The rich get richer
Preferential attachment and the diachrony of light verbs in
Old Swedish
This study investigates five common light verbs
in an Old Swedish corpus of texts from 1225–1526, focusing on the
increasing frequency with which light verbs combine with an
ever-widening range of NP-objects. Tools of statistical analysis
from network science and ecology are used to track changes in
frequency and diversity. Results indicate that light verbs are a
small, closed class of verbs with unique historical properties that
set them apart from more lexically-specific verbs. The way in which
they grow more frequent and diverse is typical of the
“rich-get-richer” phenomenon of preferential attachment in studies
of dynamic network growth.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 2.1Terminology
- 2.2Historical trends and the frequency of LVCs
- 2.3Possible explanations for historical trends among
LVCs
- 3.Methodology
- 3.1Corpus
- 3.2Selection of LVCs
- 3.3Data collection procedure
- 3.4Statistical analysis of LVC frequency and diversity
- 4.Results
- 6.Discussion
- 6.Summary and conclusion
-
Notes
-
Abbreviations
-
References
-
Appendix
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