The Mental Corpus This page intentionally left blank The Mental Corpus How Language is Represented in the Mind JOHN R. TAYLOR 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,OxfordOX26DP OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork #JohnR.Taylor2012 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2012 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Dataavailable TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby MPGBooksGroup,BodminandKing’sLynn ISBN 978–0–19–929080–2 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Contents 1. Conceptualizinglanguage 1 E-languageandI-language 4 StudyingE-language—notsuchasimplematter! 9 Corporaandtheirrepresentativeness 13 TheBNCandlinguisticexperience 15 TheWorldWideWeb:a“fabulouslinguists’playground” 17 2. Thedictionaryandthegrammarbook:thegenerativemodel oflinguisticknowledge 19 Arule-basedapproachtolinguisticknowledge 22 Subcategorization 24 Selectionalrestrictions 26 Agreementfeatures 26 Thegenerativemodelinrelationtodata 26 Explainme 28 Thelexicon 32 Compounds 35 Derivedwords 36 Syntacticconstructions 37 Compositionality 40 Inconclusion 42 3. Wordsandtheirbehaviour 44 Lexicalcategories 45 Uniquedistributionofwords 48 Lapsandbosoms 51 Fun 54 Pluraliatantum 57 Much 58 Verbsandtheirsubcategorization 62 Zero-complements 64 Defectiveverbs 66 Inconclusion 68 vi Contents 4. Idioms 69 Semanticidioms 72 Idiomvariability 75 Allusionstoidioms 80 Syntacticidioms 83 themorethemerrier 84 himwriteanovel!? 86 whataboutme? 87 thatidiotofaman 87 that’llteachyou! 90 what’sitdoingraining? 91 Phrasalidioms 94 Minor(ir)regularities 97 5. Speakingidiomatically 100 Languageandcontextofuse 102 Wordsandcollocations 105 Learningtospeakidiomatically 112 Acase-study:X-minded 114 6. Constructions 120 CognitiveGrammar:somebasicconcepts 120 Constructions 124 Constructionsorrules? 127 Applyingarule:Whatkindofprocessisit? 133 Constructionsandtheautonomyofsyntax 136 Collostructionalanalysis 140 Acquisition 142 Constructionsallthewayup? 143 7. Frequency 146 Chomskyonfrequency:theDaytonOhioargument 149 Verbcomplements 152 Words 153 Collocations(again) 158 Phonology 161 Ambiguityresolutionandgardenpathsentences 166 Productivity 173 Subjectiveestimatesoffrequency 175 Inconclusion 178 Contents vii 8. Skewedfrequenciesasadesignfeatureoflanguage 179 Skewedfrequenciesasanemergentpropertyoflanguage 180 Markedness 182 Categorization 185 Skewedfrequencyasadesignfeatureoflanguage 194 Inconclusion 194 9. Learningfrominput 196 Phonemeacquisition 196 Statisticallearning 202 Dolistenersnoticeinputfeatures? 206 Therecencyeffect 208 Recencyandmicro-learning 212 Inconclusion 216 10. Polysemy 219 Howmanymeanings? 220 Openingandcutting;lumpingandsplitting 223 Relatednessofmeanings 228 Asinglelinguisticform? 230 Thestoryofover 233 Polysemyandidealizedcognitivemodelsoflanguage 238 Wordmeanings 241 Inconclusion 243 11. Creativityandinnovation 245 Creativity 246 Creativityandinnovation 249 Languagechange 250 beingbusy 252 explainme 256 Idiomsandtheirusagerange:thecaseofallover 257 Inconclusion 262 12. Blending 263 Blendingtheory 263 Wordblending 266 Phrasalblending 269 keepinganeyeout 272 eversinceIcanremember 272 timeand(time)again 273 viii Contents beingashow 273 Ithinkthat’sfairtosay 274 themostbeautifulestgirlintheworld 275 explainmethis 276 Theblendingofwordsandconstructions 276 Inconclusion 278 13. Thementalcorpus 280 References 288 Subjectindex 313 Indexofnames 316 1 Conceptualizing language Readersofthisbookwillprobably befamiliarwiththefollowingsituation.Youare preparing a speech, a paper, or a report. You remember having read something recentlywhichwouldfitinbeautifullywithwhatyouarenowworkingon.Youwould like to quote it, or at least include a reference to it. The trouble is, you didn’t bookmarkthepageorhighlightthepassageinthemargin.Andyou don’thavethe timeortheinclinationtore-reada200-pagebookinsearchofasinglequotation. Fortunately, help may be at hand. Although you cannot remember where in the bookthepassageoccurred,youdohaveamentalimageofwhereonthepageitwas located, say, somewhere on the left-hand page, about one-third of the way down,a coupleoflinesintoanewparagraph.Youpagethroughthebook,scanningtheleft- handpages,glancingattheparagraphsbeginningaboutathirdofthewayfromthe top.Quiteoftenthestrategyworksandinamatterofminutesyouhavelocatedthe passage.Moreoftenthannot,thepassagedoesindeedturnouttoberelevanttoyour currentproject. Many people that I have discussed this with report experiences of this kind. Sceptics,tobesure,mightwonderwhetherthereisanyrealeffecthere.Perhapswe justrememberthefewsuccessfuloutcomesofthestrategyandsuppressthenumer- ous failures. As a matter of fact, the reality of the ‘position of text on the page phenomenon’ has been confirmed experimentally (Lovelace and Southall 1983; Rothkopf1971).Not onlythis, butmemoryfor positionon thepagecorrelateswith memory for content: readers who remember the content tend also to remember its location,andwhenwearedeniedthepossibilityofrememberinglocation(aswhen wescrolldownatextonacomputerscreen)ourcomprehensionofthetextmaybe hindered. People who prefer to read documents in hard copy may have a point (O’Hara,Sellen,andBentley1999). Here, though, I want to emphasize some other aspects of the phenomenon. It illustrates, firstly, the importance in our mental life of EPISODIC MEMORY, that is, our abilitytorecallspecificepisodesinthepast,sometimeswithgreatclarity,aswellas our ability to recall INCIDENTAL features of a situation. When you were reading that bookseveralweeksago,youwerenotplanningthespeechorthereportthatyouare nowworkingon;otherwiseyouwouldprobablyhaveunderlinedorhighlightedthe