3 things affecting on the productivity of a linguistic pattern

   There are three factors on deciding the productivity of a linguistic pattern, a conjugation pattern in the original text, according to Language, Usage, and Cognition, written by Joan Bybee:

  Firstly, so called ‘type frequency’ of a pattern which is the number of the items displaying the same pattern affects the productivity of the pattern. The more items exist within the pattern, the more productivity the pattern gets. It can be said that type frequency constitutes a pattern and decides its power. 

  Secondly, when members of a pattern are similar in their shapes, meanings, contexts of use, or pragmatic situations, the pattern’s productivity tends to be low. In other words, the more the members are different in their meanings, forms, social contexts used in, etc., the stronger the productivity of the pattern is. This is so called schematicity. It defines the range that the pattern in question can be applied onto.

  Lastly, so called ‘gang effect’ can enhance the productivity. When members of a pattern are highly similar in their phonetic traits, this pattern gains some productivity. 

  Here, we can infer one general tendency that ‘gang effect’ happens when high type frequency comes with low  schematicity; because this two conditions tend to result in ‘high concentration of items sharing lots of phonetic features’, which is the definition on the  ‘gang effect’.