Lesson plan

Pattern grammar

Pattern Grammar is a model for describing the syntactic environments of individual lexical items, derived from studying their occurrences in authentic linguistic corpora. It was developed by Hunston, Francis, and Manning as part of the COBUILD project. It is a highly informal account that suggests a linear view of grammar (as opposed to phrase-structure or dependency grammars). Each word has a set of patterns assigned to it which describe typical contexts in which they are used. Often these are separate for different word senses.

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Article summary

Pattern Grammar is a model for describing the syntactic environments of individual lexical items, derived from studying their occurrences in authentic linguistic corpora. It was developed by Hunston, Francis, and Manning as part of the COBUILD project. It is a highly informal account that suggests a linear view of grammar (as opposed to phrase-structure or dependency grammars). Each word has a set of patterns assigned to it which describe typical contexts in which they are used. Often these are separate for different word senses.

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Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

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