Mandarin chī ‘eat’ sentences in elicitation and corpus data

When collected methodically through elicitation experiments, invented examples prompted by a cue word provide evidence for how speakers think about that word. This study explores characteristics of Mandarin chī ‘eat’ sentences obtained through an elicitation experiment and SMS, newspaper, and fiction corpora. Our findings support the view that invented examples collected methodically represent a valuable data type with its own characteristics worthy of attention and analysis.