A Lexico-Grammatical Investigation of Contemporary English : A Corpus-Based Approach

我们研究了英语中各种结构的词汇语法特性，包括那些尚未在文献中得到充分记录的结构。对这些结构的详细考察不仅揭示了描述性问题，而且揭示了理论问题。我们通过以下方式改善了基于语料库的研究环境：1)增加我们的语言资源；2)获取或制作和改进一些有用的程序来搜索和处理这些资源；3)举办旨在获得有效使用语料库的技能和技术的研讨会。在此期间，所有成员都保持着不断的对话，并在每月的会议上以及通过研究小组邮件列表来研究有关研究课题的许多问题。我们还通过参加在日本国内外举办的研讨会或研讨会、邀请专家进行公开讲座等方式，与相关领域的其他专家交流了这一主题的信息。项目的一些成果由个人成员通过各种媒体发表论文，包括在日本语料库研究中发挥核心作用的日本英语语料库研究协会的期刊《英语语料库研究》。在项目的最后一年，我们还研究了大规模语料库在语言学研究和语言学理论中可能发挥的作用，例如如何客观地描述和表征语言现象的标记性，以及如何将现象中的标记性与理论中的标记性联系起来。部分成果在第22届日本英语语料库研究协会会议上发表，该项目所有成员都参加了会议。

We investigated lexico-grammatical properties of various constructions in English, including those not yet well-documented in the literature. The detailed examination of these constructions revealed not only descriptive but also theoretical problems.We improved our environment for corpus-based research by i) increasing our linguistic resources, ii) obtaining or making and improving some useful programs for searching and processing these resources, and iii) holding workshops aimed at the acquisition of skills and techniques for making effective use of corpora.Throughout the period, all members remained in constant dialogue and examined many problems concerning the research topic in monthly meetings as well as through a research group mailing list. We also exchanged information on the theme with other experts in related fields, by participating in workshops or seminars held in Japan and abroad, inviting experts for open lectures, etc.Some results of the project were made public by individual members through papers in various media, including English Corpus Studies, a journal of the Japan Association for English Corpus Studies, which plays the central role in corpus studies in Japan. In the last year of the project, we also examined the possible roles of large-scale corpora in linguistic research and linguistic theory, such as how to describe and characterize the markedness of linguistic phenomena objectively and how to relate the markedness in phenomena and the markedness in theory. Certain of the outcomes were reported in the symposium for the 22nd Conference of the Japan Association for English Corpus Studies, in which all the members of the project participated.