Frequency dynamics as a criterion for differentiating inflection and word formation (in relation to Russian aspectual pairs)

Abstract

The paper reports the results of the critical evaluation of the quantitative approach to the distinction between inflection and word formation through the analysis of the trends in the frequency of word forms. The possibility of such analysis is provided by voluminous corpus data and tools for visualizing these trends. Both theoretical foundations of the proposed approach and the results of the pilot study of its applying to Russian aspectual triplets were considered. These cast doubt on the validity of distinguishing between inflection and word formation based on the trends in the frequency of word forms as a reliable tool used to reveal the unity or difference of lexical semantics and thus to define textual units as belonging to the same or different language units.