Abstract Concessive clause positioning as a result of multi-cue competition has been widely examined in L1 and L2 English learners. This study furthers the present research by examining competition patterns among contingency, L1 transfer, and salience factors in concessive clause positioning by Chinese EFL learners. We extracted 1,356 concessive subordinations conjoined by although and though from native and learner argumentative essays, and used multifactorial models to examine the effectiveness, tuning tendency, and power ranking of the cues that tune concessive clause positions. A critical contingency competition was tentatively concluded in concessive clause positioning by Chinese EFL learners. That is, in cue consistency across native and learner datasets, contingency values assume the baseline role, which L1 transfer hinders while salience promotes. In addition, a critical contingency value exists, above which L1 transfer effects are not stronger than contingency and salience effects, so that cue consistency would usually be maintained and vice versa.
{"title":"Critical contingency competition in L2 clause positioning acquisition: the case of concessive clause by Chinese EFL learners","authors":"Jiajin Xu, Hui Kang","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2023-0068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2023-0068","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Concessive clause positioning as a result of multi-cue competition has been widely examined in L1 and L2 English learners. This study furthers the present research by examining competition patterns among contingency, L1 transfer, and salience factors in concessive clause positioning by Chinese EFL learners. We extracted 1,356 concessive subordinations conjoined by although and though from native and learner argumentative essays, and used multifactorial models to examine the effectiveness, tuning tendency, and power ranking of the cues that tune concessive clause positions. A critical contingency competition was tentatively concluded in concessive clause positioning by Chinese EFL learners. That is, in cue consistency across native and learner datasets, contingency values assume the baseline role, which L1 transfer hinders while salience promotes. In addition, a critical contingency value exists, above which L1 transfer effects are not stronger than contingency and salience effects, so that cue consistency would usually be maintained and vice versa.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138963666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Despite extensive research on the ba-construction in Chinese, the diachronic change in the alternation between the ba and jiang constructions has received little attention. The present study takes a multifactorial approach to examine the factors that probabilistically condition the alternation based on diachronic data across twelve centuries. The results suggest two general trends. First, the odds of the ba-construction have increased over time at the expense of the jiang-construction. Second, over time, the effect size of the significant preference for the jiang-construction in informal genres has reduced from the 10th to the 19th century, and this preference has disappeared in modern times; accordingly, both informal and formal genres have converged to favor the ba-construction in modern times. Regression modeling also shows that there are both stable linguistic constraints (parallelism/syntactic priming, verb type, NP2 animacy, and NP2 length) and fluid constraints (adjunct semantics, and genre). This study advances our knowledge of the two disposal constructions and their evolution, sheds light on the Principle of No Synonymy (Bolinger, Dwight. 1977. Meaning and form. New York: Longman; Goldberg, Adele E. 1995. Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Goldberg, Adele E. 2002. Surface generalizations: An alternative to alternations. Cognitive Linguistics 13(4). 327–356), and makes a methodological contribution to the empirical testing of hypotheses. It can also provide insight into grammatical alternations in Mandarin.
尽管对汉语中“霸”构式进行了广泛的研究，但“霸”构式与“江”构式交替的历时性变化却很少受到关注。本研究采用多因素方法，以跨越12个世纪的历时数据为基础，考察影响这种交替的概率因素。研究结果显示了两大趋势。首先，随着时间的推移，坝建设的可能性增加了，而江建设的成本则降低了。第二，随着时间的推移，10 - 19世纪非正式体裁对建江的显著偏好的效应量有所减少，而这种偏好在近代已经消失;因此，在现代，正式文体和非正式文体都倾向于ba结构。回归模型还显示，既有稳定的语言约束(并行性/句法启动、动词类型、NP2动画性和NP2长度)，也有不稳定的约束(修饰语义和体裁)。本研究增进了我们对两种处置结构及其演变的认识，揭示了无同义原则(Bolinger, Dwight. 1977)。意义和形式。纽约:朗曼出版社;Goldberg, Adele E. 1995。构式:论述结构的构式语法方法。芝加哥:芝加哥大学出版社;Goldberg, Adele E. 2002。表面概括:替代替代方案。认知语言学13(4)。327-356)，并对假设的实证检验做出了方法论上的贡献。它还可以提供对普通话语法变化的洞察。
{"title":"Alternation in the Mandarin disposal constructions: quantifying their evolutionary dynamics across twelve centuries","authors":"Meili Liu, Hubert Cuyckens","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2023-0038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2023-0038","url":null,"abstract":"Despite extensive research on the <jats:italic>ba</jats:italic>-construction in Chinese, the diachronic change in the alternation between the <jats:italic>ba</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>jiang</jats:italic> constructions has received little attention. The present study takes a multifactorial approach to examine the factors that probabilistically condition the alternation based on diachronic data across twelve centuries. The results suggest two general trends. First, the odds of the <jats:italic>ba</jats:italic>-construction have increased over time at the expense of the <jats:italic>jiang</jats:italic>-construction. Second, over time, the effect size of the significant preference for the <jats:italic>jiang</jats:italic>-construction in informal genres has reduced from the 10th to the 19th century, and this preference has disappeared in modern times; accordingly, both informal and formal genres have converged to favor the <jats:italic>ba</jats:italic>-construction in modern times. Regression modeling also shows that there are both stable linguistic constraints (parallelism/syntactic priming, verb type, NP2 animacy, and NP2 length) and fluid constraints (adjunct semantics, and genre). This study advances our knowledge of the two disposal constructions and their evolution, sheds light on the Principle of No Synonymy (Bolinger, Dwight. 1977. <jats:italic>Meaning and form</jats:italic>. New York: Longman; Goldberg, Adele E. 1995. <jats:italic>Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure</jats:italic>. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Goldberg, Adele E. 2002. Surface generalizations: An alternative to alternations. <jats:italic>Cognitive Linguistics</jats:italic> 13(4). 327–356), and makes a methodological contribution to the empirical testing of hypotheses. It can also provide insight into grammatical alternations in Mandarin.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138524943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The present paper focusses on the historical development of the relationship between the English core modals can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might and must and the negator not. It explores whether semantic and morphosyntactic factors, particularly the emergence of do-support in Early Modern English, the increase in the popularity of contracted forms such as won’t in the nineteenth century and the loss of core modals in the twentieth century, had an influence on negation rates. Large-scale empirical analyses of modal use in historical corpora of British prose fiction published between ca. 1500 and 1990 reveal that many modals—particularly high-frequency will, would, can and could—indeed attract not. The establishment of the contractions n’t, ’ll and ’d had the strongest effect on the modal-negation system after 1500. The availability of the contracted modals ’ll and ’d led to a functional split whereby will and would became much more strongly associated with negation while contracted ’ll and ’d repel not-negation.
本文主要研究了英语核心情态can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might和must与否定词not之间关系的历史发展。它探讨了语义和形态句法因素是否对否定率有影响，特别是早期现代英语中do-support的出现，19世纪诸如won 't等缩写形式的流行以及20世纪核心情态的丧失。对1500年至1990年间出版的英国散文小说历史语料库中情态使用的大规模实证分析表明，许多情态——尤其是高频的will, would, can和could——确实不吸引人。1500年以后，缩略词“n”、“l”和“d”的建立对情态否定系统的影响最大。简约情态动词" ll "和" d "的出现导致了功能分裂，意志和意愿与否定的联系更加紧密，而简约的" ll "和" d "排斥非否定。
{"title":"I couldn’t help but wonder: do modals and negation attract?","authors":"Ulrike Schneider","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2023-0029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2023-0029","url":null,"abstract":"The present paper focusses on the historical development of the relationship between the English core modals <jats:italic>can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>must</jats:italic> and the negator <jats:italic>not</jats:italic>. It explores whether semantic and morphosyntactic factors, particularly the emergence of <jats:sc>do</jats:sc>-support in Early Modern English, the increase in the popularity of contracted forms such as <jats:italic>won’t</jats:italic> in the nineteenth century and the loss of core modals in the twentieth century, had an influence on negation rates. Large-scale empirical analyses of modal use in historical corpora of British prose fiction published between ca. 1500 and 1990 reveal that many modals—particularly high-frequency <jats:italic>will, would, can</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>could</jats:italic>—indeed attract <jats:italic>not</jats:italic>. The establishment of the contractions <jats:italic>n’t, ’ll</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>’d</jats:italic> had the strongest effect on the modal-negation system after 1500. The availability of the contracted modals <jats:italic>’ll</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>’d</jats:italic> led to a functional split whereby <jats:italic>will</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>would</jats:italic> became much more strongly associated with negation while contracted <jats:italic>’ll</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>’d</jats:italic> repel <jats:italic>not</jats:italic>-negation.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138524966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Barend Beekhuizen, Maya Blumenthal, Lee Jiang, Anna Pyrtchenkov, Jana Savevska
Abstract The study of crosslinguistic variation in word meaning often focuses on representational and concrete meanings. We argue other kinds of word meanings (e.g., abstract and (inter)subjective meanings) can be fruitfully studied in translation corpora, and present a quantitative procedure for doing so. We focus on the cross-linguistic patterns for lemmas pertaining to truth and reality (English true and real ), as these abstract meanings been found to frequently colexify with particular (inter)subjective meanings. Applying our method to a corpus of translated subtitles of TED talks, we show that (1) the abstract-representational meanings are colexified in patterned ways, that, however, are more complex than previously observed (some languages not splitting a ‘true’-like from ‘real’-like terms; many languages displaying further splits of representational meanings); (2) some non-representational meanings strongly colexify with representational meanings of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, while others also often colexify with other fields.
{"title":"Truth be told: a corpus-based study of the cross-linguistic colexification of representational and (inter)subjective meanings","authors":"Barend Beekhuizen, Maya Blumenthal, Lee Jiang, Anna Pyrtchenkov, Jana Savevska","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2021-0058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2021-0058","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The study of crosslinguistic variation in word meaning often focuses on representational and concrete meanings. We argue other kinds of word meanings (e.g., abstract and (inter)subjective meanings) can be fruitfully studied in translation corpora, and present a quantitative procedure for doing so. We focus on the cross-linguistic patterns for lemmas pertaining to truth and reality (English true and real ), as these abstract meanings been found to frequently colexify with particular (inter)subjective meanings. Applying our method to a corpus of translated subtitles of TED talks, we show that (1) the abstract-representational meanings are colexified in patterned ways, that, however, are more complex than previously observed (some languages not splitting a ‘true’-like from ‘real’-like terms; many languages displaying further splits of representational meanings); (2) some non-representational meanings strongly colexify with representational meanings of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, while others also often colexify with other fields.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135163158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Juan Guerrero Montero, Andres Karjus, Kenny Smith, Richard A. Blythe
Abstract Language change is a cultural evolutionary process in which variants of linguistic variables change in frequency through processes analogous to mutation, selection and genetic drift. In this work, we apply a recently-introduced method to corpus data to quantify the strength of selection in specific instances of historical language change. We first demonstrate, in the context of English irregular verbs, that this method is more reliable and interpretable than similar methods that have previously been applied. We further extend this study to demonstrate that a bias towards phonological simplicity overrides that favouring grammatical simplicity when these are in conflict. Finally, with reference to Spanish spelling reforms, we show that the method can also detect points in time at which selection strengths change, a feature that is generically expected for socially-motivated language change. Together, these results indicate how hypotheses for mechanisms of language change can be tested quantitatively using historical corpus data.
{"title":"Reliable detection and quantification of selective forces in language change","authors":"Juan Guerrero Montero, Andres Karjus, Kenny Smith, Richard A. Blythe","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2023-0064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2023-0064","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Language change is a cultural evolutionary process in which variants of linguistic variables change in frequency through processes analogous to mutation, selection and genetic drift. In this work, we apply a recently-introduced method to corpus data to quantify the strength of selection in specific instances of historical language change. We first demonstrate, in the context of English irregular verbs, that this method is more reliable and interpretable than similar methods that have previously been applied. We further extend this study to demonstrate that a bias towards phonological simplicity overrides that favouring grammatical simplicity when these are in conflict. Finally, with reference to Spanish spelling reforms, we show that the method can also detect points in time at which selection strengths change, a feature that is generically expected for socially-motivated language change. Together, these results indicate how hypotheses for mechanisms of language change can be tested quantitatively using historical corpus data.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136107060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1515/cllt-2023-frontmatter3
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2023-frontmatter3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2023-frontmatter3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135656214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Loanwords are lexical terms borrowed from foreign languages by transliterating the original sound of the borrowed words with the recipient language’s consonants and vowels. This paper focuses on lexical borrowing in the Korean language from a diachronic perspective. Based on approximately 9,500 Korean loanwords extracted from a corpus of women’s magazine articles of residential sections (the Korean Contemporary Residential Culture Corpus), we investigated the alteration of loanword usage from 1970 to 2015. Having introduced our definition of Korean loanwords in phonological and morphological terms, we performed statistical analysis particularly with type/token frequency and cultural/core loanwords, along with semantic analysis with Period Representative Loanword (PRL). We argue that, in addition to its gradual and rapid increase over time, Korean loanword usage underwent a remarkable evolution in the 1990s.
{"title":"Lexical borrowing in Korean: a diachronic approach based on a corpus analysis","authors":"Yoon-Ja Oh, Hyunjung Son","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2022-0102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2022-0102","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Loanwords are lexical terms borrowed from foreign languages by transliterating the original sound of the borrowed words with the recipient language’s consonants and vowels. This paper focuses on lexical borrowing in the Korean language from a diachronic perspective. Based on approximately 9,500 Korean loanwords extracted from a corpus of women’s magazine articles of residential sections (the Korean Contemporary Residential Culture Corpus), we investigated the alteration of loanword usage from 1970 to 2015. Having introduced our definition of Korean loanwords in phonological and morphological terms, we performed statistical analysis particularly with type/token frequency and cultural/core loanwords, along with semantic analysis with Period Representative Loanword (PRL). We argue that, in addition to its gradual and rapid increase over time, Korean loanword usage underwent a remarkable evolution in the 1990s.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48207125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In many languages, the present perfect has grammaticalized, gradually displacing the preterit. Within Spanish, this has been documented with the grammaticalization of the present perfect in Peninsular Spanish. To examine this possibility in two Latin American varieties, this study examined present perfect/preterit variation of 36 speakers from Lima and Mexico City from the PRESEEA corpus. While Lima Spanish presented overall more present perfect than Mexico City Spanish, a similar internal constraint hierarchy is predictive of present perfect use in both speech communities. However, Lima Spanish demonstrated a change in progress toward an expansion of the preterit among younger speakers with the indeterminate temporal reference as locus of change. The findings suggest that present perfect grammaticalization may not always be the most common cross-linguistic pathway but rather is subject to source constraints, which may lead to another pathway in which the preterit expands at the expense of the present perfect.
{"title":"Present perfect and preterit variation in the Spanish of Lima and Mexico city: findings from a corpus analysis","authors":"Anna Mastrantuono, Brendan Regan","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2022-0060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2022-0060","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In many languages, the present perfect has grammaticalized, gradually displacing the preterit. Within Spanish, this has been documented with the grammaticalization of the present perfect in Peninsular Spanish. To examine this possibility in two Latin American varieties, this study examined present perfect/preterit variation of 36 speakers from Lima and Mexico City from the PRESEEA corpus. While Lima Spanish presented overall more present perfect than Mexico City Spanish, a similar internal constraint hierarchy is predictive of present perfect use in both speech communities. However, Lima Spanish demonstrated a change in progress toward an expansion of the preterit among younger speakers with the indeterminate temporal reference as locus of change. The findings suggest that present perfect grammaticalization may not always be the most common cross-linguistic pathway but rather is subject to source constraints, which may lead to another pathway in which the preterit expands at the expense of the present perfect.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44220873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Although there is a long tradition of research analyzing the grammatical complexity of texts (in both linguistics and applied linguistics), there is surprisingly little consensus on the nature of complexity. Many studies have disregarded syntactic (and structural) distinctions in their analyses of grammatical text complexity, treating it instead as if it were a single unified construct. However, other corpus-based studies indicate that different grammatical complexity features pattern in fundamentally different ways. The present study employs methods that are informed by structural equation modeling to test the goodness-of-fit of four models that can be motivated from previous research and linguistic theory: a model treating all complexity features as a single dimension, a model distinguishing among three major structural types of complexity features, a model distinguishing among three major syntactic functions of complexity features, and a model distinguishing among nine combinations of structural type and syntactic functions. The findings show that text complexity is clearly a multi-dimensional construct. Both structural and syntactic distinctions are important. Syntactic distinctions are actually more important than structural distinctions, although the combination of the two best accounts for the ways in which complexity features pattern in texts from different registers.
{"title":"The linguistic organization of grammatical text complexity: comparing the empirical adequacy of theory-based models","authors":"D. Biber, Tove Larsson, G. Hancock","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2023-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2023-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although there is a long tradition of research analyzing the grammatical complexity of texts (in both linguistics and applied linguistics), there is surprisingly little consensus on the nature of complexity. Many studies have disregarded syntactic (and structural) distinctions in their analyses of grammatical text complexity, treating it instead as if it were a single unified construct. However, other corpus-based studies indicate that different grammatical complexity features pattern in fundamentally different ways. The present study employs methods that are informed by structural equation modeling to test the goodness-of-fit of four models that can be motivated from previous research and linguistic theory: a model treating all complexity features as a single dimension, a model distinguishing among three major structural types of complexity features, a model distinguishing among three major syntactic functions of complexity features, and a model distinguishing among nine combinations of structural type and syntactic functions. The findings show that text complexity is clearly a multi-dimensional construct. Both structural and syntactic distinctions are important. Syntactic distinctions are actually more important than structural distinctions, although the combination of the two best accounts for the ways in which complexity features pattern in texts from different registers.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48874237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Conversion is a common feature of present-day English, leading to many ‘heterosemous’ words that express related meanings across multiple word classes. Especially common is verb/noun heterosemy, as in flow or hand, both of which can be used as verbs or as nouns. The prevalence of verb/noun heterosemy sets English apart from closely related Germanic languages and is one respect in which English behaves as a language with high boundary permeability. This paper investigates how verb/noun heterosemy has been evolving in Recent English (1920s–2010s). Using quantitative analysis within a large sample of 877 heterosemous words, it is shown that associations between specific words and word classes have been weakening over the last century. More precisely, within our sample, heterosemous words on average tend to develop towards more balanced heterosemy, whereby their association to either one word class or another becomes less pronounced. The findings suggest that English is in the process of a long-term drift towards greater boundary permeability. As high boundary permeability has been associated with low reliance on inflectional morphology in a language, this could be a long-term consequence of the overall loss of inflections earlier in the history of the language.
{"title":"The blurring of the boundaries: changes in verb/noun heterosemy in Recent English","authors":"Bin Shao, Jing Zheng, Hendrik De Smet","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2022-0053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2022-0053","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Conversion is a common feature of present-day English, leading to many ‘heterosemous’ words that express related meanings across multiple word classes. Especially common is verb/noun heterosemy, as in flow or hand, both of which can be used as verbs or as nouns. The prevalence of verb/noun heterosemy sets English apart from closely related Germanic languages and is one respect in which English behaves as a language with high boundary permeability. This paper investigates how verb/noun heterosemy has been evolving in Recent English (1920s–2010s). Using quantitative analysis within a large sample of 877 heterosemous words, it is shown that associations between specific words and word classes have been weakening over the last century. More precisely, within our sample, heterosemous words on average tend to develop towards more balanced heterosemy, whereby their association to either one word class or another becomes less pronounced. The findings suggest that English is in the process of a long-term drift towards greater boundary permeability. As high boundary permeability has been associated with low reliance on inflectional morphology in a language, this could be a long-term consequence of the overall loss of inflections earlier in the history of the language.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44874543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：