The University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Corpus Linguistics Experimental Semantics Syntax

positional effects for distributives?

Chuck and I have a little study of subjects with split antecedents, including the distributive “neither of them”. Thinking about the issues involved in arriving at distributive interpretations, I started wondering if distributively biased phrases tend to occur in subject position. Does anyone know of a corpus count that might be relevant?

One reply on “positional effects for distributives?”

I don’t know of a corpus count of the preferred position for distributively biased phrases off-hand, but this is an excellent example of a question that could be addressed with tools that are readily available (online and in the department). Getting the answer to this question would provide a useful test case in doing some basic corpus searches, and that’s something which would be worth documenting in a bit of detail. Stay tuned for a bigger post about this in the coming days, which hopefully will contain some insight into your question!

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