Abstract Register studies have focused on accounting for linguistic variation between culturally recognized register categories. This comparative approach to register has consistently demonstrated that culturally recognized register categories can predict language variation at all linguistic levels. Nevertheless, it has also been shown by previous research that even the most well-established register categories have substantial internal linguistic variation. We propose that at least some of this unexplained variance could be the result of how a text is defined, as well as whether and how researchers account for situational variables within registers. We present four case studies that explore the extent to which linguistic variation within registers is influenced by the definition of the textual unit and the situational parameters. We show that the functional correspondence between situation and language use exists even within register categories and discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of these findings for register research.
{"title":"Linguistic variation within registers: granularity in textual units and situational parameters","authors":"Jesse Egbert, M. Gracheva","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2022-0034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2022-0034","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Register studies have focused on accounting for linguistic variation between culturally recognized register categories. This comparative approach to register has consistently demonstrated that culturally recognized register categories can predict language variation at all linguistic levels. Nevertheless, it has also been shown by previous research that even the most well-established register categories have substantial internal linguistic variation. We propose that at least some of this unexplained variance could be the result of how a text is defined, as well as whether and how researchers account for situational variables within registers. We present four case studies that explore the extent to which linguistic variation within registers is influenced by the definition of the textual unit and the situational parameters. We show that the functional correspondence between situation and language use exists even within register categories and discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of these findings for register research.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"19 1","pages":"115 - 143"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43830842","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 This study applies a corpus-based quantitative approach to the word order typology and linguistic theories about word order in several genetically unrelated language varieties in northwestern Iran, such as Mukri Kurdish, Northeastern Kurdish and Armenian (Indo-European), Jewish Neo-Aramaic (Semitic), and Azeri Turkic (Turkish). Despite the difference in the default position of the direct object, the existing corpora of published and personal field data of narrative free speech demonstrate that these languages share the clause-final position of Targets predominantly (e.g., physical and metaphorical goals, recipients, addressees, and resultant-states) in their word order. Yet, Targets are more flexible in Mukri Kurdish, Northeastern Neo-Aramaic, and Azeri Turkic, whereas they are less flexible in Armenian and Northeastern Kurdish. Among various factors relevant to the placement of Targets, morphosyntactic features such as parts of speech exhibit constraints and clear preferences in the pre- and postverbal placement of Targets.
{"title":"Parts of speech and the placement of Targets in the corpus of languages in northwestern Iran","authors":"H. Asadpour","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2022-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2022-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study applies a corpus-based quantitative approach to the word order typology and linguistic theories about word order in several genetically unrelated language varieties in northwestern Iran, such as Mukri Kurdish, Northeastern Kurdish and Armenian (Indo-European), Jewish Neo-Aramaic (Semitic), and Azeri Turkic (Turkish). Despite the difference in the default position of the direct object, the existing corpora of published and personal field data of narrative free speech demonstrate that these languages share the clause-final position of Targets predominantly (e.g., physical and metaphorical goals, recipients, addressees, and resultant-states) in their word order. Yet, Targets are more flexible in Mukri Kurdish, Northeastern Neo-Aramaic, and Azeri Turkic, whereas they are less flexible in Armenian and Northeastern Kurdish. Among various factors relevant to the placement of Targets, morphosyntactic features such as parts of speech exhibit constraints and clear preferences in the pre- and postverbal placement of Targets.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49501305","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 This study investigates how foreign language proficiency, which previous corpus-based research on alternation phenomena has largely ignored, influences the choice of genitive variant (the tail of the dog/the dog’s tail) in learners of English as a Foreign Language. The data stems from the Trinity Lancaster Corpus, a three-million-word corpus featuring spoken language from low-intermediate to advanced learners of English from several L1 backgrounds. The collected genitive observations were annotated for various constraints such as the length, animacy, definiteness and discourse status of the constituents and then analyzed via mixed-effects logistic regression. The results show that although native speakers and learners are remarkably similar, low-proficiency learners are less sensitive to possessor definiteness and possessor animacy, the latter of which is otherwise the strongest constraint of the genitive alternation.
{"title":"Alternation phenomena and language proficiency: the genitive alternation in the spoken language of EFL learners","authors":"Tanguy Dubois, M. Paquot, Benedikt Szmrecsanyi","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2021-0078","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2021-0078","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study investigates how foreign language proficiency, which previous corpus-based research on alternation phenomena has largely ignored, influences the choice of genitive variant (the tail of the dog/the dog’s tail) in learners of English as a Foreign Language. The data stems from the Trinity Lancaster Corpus, a three-million-word corpus featuring spoken language from low-intermediate to advanced learners of English from several L1 backgrounds. The collected genitive observations were annotated for various constraints such as the length, animacy, definiteness and discourse status of the constituents and then analyzed via mixed-effects logistic regression. The results show that although native speakers and learners are remarkably similar, low-proficiency learners are less sensitive to possessor definiteness and possessor animacy, the latter of which is otherwise the strongest constraint of the genitive alternation.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45991187","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 This paper measures the stability of cross-linguistic register variation. A register is a variety of a language that is associated with extra-linguistic context. The relationship between a register and its context is functional: the linguistic features that make up a register are motivated by the needs and constraints of the communicative situation. This view hypothesizes that register should be universal, so that we expect a stable relationship between the extra-linguistic context that defines a register and the sets of linguistic features which the register contains. In this paper, the universality and robustness of register variation is tested by comparing variation within versus between register-specific corpora in 60 languages using corpora produced in comparable communicative situations: tweets and Wikipedia articles. Our findings confirm the prediction that register variation is, in fact, universal.
{"title":"Register variation remains stable across 60 languages","authors":"Haipeng Li, Jonathan Dunn, A. Nini","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2021-0090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2021-0090","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper measures the stability of cross-linguistic register variation. A register is a variety of a language that is associated with extra-linguistic context. The relationship between a register and its context is functional: the linguistic features that make up a register are motivated by the needs and constraints of the communicative situation. This view hypothesizes that register should be universal, so that we expect a stable relationship between the extra-linguistic context that defines a register and the sets of linguistic features which the register contains. In this paper, the universality and robustness of register variation is tested by comparing variation within versus between register-specific corpora in 60 languages using corpora produced in comparable communicative situations: tweets and Wikipedia articles. Our findings confirm the prediction that register variation is, in fact, universal.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46226833","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 The boundary permeability hypothesis views language as a system of categories which are more or less rigidly separated from one another. In previous work on grammatical categories, English was characterized as a soft boundary and German as a strict boundary language. This project presents a test of the prediction that English to be has a wider functional range than its German counterpart sein. The range of these verbs is determined on the basis of a bidirectional translation study. English to be is translated by a larger variety of lexical verbs in German while sein is translated by a smaller number of lexical verbs in English. In fact, the translation equivalents of sein form a subset of those of to be. Moreover, to be plays a much larger role in constructions such as there is and it is than sein does. The boundary permeability hypothesis views this structural difference and the wider semantic range of to be as two sides of the same coin. It is suggested that English is a more speaker-friendly language than German.
{"title":"Comparing the functional range of English to be to German sein: a test of the boundary permeability hypothesis","authors":"T. Berg","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2022-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2022-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The boundary permeability hypothesis views language as a system of categories which are more or less rigidly separated from one another. In previous work on grammatical categories, English was characterized as a soft boundary and German as a strict boundary language. This project presents a test of the prediction that English to be has a wider functional range than its German counterpart sein. The range of these verbs is determined on the basis of a bidirectional translation study. English to be is translated by a larger variety of lexical verbs in German while sein is translated by a smaller number of lexical verbs in English. In fact, the translation equivalents of sein form a subset of those of to be. Moreover, to be plays a much larger role in constructions such as there is and it is than sein does. The boundary permeability hypothesis views this structural difference and the wider semantic range of to be as two sides of the same coin. It is suggested that English is a more speaker-friendly language than German.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42195410","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 This paper analyzes the semantics of the French and Spanish prepositions en from the point of view of diachrony. We focus on the spatial variation of their usage in both languages. Our methodological approach is based on a corpus analysis. We draw on comparable ancient texts and analyze some semantic categories that are fundamental for the spatial description. Our results reveal a fairly active evolution of prepositions with increases and decreases of usage where we did not expect them.
{"title":"In search of lost space","authors":"Daniel Rojas Plata, Noé Alejandro Castro Sánchez","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2022-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2022-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper analyzes the semantics of the French and Spanish prepositions en from the point of view of diachrony. We focus on the spatial variation of their usage in both languages. Our methodological approach is based on a corpus analysis. We draw on comparable ancient texts and analyze some semantic categories that are fundamental for the spatial description. Our results reveal a fairly active evolution of prepositions with increases and decreases of usage where we did not expect them.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46186908","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 The Constant Rate Hypothesis (CRH) predicts that a linguistic innovation should spread at identical rates of change in all grammatical contexts in which it is used (Kroch 1989. Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change 1(3). 199–244). Weaknesses in previous tests of the CRH are identified. A new study is conducted that improves upon them. It utilizes a syntactic change in late Modern American English possessive have, which altered its realization in the grammar-theoretically related contexts negation, inversion, VP-adjunction and VP-ellipsis. Data sets are collected from the Corpus of Historical American English (Davies 2010. The corpus of historical American English: 400 million words, 1810-2009. http://corpus.byu.edu/coha/ (accessed 10 September 2016)) and analyzed with mixed-effects logistic regression models. The statistical analysis reveals that it is indeed plausible to assume that each of the contexts innovates the use of possessive have at the same speed. Implications of the findings for the CRH are discussed.
{"title":"An improved test of the constant rate hypothesis: late Modern American English possessive have","authors":"Richard Zimmermann","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2021-0038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2021-0038","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Constant Rate Hypothesis (CRH) predicts that a linguistic innovation should spread at identical rates of change in all grammatical contexts in which it is used (Kroch 1989. Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change 1(3). 199–244). Weaknesses in previous tests of the CRH are identified. A new study is conducted that improves upon them. It utilizes a syntactic change in late Modern American English possessive have, which altered its realization in the grammar-theoretically related contexts negation, inversion, VP-adjunction and VP-ellipsis. Data sets are collected from the Corpus of Historical American English (Davies 2010. The corpus of historical American English: 400 million words, 1810-2009. http://corpus.byu.edu/coha/ (accessed 10 September 2016)) and analyzed with mixed-effects logistic regression models. The statistical analysis reveals that it is indeed plausible to assume that each of the contexts innovates the use of possessive have at the same speed. Implications of the findings for the CRH are discussed.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47951173","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 This study adopts a corpus-based behavioral profile approach, combining multifactorial usage-feature analysis with frequency-based quantitative analysis, to investigate the diachronic semasiological variation of the Mandarin Chinese temperature term 热 re ‘hot’. The result shows a dynamic behavioral profile, i.e., both the usage patterns and the semasiological structural weight of senses have been constantly shifting. The semasiology of re has been becoming more and more diversified over time. Methodologically, this study extends the traditional behavioral profile approach—hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis by applying multiple correspondence analysis and corroborating its validity in accounting for and visualizing the multifactorial nature of semasiological change of lexical items. Theoretically, the present study not only corroborates basic assumptions of usage-based cognitive semantics (e.g., non-discreteness, non-equality of senses, and bodily experience) but also complements it by demonstrating that sociocultural factors also play an important role in semasiological boundary variation of a lexical item.
{"title":"Towards a dynamic behavioral profile of the Mandarin Chinese temperature term re: a diachronic semasiological approach","authors":"Meili Liu","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2021-0046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2021-0046","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study adopts a corpus-based behavioral profile approach, combining multifactorial usage-feature analysis with frequency-based quantitative analysis, to investigate the diachronic semasiological variation of the Mandarin Chinese temperature term 热 re ‘hot’. The result shows a dynamic behavioral profile, i.e., both the usage patterns and the semasiological structural weight of senses have been constantly shifting. The semasiology of re has been becoming more and more diversified over time. Methodologically, this study extends the traditional behavioral profile approach—hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis by applying multiple correspondence analysis and corroborating its validity in accounting for and visualizing the multifactorial nature of semasiological change of lexical items. Theoretically, the present study not only corroborates basic assumptions of usage-based cognitive semantics (e.g., non-discreteness, non-equality of senses, and bodily experience) but also complements it by demonstrating that sociocultural factors also play an important role in semasiological boundary variation of a lexical item.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"19 1","pages":"289 - 321"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45941183","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 The Scottish English phoneme inventory is generally claimed to have a /ʍ/-/w/ contrast, although several studies have suggested that this historical contrast is weakening for Scottish English speakers in the urban areas of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Little is known about whether the /ʍ/-/w/ contrast is maintained in supraregional Scottish Standard English (SSE). This study sets out to explore, based on the phonemically transcribed ICE-Scotland corpus, the distribution of [ʍ] and [w] in SSE, their acoustic properties and potentially influencing social and language-internal factors. A total of 1,241 tokens were extracted from the corpus, together with a matching number of tokens, and the median of harmonicity was measured. The results show that [ʍ] and [w] produced for words beginning with are acoustically distinct from [w] produced for words beginning with . [ʍ] is relatively frequent in SSE, but most speakers use both [ʍ] and [w] interchangeably for and some never use [ʍ]. The realisation of as [ʍ] is determined by preceding phonetic context and speaker gender.
{"title":"The distribution of /w/ and /ʍ/ in Scottish Standard English","authors":"Zeyu Li, Ulrike Gut","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2021-0052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2021-0052","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Scottish English phoneme inventory is generally claimed to have a /ʍ/-/w/ contrast, although several studies have suggested that this historical contrast is weakening for Scottish English speakers in the urban areas of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Little is known about whether the /ʍ/-/w/ contrast is maintained in supraregional Scottish Standard English (SSE). This study sets out to explore, based on the phonemically transcribed ICE-Scotland corpus, the distribution of [ʍ] and [w] in SSE, their acoustic properties and potentially influencing social and language-internal factors. A total of 1,241 tokens were extracted from the corpus, together with a matching number of tokens, and the median of harmonicity was measured. The results show that [ʍ] and [w] produced for words beginning with are acoustically distinct from [w] produced for words beginning with . [ʍ] is relatively frequent in SSE, but most speakers use both [ʍ] and [w] interchangeably for and some never use [ʍ]. The realisation of as [ʍ] is determined by preceding phonetic context and speaker gender.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"19 1","pages":"271 - 287"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47542986","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 The object case inflection in Koalib (Niger-Congo) represents complex patterns that involve phoneme position, syllable structure, and tonal pattern. Few attempts have been made with qualitative and quantitative approaches to identify the rules of the object case paradigms in Koalib. In the current study, information on phonemes, tones, and syllables are automatically extracted from a Koalib sample of 2,677 lexemes. The data is then fed to decision-tree-based classifiers to predict the object case paradigms and extract the interactive patterns between the variables. The results improve the predicting accuracy of existing studies and identify the case paradigms predicted by linguistic hypotheses. New case paradigms are also found by the computational classifiers and explained from a linguistic perspective. Our work demonstrates that the combination of linguistic theoretical knowledge with machine learning techniques can become one of the methodological approaches for linguistic analyses.
{"title":"Inferring case paradigms in Koalib with computational classifiers","authors":"Nicolas Quint, Marc Allassonnière-Tang","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2021-0028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2021-0028","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The object case inflection in Koalib (Niger-Congo) represents complex patterns that involve phoneme position, syllable structure, and tonal pattern. Few attempts have been made with qualitative and quantitative approaches to identify the rules of the object case paradigms in Koalib. In the current study, information on phonemes, tones, and syllables are automatically extracted from a Koalib sample of 2,677 lexemes. The data is then fed to decision-tree-based classifiers to predict the object case paradigms and extract the interactive patterns between the variables. The results improve the predicting accuracy of existing studies and identify the case paradigms predicted by linguistic hypotheses. New case paradigms are also found by the computational classifiers and explained from a linguistic perspective. Our work demonstrates that the combination of linguistic theoretical knowledge with machine learning techniques can become one of the methodological approaches for linguistic analyses.","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":"19 1","pages":"237 - 269"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47805633","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}
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