Didn't our joint article suggest that children learn conservatively by default, except when the evidence for productivity is overwhelming? In contrast, my reading of your current paper is that everything is in principle productive, but the likelihood of the pattern attracting new members is proportional to the pattern's strength. These may sound fairly similar, but (a) there's a difference in that only the former implies some sort of threshold, and (b) the former has to do with children learning what is and isn't well-formed while the latter has to do with what a speaker decides to do on the occasion of an utterance.
--And.
Richard Hudson, On 28/11/2006 21:30:
> Thanks, And. That was very quick! I think /*He is probable to go/ is
> different from /He kicked her the ball/ because the LIKELY pattern only
> applies to a very small number of adjectives, so it doesn't have the
> critical mass that the ditransitive pattern has and therefore doesn't
> licence a general construction. I think something like that was what we
> suggested in our joint paper about lexical idiosyncracies.
> What do you think?
> Dick
>
> And Rosta wrote:
>> I've had a hasty read through. My only immediate comment is that the
>> explanation, at the end of Sec 6, of the productivity of
>> ditransitivity, seems to overpredict the incidence of productivity --
>> it seems to predict that every pattern is productive. E.g. it seems to
>> predict that "He is probable to go" should be possible. In my view the
>> correct strategy is instead to have a rule in the grammar that says
>> that any verb can be ditransitive.
>>
>> In haste,
>>
>> --And.
>>
>> Richard Hudson, On 27/11/2006 11:22:
>>> Dear All,
>>> I've just finished a draft of a paper about Word Grammar and
>>> Construction Grammar. If you're interested, you can download it from
>>> www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/wg&cg.htm. I think I'm going to have a
>>> chance to revise it later, so I'll be glad to receive any comments
>>> you have.
>>> Dick
>>> --
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Richard Hudson, FBA
>>>
>>> Emeritus Professor, University College London
>>>
>>> www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> My new book:
>>>
>>> /Language Networks. The New Word Grammar /
>>>
>>> Available since November 23 2006 from bookshops or direct from Oxford
>>> University Press at:
>>>
>>> *http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199298389*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> --
>
>
>
> Richard Hudson, FBA
>
> Emeritus Professor, University College London
>
> www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm
>
>
>
> My new book:
>
> /Language Networks. The New Word Grammar /
>
> Available since November 23 2006 from bookshops or direct from Oxford
> University Press at:
>
> *http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199298389*
>
>
>
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