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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

By
Martin Hilpert
Edited by
Mirjam Fried  and
Kiki Nikiforidou
Mirjam Fried
Affiliation:
Univerzita Karlova
Kiki Nikiforidou
Affiliation:
University of Athens, Greece
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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

token frequencytype frequencyrelative frequencyfrequency of co-occurrencedispersionentrenchmentprimingstatistical preemptionproductivity
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar , pp. 149 - 170
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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  • Frequency
  • Edited by Mirjam Fried, Univerzita Karlova, Kiki Nikiforidou, University of Athens, Greece
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar
  • Online publication: 30 January 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009049139.007
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  • Frequency
  • Edited by Mirjam Fried, Univerzita Karlova, Kiki Nikiforidou, University of Athens, Greece
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar
  • Online publication: 30 January 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009049139.007
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Frequency
  • Edited by Mirjam Fried, Univerzita Karlova, Kiki Nikiforidou, University of Athens, Greece
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Construction Grammar
  • Online publication: 30 January 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009049139.007
Available formats
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