Stirred but not shaken How fixed are fixed expressions? Olli O. Silvennoinen Collocations cross-linguistically CoCoLaC, University of Helsinki, 8 May 2015 6.5.2015 1
Background PhD project on contrastive negation in English (2015-2018, Doctoral programme for language studies/general linguistics) If you re interested: Silvennoinen 2013 1. Shaken, not stirred. 2. Make love, not war! 3. Last but not least 6.5.2015 2
Fixed expressions Shaken, not stirred Make love, not war! Last but not least Processed and retrieved as wholes Most are actually variable, i.e. open to compositional analysis, but to varying degrees Conscious variation or sub-conscious approximation? (Heinonen 2013; Mauranen 2012; Moon 1998; Sinclair 1991; Wray 2002) 6.5.2015 3
Fixed or variable? Every Cosmo girl has an inherent bed right: to be shaken and stirred between the sheets. An embarrassing public defeat has left Prechter defensive but unbowed, shaken but not stirred. (COCA) 6.5.2015 4
Antonyms as collocates Canonical antonyms co-occur with one another in texts (e.g., Justeson & Katz 1991: 4) Soil redeposition is evaluated by washing clean swatches with the dirty ones. Originals are not necessarily good and adaptations are not necessarily bad. These co-occurrences are often in a limited number of syntactic frames (e.g., Mettinger 1994, Jones 2002) from X to Y X and Y alike X not Y either X or Y turning X into Y not X but Y These frames may buttress the acquisition of canonical antonyms as pairs and the antonym relation in general (Jones et al. 2012) 6.5.2015 5
Hypothesis If pairs such as shaken/stirred, love/war and last/least appear in the same contrastive constructions as antonyms, they should also form collocations that are independent of the original constructions. (Murphy 2006.) 6.5.2015 6
Data and methods Searching for the pairs shaken/stirred, love/war and last/least in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) Search window: ±9 words COCA: 450 million words, 1990-2012 COHA: 400 million words, 1810-2009 6.5.2015 7
Results: shaken/stirred 60 hits in COCA in 3, the link probably not based on shaken, not stirred Cf: shaken: 3,359 hits stirred: 3,662 hits Add the shallots. Place in a container that can be easily shaken or stirred [ ] 6.5.2015 8
Syntactic variability: shaken/stirred Example No wonder it sits well on a wrist not far from a shaken, not stirred, martini. [MAG] the dessert and cocktail cultures are getting shaken and stirred together, with delicious results. [NEWS] Kim was shaken, but not stirred, by the prospect of keeping vigil in a desolate lighthouse [SPOK] Frequency (n=57) X not Y: 29 X and Y: 11 X but not Y: 6 Some people want them shaken, and some want them stirred. What do you recommend? [MAG] the theory that a Martini ought to be stirred and not shaken [MAG] Others: 11 6.5.2015 9
Semantic variability: shaken/stirred 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Manhattans to start (based on Old Overholt rye, stirred 100 times, never shaken). An embarrassing public defeat has left Prechter defensive but unbowed, shaken but not stirred. a James Bond theme party called "Shaken Not Stirred II " Even Bond's mandatory catchphrases such as Shaken, not stirred are A.W.O.L. the dessert and cocktail cultures are getting shaken and stirred together, with delicious results. 6.5.2015 10
Historical development: shaken/stirred The first James Bond novel in 1952, film in 1962 But: COHA shows co-occurrences even in the 19th century The powder should be dried for a few minutes in the sun before it is put into the flask, and it should be well shaken and stirred to break any lumps that may be in it. [1855] This kind of example becomes very rare after shaken, not stirred takes over in the 1960s (but it does persist even in COCA: 5% of co-occurrences) Caveat: all figures very small. 6.5.2015 11
Discussion: shaken/stirred Independent from the parent expression...but the parent expression is the most common context for co-occurrence Meaning shift based on pre-existing meanings of the words (mental state, change of state) Changes to the collocational profiles of shaken and stirred: have coordinations in the physical senses become rarer (if not related to cocktails)? 6.5.2015 12
Results: love/war 539 hits in COCA Cf. love: 152,358 hits war: 178,115 hits Of these, only 39 are definitely linked to make love, not war! Accidental co-occurrences Other phrases: All s fair in love and war Other collocations: love and hate, war and peace 6.5.2015 13
Syntactic variability: love/war Example "'Make love not war' was more important than 'Workers of the world, unite!'" Frequency (n=39) X not Y: 27 He's not making love. He's making war. Other negatives: 3 [ ] I'd check the barracks a last time and find the guys sitting in darkness and watching feelies the laser projectors humming, the virtual actors making love and war in four dimensions [ ]. I've learned it's a lot more fun to make love than to make war Indeed, the traditional manuals of moral theology offered priests and penitents extensive and detailed directives about nearly every other sort of ethical concern: when we could or could not take someone else's property, [ ] make war, love, or babies, or withdraw medical treatments from the dying. Conjunctions with and: 4 Comparatives: 3 Others: 2 6.5.2015 14
Semantic variability: love/war 30 25 20 15 10 5 As the play moves toward the present, one character proclaims, "'Make love not war' was more important than 'Workers of the world, unite!'" But first, let's look at that report on how important it is to a marriage to make not just love, but war. 0 Metalinguistic Referential or semi-referential 6.5.2015 15
Historical development: love/war Protests against the Vietnam war in the 1960s In COHA, the first instances in 1966 (n=25) One anachronistic instance from 1914 (!) But you seem to forget that we are not making love but war. 0,6 Frequency per million words 0,4 0,2 0 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 6.5.2015 16
Discussion: love/war Based on a pre-existing semi-canonical opposition, already a collocation Many metalinguistic uses, a proxy for the 1960s counter-culture Frequency past its peak 6.5.2015 17
Results: last/least 2,311 hits in COCA A sample of 500 was created and studied In the sample, there were 92 hits that were related to last but not least 6.5.2015 18
Syntactic variability: last/least 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 And, last but certainly not least, there are no WMDs in Iraq. If you feel as though you are the last person you know who is still single, remind yourself that "last does not mean least." Last and least are the temporary squatter kampungs. It seems the last if not least that we can do. Last, but not the least important, is how far the new futures contracts succeed 6.5.2015 19
Conclusion Shaken, not stirred Rare collocation based on the original expression; may have altered the co-occurrence pattern of the words Make love, not war! Original expression based on pre-existing collocation; use on the wane, much of it metalinguistic Last but not least Original expression quite common; modifications frequent but modest, little meaning shift 6.5.2015 20
References 1/2 COCA = Davies, Mark 2012. The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): 450 million words, 1990-present. Brigham Young University. COHA = Davies, Mark 2010. The Corpus of Historical American English (COHA): 400 million words, 1810-2009. Brigham Young University. Heinonen, Tarja Riitta 2013. Idiomien leksikaalinen kuvaus kielenkäytön ja vaihtelun näkökulmasta. Doctoral dissertation, University of Helsinki. Jones, Steven 2002. Antonymy: A Corpus-based Perspective. London: Routledge. Jones, Steven, M. Lynne Murphy, Carita Paradis & Caroline Willners 2012. Antonyms in English: Construals, Constructions and Canonicity. CUP. Justeson, John S. & Slava M. Katz 1991. Co-occurrences of antonymous adjectives and their contexts. Computational Linguistics 17(1): 1-19. 6.5.2015 21
References 2/2 Mauranen, Anna 2012. Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-native Speakers. CUP. Mettinger, Arthur 1994. Aspects of Semantic Opposition in English. Oxford: Clarendon. Moon, Rosamund 1998. Fixed Expressions and Idioms in English: A Corpus-based Approach. OUP. Murphy, M. Lynne 2006. Antonyms as lexical constructions: or, why paradigmatic construction is not an oxymoron. Special volume of Constructions 8. Silvennoinen, Olli O. 2013. Shaken, not stirred: A Construction Grammar account of contrastive negation in English. MA thesis, University of Helsinki. Sinclair, John M. 1991. Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. OUP. Wray, Alison 2001. Formulaic Language and the Lexicon. CUP. 6.5.2015 22
Thank you! E-mail: olli.silvennoinen at helsinki.fi 6.5.2015 23