One of the main assumptions of usage-based constructionist approaches is that linguistic knowledge is best conceived of as a repository of constructions, which emerge from experience with language and whose strength of mental representation (entrenchment) is a function of their usage frequency. On the basis of a multistep statistical procedure geared to identify patterns of adverbial clause constructions in two distinct registers, we argue that a model of language that generalizes over situational contexts is implausible. Instead, a more adequate model of linguistic knowledge comprises a set of subrepositories that are adapted to the discourse-functional needs of situational contexts, in which constructions have register-specific entrenchment values.
AtkinsonDwight. 1992. The evolution of medical research writing from 1735 to 1985: The case ofthe Edinburgh Medical Journal. Applied Linguistics13(4). 337-374.
2.
AtkinsonDwight. 1996. The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675-1975: A sociohistorical discourse analysis. Language in Society25(3). 333-371.
3.
AtkinsonDwight. 1999. Scientific discourse in sociohistorical context: The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 1675-1975. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
4.
BaayenHarald R.HendrixPeterRamscarMichael. 2013. Sidestepping the combinatorial explosion: An explanation of n-gram frequency effects based on naive discriminative learning. Language and Speech56(3). 329-347.
BellAllan. 1984. Language style as audience design. In CouplandNikolasJaworskiAdam (eds.), Sociolinguistics: A reader and coursebook, 240-250. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
BiberDouglas. 1986. On the investigation of spoken/written differences. Studia Linguistica40(1). 1-38.
9.
BiberDouglas. 1988. Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10.
BiberDouglas. 1995. Dimensions of register variation: A cross-linguistic comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
11.
BiberDouglas. 2006. University language: A corpus-based study of spoken and written registers. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
12.
BiberDouglasySusan. 2001. Register variation: A corpus approach. In SchiffrinDeborahTannenDeborahHamiltonHeidi (eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis, 175-196. Oxford: Blackwell.
13.
BiberDouglasConradSusanReppenRandiByrdPatHeltMaria. 2002. Speaking and writing in the university: A multidimensional comparison. TESOL Quarterly36(1). 9-48.
14.
BiberDouglasConradSusanReppenRandiByrdPatHeltMaria. 2003. Strengths and goals of multi-dimensional analysis: A response to Ghadessy. TESOL Quarterly37(1). 151-155.
15.
BiberDouglasConradSusanCortesViviana. 2004. If you look at …: Lexical bundles in university teaching and textbooks. Applied Linguistics25(3). 371-405.
16.
BiberDouglasFineganEdward. 1994. Sociolinguistic perspectives on register. New York: Oxford University Press.
17.
BiberDouglasJohanssonStigLeechGeoffreyConradSusanFineganEdward. 1999. The Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman.
18.
BodRensHayJenniferJannedyStefanie. 2003. Probabilistic linguistics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
ConradSusan. 2001. Variation among disciplinary texts: A comparison of textbooks and journal articles in biology and history. In ConradSusanBiberDouglas (eds.), Multi-dimensional studies of register variation in English, 94-107. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education.
28.
CorriganRobertaMoravcsikEdith A.OualiHamidWheatleyKathleen M.2009. Formulaic language: Distribution and historical change. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
29.
CowanRon. 2008. The teacher’s grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
30.
CristofaroSonia. 2003. Subordination strategies: A typological study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
31.
CroftWilliam. 2009. Toward a social cognitive linguistics. In EvansVyvyanPourcelStéphanie (eds.), New directions in cognitive science, 395-420. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
32.
CulicoverPeterJackendoffRay. 2005. Simpler syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
33.
DeeseJamesKaufmanRobert A.1957. Serial effects in recall of unorganized and sequentially organized verbal material. Journal of Experimental Psychology54(3). 180-187.
34.
DiesselHolger. 2005. Competing motivations for the ordering of main and adverbial clauses. Linguistics43(3). 449-470.
35.
DiesselHolger. 2008. Iconicity of sequence: A corpus-based analysis of the positioning of temporal adverbial clauses in English. Cognitive Linguistics19(3). 457-482.
36.
DiesselHolgerHetterleKatja. 2011. Causal clauses: A cross-linguistic investigation of their structure, meaning and use. In SiemundPeter (ed.), Linguistic universals and language variation, 21-52. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
37.
EckertPenelopeRickfordJohn. 2001. Style and sociolinguistic variation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
38.
EllisNick. 2002. Frequency effects in language processing: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition24(2). 143-188.
39.
FoxBarbara A.ThompsonSandra A.1990. A discourse explanation of the grammar of relative clauses in English conversation. Language66(2). 297-316.
40.
GernsbacherMorton A.1990. Language comprehension as structure building. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
41.
GivónTalmy. 1990. Syntax: A functional-typological introduction, vol. 2. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
42.
GoldbergAdele. 2003. Constructions: A new theoretical approach to language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences7(5). 219-224.
43.
GoldbergAdele. 2006. Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
44.
GriesStefan Th. 2001. A multifactorial analysis of syntactic variation: Particle movement revisited. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics8(1). 33-50.
45.
GriesStefan Th. 2004. HCFA 3.2—A Program for Hierarchical Configural Frequency Analysis for R. Available from the author upon request.
46.
GriesStefan Th. 2009. Statistics for linguists with R: A practical introduction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
47.
HallidayM. A. K.2005. Corpus studies and probabilistic grammar. In WebsterJ. (ed.), Collected works of M.A.K. Halliday, vol. 6, Computational and quantitative studies, 63-75. London: Continuum.
48.
HallidayM. A. K.HasanRuqaiay. 1985/1989. Language, context and text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. Oxford: Deakin University Press.
49.
HinkelEli. 2002. Second language writers’ text: Linguistic and rhetorical features. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
50.
HoffmannThomas. 2011. Preposition placement in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
51.
HothornTorstenHornikKurtZeileisAchim. 2006. Unbiased recursive partitioning: A conditional inference framework. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics15(3). 651-674.
52.
HylandKen. 2008. As can be seen: Lexical bundles and disciplinary variation. English for Specific Purposes27(1). 4-21.
53.
JacobsRoderick A.1995. English syntax: A grammar for English language professionals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
54.
KilgarriffAdam. 2003. Linguistic search engine. In SimovKirilOsenovaPetya (eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on Shallow Processing of Large Corpora, vol. 17, 53-58. Lancaster, UK: Lancaster University Computing Department.
55.
LangackerRonald W.1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar, vol. 1, Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
56.
LangackerRonald W.2000. A dynamic usage-based model. In BarlowMichaelKemmerSuzanne (eds.), Usage-based models of language, 1-63. Stanford, CA: CSLI.
57.
LangackerRonald W.2008. Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
58.
LienertGustav A.1969. Die Konfigurationsfrequenzanalyse als Klassifikationsmethode in der klinischen Psychologie. In IrleM. (ed.), Bericht über den 26. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie in Tübingen1968, 244-253. Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe.
59.
LievenElenaBehrensHeikeSpearesJenniferTomaselloMichael. 2003. Early syntactic creativity: A usage-based approach. Journal of Child Language30(2). 333-370.
60.
QuirkRandolphGreenbaumSidneyLeechGeoffreySvartvikJan. 1985. A grammar of contemporary English. London: Longman.
61.
RamsayVioletta. 1987. The functional distribution of preposed and postposed “if” and “when” clauses in written discourse. In TomlinRussell (ed.), Coherence and grounding in discourse, 383-408. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
62.
RömerUte. 2009. English in academia: Does nativeness matter?Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies20(2). 89-100.
63.
SchmidHans-Jörg. 2007. Entrenchment, salience and basic levels. In GeeraertsDirkCuyckensHubert (eds.), The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics, 117-138. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
64.
Simpson-VlachRitaEllisNick. 2010. An academic formula list: New methods in phraseology research. Applied Linguistics31(4). 487-512.
65.
StroblCarolinBoulesteixAnne-LaureZeileisAchimHothornThorsten. 2007. Bias in random forest variable importance measures: Illustrations, sources and a solution. BMC Bioinformatics. 8(25). N.p.
66.
StroblCarolineMalleyJamesTutzGerhard. 2009. An introduction to recursive partitioning: Rationale, application, and characteristics of classification and regression trees, bagging, and random forests. Psychological Methods14(4). 323-348.
67.
SwalesJohn M.2004. Research genres: Exploration and applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
68.
TagliamonteSaliBaayenHarald. 2012. Models, forests and trees of York English: Was/were variation as a case study for statistical practice. Language Variation and Change24(2). 135-178.
69.
ThompsonSandra. 1985. Grammar and written discourse: Initial and final purpose clauses in English. Text5. 55-84.
70.
TomaselloMichael. 2003. Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
71.
VerstraeteJean-Christophe. 2004. Initial and final position of adverbial clauses in English: The constructional basis of the discursive and syntactic differences. Linguistics42(4). 819-853.
72.
WiechmannDaniel. 2008. On the computation of collostruction strength. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory4(2). 253-290.
73.
WiechmannDaniel. 2014. Understanding relative clauses: A usage-based view on the processing of complex constructions. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
74.
WiechmannDaniel. 2011. Exploring probabilistic differences between genetically related languages. Languages in Contrast11(2). 193-215.
75.
WiechmannDanielKerzElma. 2013. The positioning of concessive adverbial clauses in English: Assessing the importance of discourse-pragmatic and processing-based constraints. English Language and Linguistics17(1). 1-23.
76.
WiechmannDanielKerzElmaSniderNealJaegerT. Florian (eds.). 2013. Special Issue: Parsimony and redundancy in models of language. Language and Speech56(3).
77.
WoodDavid. 2010. Perspectives on formulaic language: Acquisition and communication. New York: Continuum.
78.
WrayAlison. 2008. Formulaic language: Pushing the boundaries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
79.
WrayAlisonPerkinsMick. 2000. The functions of formulaic language: An integrated model. Language & Communication20(1): 1-28.
