LESS IS DOWN: Corpus-based approach for structure analysis of metaphorical sense of verbs padat’ and upast’

The paper raises an issue of possibilities that are provided by corpus-based approach in analysis of metaphorical transfer based on the aspectual pair upast’ / ​padat’ (‘to fall’). The author reviews the structure of metaphorical meaning of predicates, which enforce the Lakoff’s metaphor ‘LESS IS DOWN’ and copy some parts of valency structure from the primary meaning’s structure, and also analyses how collocations correlate with valency structure. The empirical base for analysis was extracted from the Russian corpus ruskell 1.6 in Sketch Engine. It consists of 1516 collocates in total used both in primary and metaphorical contexts. Formal corpus analysis of collocations demonstrate that unlike the primary meaning, metaphorical meaning is more strict and less variable when we talk about syntagmatic rules of filling patient (valency A1), source, or primary point (A2) and goal, or final point (A3), and interval (A4). As a result of analysis, we could extract several syntagmatic groups that are correlated with the metaphorical meaning only. Corpus-based analysis helps with identifying typical and marginal types that fill the valencies, nevertheless analysis of collocates that trigger metaphorical shift is more important. In the research, we focus on the syntagmatic group “noun(nom) + predicate” that marks patient’s valency. Semi-automated tagging of patient and semantic analysis of patient let us determine some specific lexical and semantic features and classify semantic groups (as parameter, property) that are typical for the metaphorical meaning. The author suggests that the mixed corpus-based approach, which is demonstrated in the paper, could be used in analysis of more general predicate metaphorical field as “get more <less>”.