대한언어학회 전자저널

Lee, Jungyull. (2018). Degree modifier associations in the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 26(3), 25-49. From a semantic-analytic perspective, this paper investigates how degree modifiers associate with lexemes in the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English. The corpus is utilized to explore diverse associations between degree modifiers and lexical items having positive, negative, and neutral connotations. The analysis of various lexemes in connection with degree modifiers identifies the relationship that accounts for the preferences governing the associations between degree modifiers and the lexemes; i.e., the strongest relationship seems to occur with respect to the frequencies of their associations. In this study, it is significant to note that variable lexemes other than ostensible lexemes are included in terms of lexical variabilities. In light of the corpus-based data on the nature of degree modifier associations proposed in this study, each degree modifier is shown to associate powerfully with distinct lexemes implying exceptional semantic preferences. The analysis of semantic preferences pertaining to degree modifiers suggests that each degree modifier preferentially selects distinctive types of lexemes; namely indications of degree modifiers may be noticeable in discourse.

# corpus # degree modifier # association (collocation) # lexeme # lexical variability # semantic preference

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