Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Construction Grammar
- Part I The Constructional View of Language
- Part II Methodological and Empirical Foundations of Constructional Research
- 6 Frequency
- 7 Corpus Linguistics and the Cognitive/Constructional Endeavor
- 8 Behavioral Evidence and Experimental Methods
- 9 Constructional Networks
- Part III Case Studies in Constructional Morphosyntax
- Part IV Multimodality and Construction Grammar
- Part V Constructions in Sociocultural and Typological Variation
- Part VI Constructional Applications
- Index of Terms
- Index of Languages
- Index of Constructions
- References
6 - Frequency
Psychological and Methodological Considerations
from Part II - Methodological and Empirical Foundations of Constructional Research
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2025
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Construction Grammar
- Part I The Constructional View of Language
- Part II Methodological and Empirical Foundations of Constructional Research
- 6 Frequency
- 7 Corpus Linguistics and the Cognitive/Constructional Endeavor
- 8 Behavioral Evidence and Experimental Methods
- 9 Constructional Networks
- Part III Case Studies in Constructional Morphosyntax
- Part IV Multimodality and Construction Grammar
- Part V Constructions in Sociocultural and Typological Variation
- Part VI Constructional Applications
- Index of Terms
- Index of Languages
- Index of Constructions
- References
Summary
This chapter discusses the role of frequency for Construction Grammar, especially concerning usage-based models of language, and offers definitions of different aspects of frequency, namely token frequency, type frequency, relative frequency, frequency of co-occurrence, and dispersion. It discusses how these aspects can be measured on the basis of corpus data, and how these measurements allow the observation of frequency effects that relate to phenomena such as entrenchment, ease of processing, productivity, phonological reduction, and resistance to regularization. These effects are illustrated by experimental and corpus-based analyses of lexical, morphological, and syntactic constructions. The chapter also addresses open questions regarding the role of frequency in constructionist research. Not only is the relation between corpus frequencies and theoretical notions such as entrenchment far from trivial, it is also important not to attribute effects to token frequency that can be explained by other, correlating variables. The chapter will also examine strategies that can reach beyond the use of frequency values in the future development of Construction Grammar.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar , pp. 149 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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