Hoey's original Lexical Priming theory, 2005

We start this first chapter by asking: what is a scientific theory? Is Lexical Priming (LP) a sound scientific theory? We argue that Hoey proposes a good number of testifiable (hence scientific) hypotheses, while trying to persuade the readers to appraise LP theory as a probabilistic approach to language. We then go on to outline the principal hypotheses involved in LP theory and their implications for the study of language as represented in corpora. We focus on three main areas of interest: LP and meaning (collocations, nesting polysemy, synonymy); LP and grammar (we introduce our own notion of the ‘lexical template’ and links it to Hoey's study of colligation); and LP and creativity (of the ‘Chomskian’ everyday kind, of the literary kind, creativity for effect and a kind which lies somewhere between, non-literary but surprising in its novelty). We conclude with a summary of the innovations that Hoey's LP has introduced into linguistic theory as a whole.