Understanding [because X] in Construction Grammar
a corpus-based analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14393/DL48-v15n4a2021-4Keywords:
Construction grammar, Because, Corpus LinguisticsAbstract
This paper analyzes the construction [because X] as based on the Construction Grammar framework (cf. FILLMORE et al., 1988; GOLDBERG, 1995, 2006; BYBEE, 2016), in association corpus linguistics (McENERY; HARDIE, 2013; SINCLAIR, 2005) as methodology. Data was collected by means of a special computational code designed for use in the EnTenTen corpus (JAKUBÍČEK et al., 2013), to search for lexical-grammatical patterns attested in because. Our analysis shows that the construction [because X] heavily favors nouns, adjectives, and interjections in the [X] position, often behaving similarly to the prepositional because. Following Fillmore et al. (1988), [because X] can be understood as codable, formal, extra-grammatical. We suggest that [because X] is mainly used in more informal contexts, favoring brevity.
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