Mapping meaning with distributional methods: A diachronic corpus-based study of existential there
The semantics of existential there is discussed in a diachronic, corpus-based perspective. While previous studies of there have been qualitative or relied on interpreting relative frequencies directly, the present study combines multivariate statistical techniques with
linguistic theory through distributional semantics. It is argued that existential uses of there in earlier stages of English were not semantically empty, and that the original meaning was primarily deictic rather than locative. This analysis combines key insights from previous studies
of existential there with a Construction Grammar perspective, and discusses some methodological concerns regarding statistical methods for creating computational semantic maps from diachronic corpus data.
Keywords: Construction Grammar; diachronic linguistics; distributional semantics; existential there; semantic maps
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 January 2013
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content