DON’T FORGET TO REMEMBER: A COLLEXEME ANALYSIS OF MEMORY CONSTRUCTIONS

Abstract

The simple collexeme analysis is a method within collostructional analysis that measures the strength of association between a particular lexeme occupying a specific slot and the construction in which it appears. The aim of this study is to identify the verbs most strongly associated with the two semantically opposing constructions, remember to V and forget to V, by applying this specific method of analysis, and to explore their lexical preferences and functional distinctions. The samples were obtained from the British National Corpus (BNC) and analyzed using R Studio software, which statistically measures the association strength between these verbs and their respective construction. The research revealed that remember to V and forget to V share some formal characteristics but functionally differ in terms of verb preference and cognitive framing. Remember to V proved to be more flexible with the verbs it attracts, which tend to reflect fulfilled obligations or routine actions, whereas forget to V was found to be slightly more restrictive, preferring verbs related to communicative omissions.