[Corpora-List] Corpus vs Intuition

[Mira Ariel]

Dear Mai,

I'm exactly in the same boat. Have a look at my paper on 'most' (so 
entitled) in 'Language' 80:4, where I show that looking at corpus examples 
shows that semanticists and pragmatists were barking up the wrong tree re 
the scalar quantifiers. It's not (only) about the numbers. They were plain 
wrong about what it is we do with 'most'. I'm now doing the same for 'or' 
and reflexives. For 'or', for example, it looks like the inclusive versus 
exclusive readings, which are center stage in the field, are not at all that 
dominant. Other, compeltely different interpretaions, are far more relevant 
in discourse. But, I should add, I also use questionnaire data to probe 
questions you can't address using a corpus, for you can never be 100% sure 
you know what speakers mean, even if you have the relevant context.

Hope that helps,

Mira
----------------------
Mira Ariel
http://www.tau.ac.il/~mariel
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mai Zaki" <MZ106 at mdx.ac.uk>
To: <corpora at uib.no>
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 10:59 AM
Subject: [Corpora-List] Corpus vs Intuition


Dear colleagues,

My question may be a bit basic but I would appreciate your feedback.
My own research is corpus-based and I am working in the field of lexical 
semantics/pragmatics where the majority of the literature is based on 
made-up examples and testing of native speakers' intuitions. So, I still get 
stuck in my discussions with others trying to convince them that corpus work 
and real life examples add a different angle to any research. The usual 
objections are that it's not about numbers and percentages, and that 
patterns of use are questionable because of the issue of how representative 
they are.
I want to include in my own work a part about the advantages of corpus-based 
work as opposed to arm-chair linguistics, and I would appreciate if you 
could guide me to any references on this topic as well as your own ideas.

Thank you.

Mai Zaki
Middlesex University

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