Chapter Fifteen
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the construction. In contrast, spew entails eruption of lava in large
amounts (dictionary information) and vast amounts (information in usage
context 14). The adjective rapid in context (14) also indicates that for an
abrupt/rapid decrease in temperature to take place, a high flow of lava and
ashes being spewed at a high rate is necessary:
(11) Dribble: to flow or allow to flow in a thin stream or drops
(12) Spew: to send out or force out in large amounts (e.g. a volcano that
spewed molten lava)
(13) Etna’s lava flows seem either to come out in a quick-and-furious
manner over a short period of time (hours to days) or dribble out
slowly over months or years (The Volcano Guide, 2005)
(14) The volcanoes spewed vast amounts of volcanic ash into the air,
thus blocking some of the sun's heat and causing a rapid drop in
temperatureBecause of the intrinsic semantic features of dribble, we should not
expect it to collocate with arguments such as vast amounts of lava
[PATIENT_VOLCANIC MATERIAL ENTITY_QUANTITY] in a short length of
time [TIME]. The reverse applies to spew, which naturally collocates
neither with drops and thin stream [PATIENT_VOLCANIC MATERIAL
ENTITY_QUANTITY] nor with slowly [MANNER_EJECTION_SPEED]. The
corpus data confirmed these assumptions.
As with (13) and (14), usage context (15) is an example of how
linguistic evidence found in specialized running texts can complement
dictionary definitions of volcano verbs. In this case, context (15) activates
the MANNER_SOUND subcategory, where dribble implies a quiet stream of
lava coming out of the volcano crater. By contrast, sputter involves a noisy
burst, as shown by dictionary definition (16), extracted from AHDEL.
Context (17) provides evidence of the occurrence of sputter in the
specialized fields of geology and volcanology:
(15) [Q]uiet volcanoes have the lava dribble out of the crater and down
the sides of the volcano
(16) Sputter: to spit out or spray particles of saliva or food from the
mouth in noisy bursts
(17) [T]he analysis of C and O isotope ratios in ancient rocks will
constrain models of contributions to atmospheric evolution from
outgassing, hydrodynamic escape, sputtering, and photochemical
escape (Space Science Reviews 2012, 170:1, 401-479)