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RESEARCH PRODUCT

ΔP as a measure of collocation strength

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AbstractThis paper explores the proposed benefits of ΔP (delta P) as a measure of collocation strength. Its focus is on contrasting ΔP with other, more commonly used, association measures, particularly transitional probabilities, but also mutual information and Lexical Gravity G. To this end, first the strong correlation between ΔP and transitional probability is illustrated with the help of two exemplary corpora. This is followed by an analysis of hesitation placement in spontaneous spoken English, based on the assumption that hesitations will not be placed within strong collocations. Results show that, despite their strong similarity, in some contexts ΔP is more predictive of hesitation placement than transitional probability. Yet neither ΔP nor any of the other association measures emerges as the universally best predictor. On the basis of these results, it is suggested that studies should always rely on several association measures.