The present volume is a corpus-based study of the occurrence, variation, and change in the use of English adjective pairs in -ic and -ical over several centuries. The study involves the analysis of large, multi-million-word corpora representing the English language at various stages. It examines the nature of competition between the two affixes: what kind of rivalry existed, what kinds of words entered into competition, and in what ways the rivalry was resolved. The book presents close studies of six notably differentiated -ic/-ical adjective pairs, namely classic/classical, comic/comical, economic/economical, electric/electrical, historic/historical, and magic/magical, as well as commentaries on some 40 other -ic/-ical pairs, which manifest different types of shifts in use through history.
The contributions to this volume offer a broad range of novel insights about data-based or data-driven approaches to the study of both structure and function of language, reflecting the increasing shift towards corpus-based methods of analysis in a wide range of areas in linguistics. Corpora can be used as models of human linguistic experience, and the contributors demonstrate that there is ample scope for integrating such models into the descriptions of discourse, grammar, and meaning. Continually improving technological development facilitates the design of larger and more comprehensive corpora documenting language use in a multitude of genres, styles and modes, even starting to include visual aspects. Software to investigate these data also becomes increasingly powerful and more refined.
This book, largely derived from work being carried out by the partners of the TELRI (Trans-European Language Resources Infrastructure) projects, reflects the growing influence of corpus linguistics in a variety of areas such as lexicography, translation studies, genre analysis and language teaching. The book is divided into two sections, the first on monolingual corpora and the second addressing multilingual corpora. Although the methods used to examine these two types of corpora may differ, the contributors reveal that there are many similarities between the two. The chapters discuss: - the relationship between methodology and theory - the importance of computers for linking textual segments, providing teaching tools or translating texts - the significance of 'training corpora' and human annotation - how corpus linguistic investigations can shed light on social and cultural aspects of language - the importance of corpus linguistics in modern linguistic studies
Presenting fascinating research in the field, this book will be of interest to academics researching the applications of corpus linguistics.
