kasutuspõhist
Kasutuspõhist is an Estonian term used to describe a branch of linguistics that studies how language change is shaped by actual usage over time. It emphasizes empirical data from spoken and written language and focuses on how patterns of use—such as word frequencies, collocations, and constructions—drive historical development.
The word combines elements meaning usage and historical grounding, and in practice it denotes a usage-based
Methods commonly associated with kasutuspõhist include diachronic corpus linguistics, computational analysis of historical texts, and the
Applications of this approach include updating dictionaries and grammars to reflect real-world usage, informing language education
In related fields, kasutuspõhist intersects with historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, construction grammar, and cognitive linguistics, offering