4Practical impact of the approximations
  • 3.Suggested solution
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Methodological advantages
    • 4.2Accidental application of word-based simple collexeme analysis
    • 4.3Change of interpretative perspective
  • 5.Word-based vs. heuristic simple collexeme analysis – Case studies
    • 5.1The [N waiting to happen] construction
    • 5.2The [X think nothing of V-ing] construction
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.20072.pro
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