Attack of the snowclones: A corpus-based analysis of extravagant formulaic patterns

The concept of ‘snowclones’ has gained interest in recent research on linguistic creativity and studies extravagance expressiveness language. However, no clear criteria for identifying snowclones have yet been established, detailed corpus-based investigations the phenomenon are still lacking. This paper addresses this gap a twofold way. On one hand, we develop an operational definition snowclones, arguing that three decisive: (i) existence lexically fixed source construction; (ii) partial productivity; (iii) ‘extravagant’ formal and/or functional characteristics. other offer empirical investigation two patterns often mentioned as examples previous literature, namely [ mother all X] [X BE new Y]. We use collostructional analysis distributional semantics to explore productivity both patterns’ slot fillers. In sum, argue if properly defined, can contribute substantially our understanding creative language use, especially regarding question how social, cultural, interpersonal factors influence choice more or less salient constructions.