Too big to fail but big enough to pay for their mistakes: A collostructional analysis of the patterns [too ADJ to V] and [ADJ enough to V]

Abstract

In this paper, we illustrate the usefulness of the family of methods collectively known as Collostructional Analysis for phraseological research. Investigating two patterns, [too ADJ to V] and [ADJ enough to V], we show how a technique originally developed for the investigation of words and constructions can be fruitfully applied to issues pertinent to phraseology, such as the co-existence of compositional and idiomatic semantics and the analysis of semantically complementary patterns more generally. To this end, we use the three conventional methods (Simple, Distinctive and Co-varying Collexeme Analyses) and propose a novel extension (Distinctive Co-varying Collexeme Analysis) particularly suitable for the investigation of complementary patterns. We show that collostructional analysis is suitable for confirming hypotheses derived from qualitative analyses, as well as uncovering subtle differences that are otherwise inaccessible for non-empirical research.