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The first phase of the corpus analysis involved extracting all
sentences containing begin and finish in any of
their inflected forms. I did this in the case of the LOB simply by
utilising regular expression matching commands standard under UNIX.
The BNC demanded a more advanced mechanism due to its size and
structure, and hence I used the CORSET corpus search toolkit (Corley
1996) . This tool enabled extraction of
only those sentences which do not have an explicit VP complement.
Further narrowing of the sentences to be examined was accomplished via
regular expression matching, picking out only those sentences in which
the aspectual verbs were followed by a noun phrase. At the end of
this phase, I had a large collection of sentences which were
potentially metonymic, as each sentence contained an aspectual verb
followed by a non-VP element.
The second phase involved identifying which of the collected sentences
were actually metonymic. As neither of the two corpora (or indeed any
corpus to which I have access) contains any kind of semantic tagging,
much of this work had to be done by hand. The following cases were
eliminated from the sets of sentences:
- Sentences in which beginning or finish are used as a
noun, e.g. From the very beginning the Section Office asked
groups for help and The finish of the wood ....
- Sentences in which the noun phrase following the aspectual
verb was not a complement of the verb, e.g. Even as the show
begins several key members appear to be drunk.
- Sentences in which the aspectual verb appears as part of a
larger phrase which seems to impose different interpretation
constraints on the phrase than on the metonymic constructions.
These include begin X with, begin X by, finish X with, finish
X off, finish X by (begin/finish the chapter with the words
``[...]'', begin/finish the book by giving you an example,
finish things off).
- Sentences containing different senses of the aspectual verbs:
the sense of begin meaning found or launch (I
began my business in 1983), the sense meaning (approximately)
to initiate (She began a reassuring smile, Thence begins
the ecological richness of Africa, Then began the
notion/habit/ritual of [...]); the sense of finish
meaning use up (finish the ammunition, finish the toilet
paper), and the sense meaning end (The poses finishing
the musical phrase).
- Sentences in which the noun phrase complement is
eventive, that is directly expressing an event such that no
metonymic construction is necessary. This case includes deverbal
nouns (begin a look, begin the cut, begin the inspection) and
other instances such as begin the game and begin a diet.
In these cases, no type coercion is necessary to satisfy the
requirements of the aspectual verbs.
- Sentences in which the noun phrase complement is
temporal, that is referring to something with temporal
extent (begin a relationship, begin the first term of school).
Again, no type coercion is necessary in these cases: the aspectual
verbs pick out a particular region of the temporal extent associated
with these nouns.
- Certain sentences containing ``event-objects'' as
complements: dual nature NPs which seem to have a natural
interpretation as an event, but which can also be referred to as an
object. These can either be interpreted as events directly or, with
certain restrictions, metonymically on an object interpretation, as
shown in iwcs2. Only the metonymic uses, determined by reading
the sentences in context, were included in the analysis.
-
- John began the speech/lesson. -- classified as eventive
- John began the speech/lesson. (writing) -- metonymic
- *John began the speech/lesson.
(hearing, listening to) -- failed metonymy
- John began the lessons. (taking) -- metonymic
The third and final phase was to read through each of the metonymic
sentences in context in order to determine the interpretation intended
by the speaker/author. In addition, the whole procedure was repeated
to find metonymic instances of the phrase begin on followed by a
noun phrase for purposes of comparison with begin. The results
of these analyses will be introduced in the next section. They provide
the basis for the alternate conception of logical metonymy to be put
forth in section 5.5.2.
|
| Begin |
Finish | Begin on |
| Agentive | |
| write WRITTEN_OBJECT | 34 | = | 20.7% | 44 | = | 13.8%
| 0 | = | 0% |
|
| say sentence | 4 | = | 2.4% | 7 | = | 2.2% | 0 | = | 0% |
|
| have family | 1 | = | 0.6% | 0 | = | 0% | 0 | = | 0% |
|
| OTHER AGENTIVE |
26 | = | 15.9% | 43 | = | 13.5% | 4 | = | 16% |
| Subtotal Agentive | 65
| = | 39.6% | 94 | = | 29.5% | 4 | = | 16% |
| Telic | |
| eat FOOD/MEAL | 11 | = | 6.7% | 87 | = | 27.3% | 1 | = | 4% |
|
| drink LIQUID | 0 | = | 0% | 55 | = | 17.2% | 0 | = | 0% |
|
| tell STORY | 20 | = | 12.2% | 7 | = | 2.2% | 0 | = |
0% |
|
| attend school/classes | 4 | = | 2.4% | 22 | = | 6.9% | 0 | = |
0% |
|
| sing SONG | 9 | = | 5.5% | 6 | = | 1.9% | 0 | = | 0% |
|
| play MUSIC | 7.5 | = | 4.6% | 2 | = | 0.6% | 1 | = |
4% |
|
| read WRITTEN_OBJECT | 2.5 | = | 1.5% | 10 | = | 3.1% |
0 | = | 0% |
|
| serve (jail) sentence | 8 | = | 4.9% | 0 | = | 0% | 0 | = | 0% |
|
| smoke cigarette | 0 | = | 0% | 5 | = | 1.6% | 0 | = | 0% |
|
| do business | 6 | = | 3.7% | 1 | = | 0.3% | 0 | = | 0% |
|
| take MEDICINE/TREATMENT | 5 | = | 3.0% | 1 | = | 0.3% |
2 | = | 8% |
|
| do DEGREE | 1 | = | 0.6% | 6 | = | 1.9% | 0 | = | 0% |
|
| do homework | 0 | = | 0% | 5 | = | 1.6% | 0 | = | 0% |
|
| play GAME | 4 | = | 2.4% | 0 | = | 0% | 0 | = | 0% |
|
| argue CASE | 3 | = | 1.8% | 0 | = | 0% | 0 | = | 0% |
|
| present EVIDENCE | 1 | = | 0.6% | 2 | = | 0.6% | 0 | = |
0% |
|
| OTHER TELIC | 9 | = | 5.5% | 2 | = | 0.6% | 1 | = |
4% |
| Subtotal Telic | 91
| = | 55.4% | 211 | = | 66.1% | 5 | = | 20% |
| Context | 8 | = | 4.9% | 14 | = |
4.4% | 16 | = | 64% |
| | | | | | | | | | |
Table 5.1: Distribution of Logical Metonymies for begin,
finish, and begin on in the BNC
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Up: {eventive verb + NP}
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