Distributional Analysis and Co-occurrence

Distributional analysis in its various forms is commonly used nowadays by lexicologists of different schools of thought. By the term distribution we understand the occurrence of a lexical unit relative to other lexical units of the same level (words relative to words / morphemes relative to morphemes, etc.). In other words by this term we understand the position which lexical units occupy or may occupy in the text or in the flow of speech. It is readily observed that a certain component of the word-meaning is described when the word is identified distributionally. For example, in the sentence The boy — home the missing word is easily identified as a verb — The boy went, came, ran, etc. home. Thus, we see that the component of meaning that is distributionally identified is actually the part-of-speech meaning but not the individual lexical meaning of the word under analysis. It is assumed that sameness / difference in distribution is indicative of sameness / difference in part-of-speech meaning.

It is also observed that in a number of cases words have different lexical meanings in different distributional patterns. Compare, e.g., the lexical meaning of the verb to treat in the following: to treat somebody well, kindly, etc. — ‘to act or behave towards’ where the verb is followed by a noun + an adverb and to treat somebody to ice-cream, champagne, etc. — ‘to supply with food, drink, entertainment, etc. at one’s own expence’ where the verb is followed by a noun+the preposition to + another noun. Compare also the meaning of the adjective ill in different distributional structures, e.g. ill look, ill luck, ill health, etc. (ill + N — ‘bad’) and fall ill, be ill, etc. (V + ill — ’sick’).

The interdependence of distribution and meaning can be also observed at the level of word-groups. It is only the distribution of otherwise completely identical lexical units that accounts for the difference in the meaning of water tap and tap water. Thus, as far as words are concerned the meaning by distribution may be defined as an abstraction on the syntagmatic level.

It should also be noted that not only words in word-groups but also whole word-groups may acquire a certain denotational meaning due to certain distributional pattern to which this particular meaning is habitually attached. For example, habitually the word preceding ago denotes a certain period of time (an hour, a month, a century, etc. ago) and the whole word-group denotes a certain temporal unit. In this particular distributional pattern any word is bound to acquire an additional lexical meaning of a certain period of time, e.g. a grief ago (E. Cummings), three cigarettes ago (A. Christie), etc. The words a grief and a cigarette are understood as indicating a certain period of time and the word-groups as denoting temporal units. This is also true of the meaning of the most unusual word-groups or sentences, e.g. griefs of joy (E. Cummings) (cf. days of joy, nights of grief, etc.), to deify one’s razorblade (E. Cummings) (cf. to sharpen the knife).

Distributional pattern as such seems to possess a component of meaning not to be found in individual words making up the word-group or the sentence. Thus, the meaning ‘make somebody do smth by means of something’ cannot be traced back to the lexical meanings of the individual words in ‘to coax somebody into accepting the suggestion’. The distributional pattern itself seems to impart this meaning to the whole irrespective of the meaning of the verb used in this structure, i.e. in the pattern V+N+ into +V_ing verbs of widely different lexical meaning may be used. One can say, e.g., to kiss somebody into doing smth, to flatter somebody into doing smth, to beat somebody into doing something,

etc.; in all these word-groups one finds the meaning ‘to make somebody do something’ which is actually imparted by the distributional pattern.

The same set of lexical items can mean different things in different syntactic arrangements as illustrated by: John thought he had left: Mary alone, Mary alone thought he had left John. Had he alone thought Mary left John?

As can be inferred from the above distributional analysis is mainly applied by the linguist to find out sameness or difference of meaning. It is assumed that the meaning of any lexical unit may be viewed as made up by the lexical meaning of its components and by the meaning of the pattern of their arrangement, i.e. their distributional meaning. This may perhaps be best illustrated by the semantic analysis of polymorphic words. The word singer, e.g., has the meaning of ‘one who sings or is singing’ not only due to the lexical meaning of the stem sing - and the derivational morpheme - er (= active doer), but also because of the meaning of their distributional pattern. A different pattern of arrangement of the same morphemes * ersing changes the whole into a meaningless string of sounds.¹

Distribution of stems in a compound makes part of the lexical meaning of the compound word. Compare, e.g., different lexical meanings of the words formed by the same stems bird and cage in bird-cage and cage-bird.

It is also assumed that productivity largely depends on the distributional meaning of the lexical units. Distributional meaning of the lexical units accounts for the possibility of making up and understanding a lexical item that has never been heard or used before but whose distributional pattern is familiar to the speaker and the hearer. Thus, though such words as kissable, hypermagical, smiler (She is a charming smiler), etc. cannot be found in any dictionary their meaning is easily understood on the analogy with other words having the same distributional pattern, e. g- (v + -able- -> A as in readable, eatable and kissable).

From the discussion of the distributional analysis above it should not be inferred that difference in distribution is always indicative of the difference in meaning and conversely that sameness of distribution is an absolutely reliable criterion of sameness of meaning.

It was pointed out above that as a rule distribution of stems in a compound word predicts a certain component of meaning as the stem that stands first is understood as modifying the one that follows (cf. bird-cage and cage-bird). In certain cases, however, the meaning or to be more exact one of the word-meanings may be structured differently. Firstly, in morphologically non-motivated words distributional structure is not correlated with certain meaning. For instance, in the words apple-sauce, plum-sauce, etc. we actually see that the item sauce-is modified by the stems apple-, plum-, etc., hence these words may be semantically interpreted as ‘kind of sauce made of apples, plums, etc.’ One of the meanings of the word apple-sauce — ‘nonsense’, ‘insincere flattery’, however, is in no way connected with the distributional structure of stems. This is observed in all non-motivated words. Secondly, it is common knowledge that words used in identical distributional patterns may have different meanings. Compare, e.g., the meaning of the verb to move in the pattern to move + N: 1. cause to change position (e.g. move the chair, the piano, etc.), 2. arouse, work on the feelings of smb. (e.g. to move smb. deeply). In the cases of this type distributional analysis traditionally understood as the analysis on the level of different parts of speech, as an abstraction on the syntagmatic level is of little help in the analysis of sameness or difference of lexical meaning.

Distributional analysis, however, is not as a rule confined to the analysis on the part-of-speech level or in general on the grammatical level but is extended to the lexical level.

The essential difference between grammar and lexis is that grammar deals with an obligatory choice between a comparatively small and limited number of possibilities, e.g. between the man and men depending on the form of the verb to be, cf. The man is walking, The men are walking where the selection of the singular number excludes the selection of the plural number. Lexis accounts for the much wider possibilities of choice between, say, man, soldier, fireman and so on. Lexis is thus said to be a matter of choice between open sets of items while grammar is one between closed systems.¹ The possibilities of choice between lexical items are not limitless however. Lexical items containing certain semantic components are usually observed only in certain positions. In phrases such as all the sun long, a grief ago and farmyards away the deviation consists of nouns sun, grief, farm yards in a position where normally only members of a limited list of words appear (in this case nouns of linear measurements such as inches, feet, miles). The difference between the normal lexical paradigm and the ad hoc paradigm can be represented as follows:

Cf. also “half an hour and ten thousand miles ago” (Arthur C. Clark). “She is feeling miles better today.” (Nancy Milford)

Distribution defined as the occurrence of a lexical unit relative to other lexical units can be interpreted as co-occurrence of lexical items and the two terms can be viewed as synonyms.

It follows that by the term distribution we understand the aptness of a word in one of its meanings to collocate or to co-occur with a certain group, or certain groups of words having some common semantic component. In this case distribution may be treated on the level of semantic classes or subclasses of lexical units. Thus, e.g., it is common practice to subdivide animate nouns into nouns denoting human beings and non-humans (animals, birds, etc.). Inanimate nouns are usually subdivided into concrete and abstract (cf., e.g., table, book, flower and joy,, idea, relation) which may be further classified into lexico-semantic groups, i.e. groups of words joined together by a common concept, e.g. nouns denoting pleasurable emotions (joy, delight, rapture, etc.), nouns denoting mental aptitude (cleverness, brightness, shrewdness, etc.). We observe that the verb to move followed by the nouns denoting inanimate objects (move + Nⁱⁿ) as a rule have the meaning of ‘cause to change position’; when, however, this verb is followed by the nouns denoting human beings (move + N^{anim pers}) it will usually have another meaning, i.e. ‘arouse, work on the feelings of. In other cases the classification of nouns into animate / inanimate may be insufficient for the semantic analysis, and it may be necessary to single out different lexico-semantic groups as, e.g., in the case of the adjective blind. Any collocation of this adjective with a noun denoting a living being (animate) ( blind +N^an) will bring out the meaning ‘without the power to see’ (blind man, cat. etc.). Blind followed by a noun denoting inanimate objects, or abstract concepts may have different meanings depending on the lexico-semantic group the noun belongs to. Thus, blind will have the meaning ‘reckless, thoughtless, etc’ when combined with nouns denoting emotions (blind passion, love, fury, etc.) and the meaning ‘hard to discern, to see’ in collocation with nouns denoting written or typed signs (blind handwriting, blind type, etc.).

In the analysis of word-formation pattern the investigation on the level of lexico-semantic groups is commonly used to find out the word-meaning, the part of speech, the lexical restrictions of the stems, etc. For example, the analysis of the derivational pattern n+ish -> A shows that the suffix -ish is practically never combined with the noun-stems which denote units of time, units of space, etc. (*hourish, *mileish, etc.). The overwhelming majority of adjectives in -ish are formed from the noun-stems denoting living beings (wolfish, clownish, boyish, etc.).

It follows that distribution may be viewed as the place of a lexical item relative to other lexical items on the level of semantic classes and sub-classes.

The analysis of lexical collocability in word-groups is widely applied for different purposes: to find out typical, most commonly used collocations in modern English, to investigate the possibility / impossibility of certain types of meaning in certain types of collocations, and so on.

It stands to reason that certain lexical items rarely if ever co-occur because of extra-linguistic factors. There are no restrictions inherent in the grammar or vocabulary of the English language that would make co-occurrence of the participle flying with the noun rhinoceros impossible, yet we may be reasonably certain that the two words are unlikely to co-occur.

What we describe as meaning by collocation or meaning by co-occurrence is actually a blend of extra-linguistic and intra-linguistic components of meaning. One or the other component may prevail. For instance, one may argue that the meaning of the adjective good is different in good doctor, good mother, good milkman, etc. because we know that a good doctor is ‘a doctor who gives his patient adequate medical care and treatment’, whereas good mother is ‘a mother who takes care of the needs of her children and cares for them adequately’. Here naturally it is the extralinguistic factors that account for the difference in meaning.

Of greatest importance for language teaching, however, is the investigation of lexical restrictions in collocability that are of purely intralinguistic nature and cannot be accounted for by logical considerations. This can be perhaps best illustrated by comparing the collocability of correlated words in different languages. In the English language, e.g., the verb to seize may be combined with nouns denoting different kinds of emotions: I was seised with joy, grief, etc., whereas in the Russian language one can say на меня напала тоска, отчаяние, сомнение, etc. but the collocations напала радость, надежда are impossible, that is to say the Russian verb cannot be combined with nouns denoting pleasurable emotions.

The results of the co-occurrence or distributional analysis may be of great help to teachers in preparation of teaching material.

To illustrate the point under consideration it is sufficient to discuss the experiment the goal of which was to find out the semantic peculiarities of the verb to giggle. Giggle refers to a type of laughter — to giggle is usually defined as ‘to laugh in a nervous manner’. There is nothing in the dictionary definition to indicate a very important peculiarity of the word-meaning, i.e. that giggling is habitually associated with women. A completion test carried out by a group of English linguists yielded interesting results.

The sentences to be completed were of the type: The man — with obvious pleasure, The woman — with obvious pleasure, etc. The informants were to fill in the blanks with either the verb to laugh or to giggle and were presented with a choice of subjects male and female. A clear preference was shown for women giggling and men laughing with obvious pleasure. The analysis of the informants’ responses also showed that a man may giggle drunkenly or nervously, but not happily or politely. In the case of women, however, of whom giggling is more characteristic it appears that all collocations — giggle drunkenly, nervously, happily, politely — are equally acceptable. It may be inferred from the above that the meaning by co-occurrence is an inherent part and an essential component of the word-meaning.

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