Corpus-Driven Investigation of Meaning Pattern Association:

It has been claimed that a polysemous expression will occur in different patterns depending on the specific meaning intended. This suggests that, conversely, the pattern in which an expression is used should reveal which of its meanings are intended by the speaker/writer. In the paper, the meaning-pattern association of the phrasal verb stand by is investigated, based on the observation of the corpus, Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The result shows that each meaning of the phrasal verb stand by occurs in a separate set of preconstructed patterns so that it can be easily distinguished from the others. One meaning of stand by, ‘to be present but fail to stop something bad from happening’ is set apart from other meanings, ‘to support’ and ‘to be ready,’ which are more closely linked together. This contrastive meaning has a more restricted set of preconstructed patterns than the other meanings. That is, a meaning that sets itself apart will have a more restricted set of patterns to reflect its specialized usage.