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Article published In: Functions of Language
Vol. 32:3 (2025) ► pp.339–365

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The link between syntax, semantics, discourse, and lexicon in counteridenticals

A multivariate extension of co-varying collexeme analysis

ORCiD logo with link | University of Hong Kong
 | UC Santa Barbara | JLU Giessen
Published online: 23 January 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.24101.olg
Abstract
The present study goes beyond traditional usage-based work in that it pays close attention not only to the interaction of lexicon and syntax in language use, but also to how other analytic layers of analysis (e.g., discourse) can influence the compatibility of lexemes in particular slots of constructional schemas. To investigate this domain, we examine counteridentical constructions (e.g., if I were you, I would do it) in a dataset of more than 1,000 examples from The Corpus of Contemporary American English. We focus on significant interdependencies between the slots of the protasis (i.e., types of NPs appearing in the protasis) and apodosis (i.e., semantics of the verb lemma) and how these cross-clausal associations interact with other linguistic variables such as the time reference of the apodosis, the discourse function of the construction, and the order of the protasis and apodosis. We demonstrate a novel application of a multivariate extension of co-varying collexeme analysis via a hierarchical configural frequency analysis.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methods
    • 2.1Corpus data
      • 2.1.1NPs of the protases
      • 2.1.2Apodosis lemmas
      • 2.1.3Discourse function
      • 2.1.4Time reference
      • 2.1.5Position of clauses
    • 2.2Statistical analysis
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Types and antitypes when position is postposed
    • 3.2Types and antitypes when position is preposed
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Counteridentical constructions containing postposed apodoses
      • 4.1.1Preferred co-occurrences
      • 4.1.2Dispreferred co-occurrences
    • 4.2Counteridentical constructions containing preposed apodoses
      • 4.2.1Preferred co-occurrences
      • 4.2.2Dispreferred co-occurrences
  • 5.Methodological and theoretical implications
    • 5.1Methodological implications
    • 5.2Theoretical implications
  • 6.Conclusions
    • 6.1Summary
    • 6.2Where to go from here?
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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