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July 28, 2005
Abstract
Adopting the perspective of construction grammar and related frameworks, this paper introduces a corpus-based method for investigating correlations between lexical items occurring in two different slots of a grammatical construction. On the basis of three case studies dealing with the into -causative, English possessive constructions, and the way-construction, we show that such correlations are determined by semantic coherence. We identify three kinds of coherence: one based on frame-semantic knowledge, one based on semantic prototypes, and one based on image schemas. We conclude by proposing a method that can potentially enhance the precision of our results and that allows us to identify ever-finer contrasts by adopting a multidimensional perspective towards co-occurrence patterns.
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July 27, 2005
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Many linguists have observed the emergence of the nonstandard English construction instantiated by the following sentence: “Now the problem is // is that nobody’s going to invade anybody else’s boundaries”. In this pattern (which we will refer to as ISIS), a clausal complement is preceded by two finite forms of the copula, the first of which is typically prosodically prominent and followed by a major intonational break. While Massam (1999), among others, views ISIS as a variant of Pseudocleft, we see two problems with this approach. First, there are distributional and discourse-pragmatic properties that distinguish ISIS from Pseudocleft, including the referential status of the subject NP and the topic-focus articulation of the clause. We will argue that ISIS, rather than being an instance of the Pseudocleft pattern, is a syntactic amalgam that is closely related to an appositive pattern that we will refer to as Hypotactic Apposition, e. g., That’s the real problem is that you never really know . Second, the Massam analysis fails to explain why a speaker would select ISIS over a simpler and more compositional alternative construction, which we will refer to as Simplex: The problem is // there’s nothing else to buy . Using prosodically labeled data from the Switchboard corpus, we show that this choice involves optimization: Simplex has prosodic defects that ISIS repairs. In Simplex tokens the copula is typically followed by a break, creating misalignment of prosodic and syntactic phrases (Croft 1995; Watson and Gibson 2003); it is also typically prosodically prominent, although function words otherwise receive prominence only by deflection of accent from a discourse-old complement (Ladd 1995). While the Simplex copula performs double duty (as focus marker and as VP head) ISIS allocates these functions to the two respective copulas. Nevertheless, ISIS is far rarer than Simplex. If we view ISIS as a repair strategy, rather than a mere overgeneralization of the Pseudocleft pattern, this fact makes sense.
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July 28, 2005
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Recent studies of the English verb particle construction have shown that particle placement varies with a variety of linguistic features, which seem to influence the speaker’s choice of a particular position. The current study investigates whether children’s use of the particle varies with the same features as in adult language. Using corpus data from two English-speaking children, we conducted a multifactorial analysis of six linguistic variables that are correlated with particle placement in adult language. Our analysis reveals significant associations between the position of the particle and two of the six variables, the NP type of the direct object and the meaning of the particle, suggesting that children as young as two years of age process at least some of the features that motivate particle placement in adult speakers.
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July 28, 2005
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For different reasons, speakers re-use recently used or heard linguistic options whenever they can, a tendency which is referred to as ‘persistence’ in the present paper. The phenomenon has been largely neglected in extant corpus-based, variationist research, and no standard methodology for dealing with the phenomenon is available. By analyzing three well-known alternations (analytic vs. synthetic comparatives, particle placement, and future marker choice) in several spoken corpora of English, this paper demonstrates that factoring in persistence increases the researcher’s ability to account for linguistic variation. It is also shown that persistence itself is subject to several determinants, such as textual distance between two successive choice contexts in discourse, or turn-taking. In conclusion, I argue that persistence is a factor which deserves empirical attention, and that its existence has consequences for both linguistic theory and practice.
