Of-constructions in the Predicate of demonstrate and show in Academic Discourse

This study investigates of-constructions in the predicates of two verbs, demonstrate and show, in academic discourse. A construction perspective is taken to examine how the two predicate constructions (‘demonstrate N1 of N2 ’ and ‘show N1 of N2’) would differ when the information-weighting of N1 and N2 are considered. The noun phrases were compared following Sinclair’s (1991) conception of semantic headedness. He notes the peculiarity of of through the expression of double-headed constructions (i.e., considering both N1 and N2 as the semantic heads). This study adopts this framework and applies it to analyze the of-constructions of the two synonymous verbs. The results show that headedness of the of-constructions can be used to identify the subtle differences between the two synonyms. Demonstrate displays greater information weight predominated by double-headed constructions and tends to be associated with abstract conception. Show follows closely after demonstrate, but further analysis reveals that show tends to provide more ‘relational ’ evidence described in terms of partitive uses through nouns like variety, degree, incidence, level, rate and range.