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The question here may be: why is it necessary for a speaker to analyze a fixed phrase?
There happens to be a second phrase with
echar
that also means ‘to miss someone/thing’: the
phrase
echar en falta
(literally ‘throw in lack’)
.
Here it is important
to note the similarity
between both fixed phrases. Both use the verb
echar
as the first element and a preposition as
the second element. The final elements, in both cases, have somewhat similar semantics:
menos
‘less’ and
falta
‘lack/missing’ both evoke a notion of absence. Both phrases mean ‘to
miss’ and both show a similar level of (non-)compositionality: the verb and preposition seem
to add nothing to the composite semantics, but the final element does seem to line up to the
notion of absence.
The sources show no etymological information for the phrase
echar en falta
. It is not
clear whether it was born on analogy to
echar de menos
. Still, from a synchronic perspective
it is entirely possible for a speaker to notice the striking similarities between the two phrases.
Even though this schema (
echar
+ preposition + word that relates to absence) is not a
common or productive pattern, it is a pattern nonetheless since it is repeated in the language.
The CG perspective gives us the tools for capturing these patterns.
This example is in fact an extreme case of limited semantic
relation between two
meanings or uses of a verb. Several cognitive linguists hold that if the theoretical tools
proposed can account for the syntactically irregular and semantically idiosyncratic parts of
language (such as idioms) then we can easily transfer those tools to account for the more
regular phenomena (Gibbs 2007:721, Goldberg 2003:222). We will see throughout this study
that there are usually more semantic connections between each verb and its various uses. All
those semantic connections can be captured with the tools provided by schemas and links.
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Chapter 3. Methodology
This project is primarily a corpus study. The main source of data is a 400-sentence
corpus which is explored using statistical tools. The results
of this first study are
complemented by a second corpus study (collostructional analysis) and by an experimental
test performed in Juticalpa, Honduras. This section describes how the data was collected in
all three cases and the statistical measures that are used in each. There is no discussion of the
results of each test. The results are discussed in depth throughout chapter 4.
Before beginning a description of the three studies, I must begin by defining the focus
of the study and the elements that are explored throughout this project. A stereotypical
throwing event involves at least three arguments:
a thrower, an object that is thrown and a
trajectory of motion. The first participant, which will be labeled the
INITIATOR
,
includes
humans, animals, natural forces, objects and events that are conceptualized as the causers of
motion. The term is borrowed from Morante et al. (1998) and ADESSE. This participant has
also been termed an agent in Spanish FrameNet and Levin (1993). The
INITIATOR
is usually
expressed as the grammatical subject.
The second participant is the element that is conceived of as undergoing motion. I will
use the term
MOVANT
, defined as ‘one that is moving’ (WEBSTER). The term is inspired by
the Spanish term
móvil
used in ADESSE, and is likely the closest translation. This participant
has also been called theme (Spanish FrameNet, Levin 2008) and
entidad
‘entity’ (Morante et
al. 1998, Levin 1993). The
MOVANT
includes not only physical elements that can participate
in
a prototypical throwing event, but abstract ones such as light, smell, a smile, sound, etc.,
which can be conceptualized as moving. See §4.2.1 for a further discussion of what I
classified as a
MOVANT
.
The final argument is the
DIRECTIONAL
(Cf.
Fábregras 2007, Levin & Rappaport
Hovav 1994). This expresses any portion of the
trajectory of motion of the
MOVANT
,
including origin of motion (
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