Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Γλωσσολογία: θεωρία και εφαρμογέςLibrary of the School of Philosophy
Author:
Mantzakidis Theodoros
Supervisors info:
Λαβίδας Νικόλαος, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Αγγλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Νικηφορίδου Βασιλική, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Αγγλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Υφαντίδου Έλλη, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Αγγλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Original Title:
Towards an automatic corpus-driven approach to retrieve the diachrony of phrasal verbs
Translated title:
Towards an automatic corpus-driven approach to retrieve the diachrony of phrasal verbs
Summary:
Phrasal verbs are amalgamations of a verb and a particle, which are ascribed a particular meaning. They are intriguingly distinctive in the English language, and their syntax is formulaic. This masters’ thesis employs corpus linguistics to provide a model of phrasal verb retrieval in electronic language corpora, by testing it on data from the British National Corpus, addressing issues of transitivity and separability, metaphor motivation, and frequency of use. Using the particle position as a reference point and moving backwards, groups of verbs encountered in each position are collected and qualitatively assessed in an effort to address separability issues. A sample of the resulting verbs is studied in terms of diachronic development using visual data from the Google Ngram platform. Results indicate that the number of constructions that could be considered as phrasal verbs is greater than anticipated, and that one third of phrasal verb constructions do not allow verb-particle separation. Diachronic analysis highlighted constructions undergoing variation in their frequency of use. Further improvement of the proposed model is essential, if it is to be implemented in the software of corpora platforms.
Main subject category:
Language – Literature
Keywords:
phrasal verbs, corpora, corpus linguistics, language diachrony
File:
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Mantzakidis_PhrasalVerbs.pdf
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File access is restricted only to the intranet of UoA.
