diathesis alternations and collocational schemas of english eat and drink in the bnc* john newman...
TRANSCRIPT
Diathesis Alternations and Collocational Schemas of English
EAT and DRINK in the BNC*
JOHN NEWMAN SALLY RICEUniversity of Alberta
ICLC 8
University of La Rioja
Logroño, Spain
20-25 July 2003
*Many thanks to Hui Yin, our Research Assistant
I. Why do EAT and DRINK display such variable transitivity?
some classic accounts...
Transitivity of EAT-v.1
She ate an apple. Monotransitive S P Od
She ate. Intransitive S P
“…the intransitive clause simply leaves unexpressed the second participant.”
Huddleston, Rodney. (1988). English Grammar: An Outline, 59-60. Cambridge University Press
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Transitivity of EAT-v.2.1Van Valin, Jr., Robert D. & Randy J. LaPolla. (1997). Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function, 115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The “logical structures” of eat:
do' (x, [eat' (x, y)])x=consumer, y=consumed
do' (x, [eat' (x)])x=consumer, y=consumed
no default?
Transitivity of EAT-v.2.2Van Valin, Jr., Robert D. & Randy J. LaPolla. (1997). Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function, 115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
S-transitivity M-transitivity
It rained. 1 Atransitive
ACTIVITY Mary ate.
Mary ate spaghetti for an hour.
1
2
Intransitive
Intransitive
ACTIVITY
ACCOMPLISHMENT
Mary ate the spaghetti in thirty
seconds.
2 Transitive
Transitivity of EAT-v.2.2Van Valin, Jr., Robert D. & Randy J. LaPolla. (1997). Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function, 115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
S-transitivity M-transitivity
It rained. 1 Atransitive
ACTIVITY Mary ate.
Mary ate spaghetti for an hour.
1
2
Intransitive
Intransitive
ACTIVITY
ACCOMPLISHMENT
Mary ate the spaghetti in thirty
seconds.
2 Transitive
default
Transitivity of EAT-v.2.2Van Valin, Jr., Robert D. & Randy J. LaPolla. (1997). Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function, 112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
“…eat is not inherently telic, unlike kill and break; hence it must be analyzed as an activity verb, with an active accomplishment use.”
“The crucial point to be emphasized again is that it is necessary to distinguish the basic lexical meaning of a verb, e.g. eat as an activity verb, from its meaning in a particular context, e.g. eat a slice of pizza as an active accomplishment predication.”
Transitivity of EAT-v.3
Wimpy ate the hamburger. Wimpy ate all day long.
Langacker, Ronald. (1991). Concept, Image, and Symbol. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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Tongan
‘Oku kai ‘e Mele ‘a e ika.PRES eat ERG Mary ABS ART fishMary is eating the fish.
‘Oku kai ika ‘a Mele.PRES eat fish ABS MaryMary eats fish.
Transitivity of EAT-v.3.1
MereMere
ika
Complex Predicate
kai-ikadefault (in discourse)
SCALAR TRANSITIVITYHopper & Thompson 1980Thompson & Hopper 2001
HIGH LOW
A. Participants
B. Kinesis
C. Aspect
D. Punctuality
E. Volitionality
F. Affirmation
G. Mode
H. Agency
I. Affectedness of O
J. Individuation of O
SCALAR TRANSITIVITYHopper & Thompson 1980Thompson & Hopper 2001
HIGH LOW
A. Participants 2 1
B. Kinesis action non-action
C. Aspect telic atelic
D. Punctuality punctual non-punctual
E. Volitionality volitional non-volitional
F. Affirmation affirmative negative
G. Mode realis irrealis
H. Agency A high in potency A low in potency
I. Affectedness of O O highly affected O not affected
J. Individuation of O O highly individuated O not individuated
SCALAR TRANSITIVITYHopper & Thompson 1980Thompson & Hopper 2001
HIGH LOW
A. Participants 2 1
B. Kinesis action non-action
C. Aspect telic atelic
D. Punctuality punctual non-punctual
E. Volitionality volitional non-volitional
F. Affirmation affirmative negative
G. Mode realis irrealis
H. Agency A high in potency A low in potency
I. Affectedness of O O highly affected O not affected
J. Individuation of O O highly individuated O not individuated
Mary ate the spaghetti in an hour.
SCALAR TRANSITIVITYHopper & Thompson 1980Thompson & Hopper 2001
HIGH LOW
A. Participants 2 1
B. Kinesis action non-action
C. Aspect telic atelic
D. Punctuality punctual non-punctual
E. Volitionality volitional non-volitional
F. Affirmation affirmative negative
G. Mode realis irrealis
H. Agency A high in potency A low in potency
I. Affectedness of O O highly affected O not affected
J. Individuation of O O highly individuated O not individuated
Mary ate.
SCALAR TRANSITIVITYHopper & Thompson 1980Thompson & Hopper 2001
HIGH LOW
A. Participants 2 1
B. Kinesis action non-action
C. Aspect telic atelic
D. Punctuality punctual non-punctual
E. Volitionality volitional non-volitional
F. Affirmation affirmative negative
G. Mode realis irrealis
H. Agency A high in potency A low in potency
I. Affectedness of O O highly affected O not affected
J. Individuation of O O highly individuated O not individuated
Mary ate spaghetti for an hour.
Thompson & Hopper (2001:30)“Transitivity, clause, and argument structure”
…transitivity in everyday conversation is very low
Spoken BNC (SPOKEN) 10 million words
2623 hits for eat, eats, eating, ate, eaten
934 hits for drink, drinks, drinking, drank, drunk
Sample Written BNC (WRITTEN) 90 million words
2,000 random hits for eat, eats, eating, ate, eaten
2,000 random hits for drink, drinks, drinking, drank, drunk
EAT and DRINK in the BNC
Hits from BNC were brought into Filemaker Pro.
Each hit was manually checked and classified:
transitive verb (she drank the sherry)
intransitive verb (she drinks)
noun (she had a drink)
adjective (she was drunk)
reflexive (she drank herself silly)
etc.
Managing the data
SPOKEN WRITTEN
EAT 82% 64%
DRINK 68% 56%
“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low”
PARTICIPANTS
% incidence with 2 participants in the BNC
ASPECT
SPOKEN WRITTEN
EAT 13% 21%
DRINK 21% 27%
EAT 5% 5%
DRINK 6% 3%
“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low”
-ing
-en
ASPECT
SPOKEN WRITTEN
EAT 16% 29%
DRINK 28% 37%
EAT 6% 6%
DRINK 7% 4%
“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low”
-ing
-en
EAT objects, EAT objects,SPOKEN BNC WRITTEN BNC
N Word Freq. N Word Freq.1 IT 375 1 THE 1572 THE 189 2 OF 1363 THEM 155 3 A 1334 ALL 148 4 AND 865 THAT 133 5 IT 826 OF 132 6 WHAT 677 A 109 7 FOOD 658 WHAT 102 8 MUCH 389 YOUR 83 8 SOMETHING 3810 SOMETHING 76 9 THEM 31
10 FOODS 2910 MORE 29
INDIVIDUATION with EAT
“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low”
INDIVIDUATION with DRINK
DRINK objects,SPOKEN BNC
DRINK objects,WRITTEN BNC
N Word Freq. N Word Freq.1 IT 104 1 OF 792 A 57 2 THE 583 THAT 51 3 A 574 OF 47 4 MUCH 515 TEA 46 5 COFFEE 436 COFFEE 41 6 TEA 397 WHAT 31 7 WINE 338 THE 28 8 WATER 328 YOUR 28 9 TOO 319 MUCH 25 10 IT 2710 LOT 2310 MILK 23
“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low”
% all in OBJECT PHRASES
eat eats eating ate eatenSPOKEN 5.8 8.1 3.8 17.9 16.7
WRITTEN 2.3 5.0 1.1 2.4 2.8
drink drinks drinking drank drunkSPOKEN 1.6 7.6 2.4 3.1 11.8
WRITTEN 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.7 10.3
“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low”
AFFECTEDNESS
AFFECTEDNESS
EAT lemma DRINK lemma
Rank by frequency Rank by frequency
SPOKEN 4th (148/2,077) 12th (19/1,135)
WRITTEN 13th (25/596) 21st (5/478)
“transitivity in everyday conversation is very low”
(Rank & incidence of all as collocate in OBJECT PHRASES)
are two highly unusual transitive verbs which generally predicate
AFFECTEDNESSof both participants...
EAT & DRINK
% all in two very different spoken and written corpora
BNC (normalized to 1M) We llingto n Corpus (1M)
SPOKEN WRITTEN SPOKEN WRITTEN
all 4395 2591 5195 3067
all the 786 406 880 421
all of 170 94 216 97
FOOTNOTE: A curiosity about searching corpora for syntactic (vs. lexical) phenomena
EAT/DRINK Infinitival Collocates with
-thing in the BNC
something to eat 81 something to drink 8to eat something 2 to drink something 3
anything to eat 28 anything to drink 3to eat anything 9 to drink anything 2
nothing to eat 20 nothing to drink 2to eat nothing 0 to drink nothing 0
everything to eat 0 everything to drink 0to eat everything 0 to drink everything 0
something to eat
OED
In some dialects,
something to eat is the common expression for ‘food’:
The something to eat at the hotel was very good. (Sheffield)
Small corpora, however, can’t return robust or comprehensive information about the lexical semantics of a verb:
• semantic properties of its collocates• semantic inferences in the absence of collocates (e.g., omitted object constructions)
Summary of Part I
BNC (or even a small corpus) can yield much about the “syntax” of a verb:
• relative valency distribution• TAM preferences• extra-propositional cohorts
II. What are the most common collocates of EAT and DRINK?
The collocates in the object phrases from these examples form the basis of the second half of the talk.
71% (or nearly 4,300) of the total verbal returns in the BNC for EAT & DRINK were transitive.
Eating and Drinking Habits
Favourite Foods in the BNC
Top food objects with inflected EAT forms in spoken BNC
eat eats eating ate eaten
dinner (33) food (8) food (14) flies (4) food (5)food (30) cheese (4) chocolate (7) bread (3) toast (3)meat (18) chicken (4) sweets (7) chocolate (3) birds (2)cheese (14) meat (4) cake (6) biscuit (2) bread (2)chips (13) fish (3) dinner (5) cake (2) cheese (2)bread (12) cake (2) fish (5) chips (2) dinner (2)cake (12) chocolate (2) meat (5) cream (2) fish (2)fruit (11) flies (2) supper (5) eggs (2) hat (2)breakfast (11) fruit (2) breakfast (4) margarine (2) sausage (2)fish (11) salads (2) crisps (4) potatoes (2)chicken (10) sweets (2) lunch (4) pudding (2)tea (10) bread (3) stuffing (2)flies (9) chicken (3) vegetables (2)biscuits (8) cream (3)chocolate (8) fruit (3)meal (8) meal (3)vegetables (8) tea (3)
20 top trigrams from EAT objects
Spoken BNC Written BNC Samplea lot of 14 as much as 7as much as 10 twice as much 4a little bit 5 a dish of 3kind of things 5 a lot of 3one of these 5 a piece of 3sort of thing 4 bread and cheese 3a bit more 3 fruit and vegetables 3a couple of 3 most of the 3all of them 3 some of the 3any more of 3 a bar of 2as you like 3 a healthy diet 2little bit more 3 a healthy well 2more of that 3 bar of chocolate 2most of the 3 bread and jam 2of the things 3 fish and chips 2one of them 3 foods rich in 2one of those 3 good country food 2quite a lot 3 healthy well-balanced 2the pink bits 3 kind of food 2three hundred flies 3 large amounts of 2
Favourite Drinks in the BNC
Favourite Drinks in the BNC
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
TEA COFFEE BEER WINE
Favourite Drinks in the BNC
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
TEA COFFEE BEER WINE
Top 20 beverage objects with DRINK
Spoken BNC Written BNC Sampletea 46 coffee 43coffee 41 tea 39milk 23 wine 33water 22 water 32wine 15 beer 26drink 10 alcohol 18juice 9 milk 14orange 9 juice 9beer 8 champagne 8coke 8 brandy 6alcohol 7 fruit 6spirits 7 sherry 6gin 6 whisky 6sherry 6 blood 5whisky 6 lager 4drinks 4 mineral 4ale 3 whiskey 4brandy 3 ale 3methylated 3 booze 3pop 3 fluids 3
Dictionary practice - DRINK
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1981)
drink
-tr. 1. to take into the mouth and swallow (a liquid). 2. To soak up (liquid or moisture); absorb; imbibe. 3. To take in eagerly through the senses or intellect; receive with pleasure. Often used with in. 4. To swallow the liquid contents of a vessel. 5. a. To give or make (a toast). b. To toast (a person or occasion, for example).
–intr. To swallow liquid. 2. To imbibe alcoholic liquors, especially excessively or habitually. 3. To salute a person or occasion with a toast. Used with to.
Favourite Drinks in the BNC
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
TEA COFFEE BEER WINE
% alcoholic object consumption in SPOKEN BNC
% alcoholic object consumption in (sampled)
WRITTEN BNC
27% vs. 73%
43% vs. 57%
Top 20 beverage objects with DRINK
Spoken BNC Written BNC Sampletea 46 coffee 43coffee 41 tea 39milk 23 wine 33water 22 water 32wine 15 beer 26drink 10 alcohol 18juice 9 milk 14orange 9 juice 9beer 8 champagne 8coke 8 brandy 6alcohol 7 fruit 6spirits 7 sherry 6gin 6 whisky 6sherry 6 blood 5whisky 6 lager 4drinks 4 mineral 4ale 3 whiskey 4brandy 3 ale 3methylated 3 booze 3pop 3 fluids 3
drink drinks drinking drank drunk
coffee (26) beer (2) tea (15) coffee (2) coffee (3)tea (26) mead (2) coffee (9) drink (2) milk (3)milk (13) milk (2) water (8) milk (2) tea (3)water (12) coke (6) wine (3)wine (9) gin (3) drink (2)alcohol (6) juice (3) rum (2)drink (6) methylated (3)juice (5) milk (3)sherry (4) spirits (3)spirits (4) beer (2)beer (3) drinks (2)gin (3) petrol (2)whisky (3) pop (2)ale (2) stout (2)coke (2) whisky (2)drinks (2) wine (2)guinness (2)scrumpy (2)vodka (2)
Alcoholic beverages with inflected DRINKforms in spoken BNC
Top 20 trigrams from DRINK objects
Spoken BNC Written BNC samplea lot of 8 a cup of 5a bottle of 6 a little too (much) 5a cup of 5 little too much 5cup of tea 5 a bottle of 4your orange juice 4 cup of tea 4a pint of 3 a mug of 3bottle of wine 3 endless cups of 3cup of coffee 3 or fruit juice 3lot of beer 3 water or fruit 3lot of it 3 a litre of 2bottle of gin 2 a lot of 2drop of milk 2 a pint of 2gallons of it 2 as much as 2little drop of 2 cups of coffee 2loads and loads 2 cups of tea 2red hot stuff 2 half a bottle 2too much coffee 2 mineral water or 2two or three 2 mug of tea 2
one of the 2pints of lager 2
Dictionary practice - EAT
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1981)
eat
–tr. 1. To take into the mouth, chew, and swallow (food). 2. To consume, ravage, or destroy by or as if by eating. Usually used with away or up. 3. To erode or corrode. 4. Vulgar Slang. To perform fellatio or cunninglingus upon.
–intr. 1. To consume food; have or take a meal or meals. 2. To wear away or corrode by or as if by eating or gnawing.
20 top food objects with EAT
Spoken BNC Written BNC Samplefood 57 food 65dinner 40 foods 29meat 28 fish 27cake 22 bread 24bread 21 meat 23chocolate 21 meals 17fish 21 breakfast 16cheese 20 cheese 16chicken 18 lunch 14chips 18 meal 14fruit 18 cake 13flies 16 chocolate 12breakfast 15 cream 12tea 14 leaves 10biscuits 11 fibre 9meal 11 cakes 8toast 10 rice 8vegetables 10 sandwiches 8cream 9 supper 8lunch 9 vegetables 8
% consumption in SPOKEN BNC
% consumption in (sampled) WRITTEN
BNC
"food(s)"
MEAL
misc. items
"food(s)"
MEALmisc. items
FOOD/MEAL objects with inflected EAT forms in spoken BNC
eat eats eating ate eaten
dinner (33) food (8) food (14) flies (4) food (5)food (30) cheese (4) chocolate (7) bread (3) toast (3)meat (18) chicken (4) sweets (7) chocolate (3) birds (2)cheese (14) meat (4) cake (6) biscuit (2) bread (2)chips (13) fish (3) dinner (5) cake (2) cheese (2)bread (12) cake (2) fish (5) chips (2) dinner (2)cake (12) chocolate (2) meat (5) cream (2) fish (2)fruit (11) flies (2) supper (5) eggs (2) hat (2)breakfast (11) fruit (2) breakfast (4) margarine (2) sausage (2)fish (11) salads (2) crisps (4) potatoes (2)chicken (10) sweets (2) lunch (4) pudding (2)tea (10) bread (3) stuffing (2)flies (9) chicken (3) vegetables (2)biscuits (8) cream (3)chocolate (8) fruit (3)meal (8) meal (3)vegetables (8) tea (3)
He eats. He drinks.
He has to eat. He has to drink.
He’s eating. He’s drinking.
He ate. He drank.
He’s eaten. He’s drunk.
EAT (FULL MEAL)? DRINK (ALCOHOL)?
INTRANSITIVE INFERENCES
#
#
??
He eats out. He drinks out.
He’s eating again. He’s drinking again.
#
Summary of Part II
Transitivity is certainly scalar, but the transitivity of individual verbs or even individual verbs in specific inflections (or even in different registers) is idiosyncratic.
Likewise, the semantics. EAT and DRINK (two rather comparable verbs which largely define a semantic field) are quite different in their selection of objects across valency alternations. The intransitive usages, for example, invite different kinds of inferences (e.g., alcohol (specific), meal
(generic).
This idea that each inflected form warrants attention and behaves differently is commonplace in the corpus linguistic tradition. Unfortunately, it’s an idea that has been slow to find acceptance in theoretical linguistics, even in cognitive linguistics.
Variation in Semantic/Frequency Distribution
EAT (s) Intr Tr-Act Tr-AA Refl
inf
3sg
prog
past
perf
Variation in Semantic/Frequency Distribution
EAT (w) Intr Tr-Act Tr-AA Refl
inf
3sg
prog
past
perf
Thompson & Hopper (2001:44)“Transitivity, clause, and argument structure”
…among the things speakers know about verbs is the range of forms they collocate with according to the different senses they have.
…the more different types of uses of language speakers are exposed to and participate in, the wider the range of options for a given verb sense they are likely to have entered and stored.
…some collocations involving specific verb senses develop lives of their own.
Newman & Rice (2003)
…some collocations involving specific verbs in specific inflections develop lives of their own.
