A corpus-based semantic feature analysis of [down the NP]

Abstract

Using data from the Wall Street Journal Corpus, this study investigates the connection between the preposition down and the NPs following it in the [down the NP] construction. The article demonstrates that the NPs are characterized with features such as ‘concreteness’, ‘continuity’, and ‘verticality’, and that a majority ofthe NPs following down share a certain degree of semantic similarity. The results of this study support the idea that a lexicon in a fixed frame cannot always exert influence on nearby words.