Contexts, Patterns, Interrelations - New Ways of Presenting Multi-word Expressions

Abstract

This contribution presents the newest version of our 'Wortverbindungsfelder' (fields of multi-word expressions), an experimental lexicographic resource that focusses on aspects of MWEs that are rarely addressed in traditional descriptions: Contexts, patterns and interrelations. The MWE fields use data from a very large corpus of written German (over 6 billion word forms) and are created in a strictly corpus-based way. In addition to traditional lexicographic descriptions, they include quantitative corpus data which is structured in new ways in order to show the usage specifics. This way of looking at MWEs gives insight in the structure of language and is especially interesting for foreign language learners.

Extended phraseological units and literary genres

“…The various concepts related to phraseology in the broad sense have given rise to diverse terms, such as "extended units of meaning" (Sinclair, 2004), "collostructions" (Stefanowitsch & Gries, 2003), "collocations" (Hausmann, 1979;Mel'čuk, Clas & Polguère, 1995;Siepmann, 2005;Tutin, 2010), "lexical bundles" (Biber et al, 1999), "sequential patterns" (Quiniou, Cellier, Charnois & Legallois, 2012), "multi-word expressions" (Steyer & Brunner, 2014). As Novakova and Siepmann (2020a, pp.…”

Multi-word patterns and networks

“…Parallel to the development of the MWP model and the corpus-driven methodology, we have been investigating how these results could lead to new forms of description of common language use, e.g. for a change of perspective in foreign language acquisition and teaching (Steyer, 2009;Steyer and Brunner, 2014). The fundamental insight that only a small number of expressions are saved as isolated entries in the mental lexicon whereas the majority bases on lexical patterns as part of a network calls for new forms of lexicographical representation.…”