The current paper is aimed at identifying functional and semantic potential of ‘burst +adjective’ construction in English based on linguistic data obtained from Corpus of Contemporary American English. The research implies addressing the issue of studying verb-based constructions from the perspective of construction grammar and construction semantics; conducting componential analysis of the verb ‘burst’ in order to specify its semes; forming a primary sample of ‘burst + adjective’ constructions found in COCA and refining the samples in question by means of contextual analysis; applying quantitative analysis to allocation of constructions’ frequencies in genre sections and years; assessment and ranging of the constructions by means of log-likelihood and mutual information association measures; conducting semantic clusterisation of the right- and left-context collocates of the constructions; analyzing and interpreting semantic features of the constructions under study, identifying their lexical, semantic as well as structural restrictions. As a result, it has been established that collostructions with the verbal node ‘burst’ retain the semes of ‘sudden change’, ‘speed’ and ‘sound’ that apply to the action or condition denoted by the construction. Furthermore, the constructions in question actualize metaphorical schemes of a container or a barrier, denote the motion inwards and outwards, as well as imply forceful action performed by a moving object or an entity. As a rule, the constructions under study denote an uncontrolled action and collocate with inanimate natural objects that are not able to act voluntarily.
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