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

我们调查了英语中各种结构的词汇语法特性，包括那些在文献中还没有很好的记录。对这些结构的详细研究不仅揭示了描述性的问题，而且也揭示了理论上的问题。我们通过i）增加我们的语言资源，ii）获得或制作并改进一些有用的搜索和处理这些资源的程序，iii）举办旨在获得有效使用语料库的技能和技术的研讨会，改善了基于语料库的研究环境。在整个期间，所有成员保持经常对话，并在每月会议上以及通过研究小组邮件名单审查与研究专题有关的许多问题。此外，通过参加国内外的研讨会、邀请专家进行公开讲座等，与相关领域的专家进行了信息交流。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》等各种媒体上发表了个别成员的论文，公开了部分成果。在项目的最后一年，我们还探讨了大规模语料库在语言研究和语言理论中可能发挥的作用，如如何客观地描述和表征语言现象的标记性，如何将现象中的标记性与理论中的标记性联系起来。在日本英语语料库研究协会第22届会议的专题讨论会上报告了某些成果，该项目的所有成员都参加了该会议。

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.