Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:04:01.937Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Typological parameters of intralingual variability: Grammatical analyticity versus syntheticity in varieties of English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2009

Benedikt Szmrecsanyi
Benedikt Szmrecsanyi
Affiliation:
Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Drawing on terminology, concepts, and ideas developed in quantitative morphological typology, the present study takes an exclusive interest in the coding of grammatical information. It offers a sweeping overview of intralingual variability in terms of overt grammatical analyticity (the text frequency of free grammatical markers), grammatical syntheticity (the text frequency of bound grammatical markers), and grammaticity (the text frequency of grammatical markers, bound or free) in English. The variational dimensions investigated include geography, text types, and real time. Empirically, the study taps into a number of publicly accessible text corpora that comprise a large number of different varieties of English. Results are interpreted in terms of how speakers and writers seek to achieve communicative goals while minimizing different types of complexity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , October 2009 , pp. 319 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anttila, Raimo. (1989). Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Philadelphia: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Aston, Guy, & Burnard, Lou. (1998). The BNC handbook: Exploring the British National Corpus with SARA. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Auer, Peter. (2009). On-line syntax: Thoughts on the temporality of spoken language. Language Sciences 31(1):1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas. (1988). Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas. (2003). Compressed noun-phrase structure in newspaper discourse: The competing demands of popularization vs. economy. In Aitchison, J. & Lewis, D. M. (eds.), New media language. New York: Longman. 169–181.Google Scholar
Bisang, Walter. (2009). On the evolution of complexity—Sometimes less is more in East and mainland Southeast Asia. In Sampson, G., Gil, D., & Trudgill, P. (eds.), Language complexity as a variable concept. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 34–49.Google Scholar
Bussmann, Hadumod, Trauth, Gregory, & Kazzazi, Kerstin. (1996). Routledge dictionary of language and linguistics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace L. (1982). Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature. In Tannen, D. (ed.), Spoken and written language: Exploring orality and literacy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. 35–53.Google Scholar
Danchev, Andrei. (1992). The evidence for analytic and synthetic developments in English. In Rissanen, M., Ihalainen, O., Nevalainen, T., & Taavitsainen, I. (eds.), History of Englishes: New methods and interpretations in historical linguistics. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 25–41.Google Scholar
Francis, Nelson W., & Kučera, Henry. (1982). Frequency analysis of English usage: Lexicon and grammar. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Greenbaum, Sidney (ed.). (1996). Comparing English worldwide: The international corpus of English. Oxford: Clarendon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. (1960). A quantitative approach to the morphological typology of language. International Journal of American Linguistics 26(3):178–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gries, Stefan Th. (2006). Exploring variability within and between corpora: Some methodological considerations. Corpora 1(2):109–151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernández, Nuria. (2006). User's guide to FRED. Freiburg: English Dialects Research Group. Available online at:http://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/2489/.Google Scholar
Hinrichs, Lars, & Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. (2007). Recent changes in the function and frequency of standard English genitive constructions: A multivariate analysis of tagged corpora. English Language and Linguistics 11(3):437–474.Google Scholar
Hinrichs, Lars, Waibel, Birgit, & Smith, Nicholas. (2007). The POS-tagged, postedited F-LOB and Frown corpora: A manual, including pointers for successful use. Freiburg: Department of English, University of Freiburg. Available online at: https://webspace.utexas.edu/lh9896/public/hinrichs/Manual_final.pdf.Google Scholar
Hockett, Charles F. (1954). Two models of grammatical description. Word 10:210–231.Google Scholar
Hockett, Charles F. (1960). The origin of speech. Scientific American 203:88–96.Google Scholar
Wilhelm von., Humboldt (1836). Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts. Berlin: Dümmler.Google Scholar
Hundt, Marianne, & Mair, Christian. (1999). ‘Agile’ and ‘uptight’ genres: The corpus-based approach to language change in progress. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 4:221–242.Google Scholar
Johansson, Stig, & Hofland, Knut. (1989). Frequency analysis of English vocabulary and grammar. Based on the LOB Corpus. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Kasevič, Vadim, & Jachontov, Sergej E. (eds.) (1982). Kvantitativnaja tipologija jazykov Azii i Afriki [A quantitative typology of Asian and African Languages]. Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo Leningradskogo universiteta.Google Scholar
Kelemen, József. (1970). Sprachtypologie und Sprachstatistik. In Dezso, L. & Hajdú, P. (eds.), Theoretical problems of typology and the Northern Eurasian languages. Amsterdam: Gruener. 53–63.Google Scholar
Kempgen, Sebastian, & Lehfeldt, Werner. (2004). Quantitative Typologie. In Booij, G., Lehmann, C., Mugdan, J., & Skopeteas, S. (eds.), Morphologie. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Flexion und Wortbildung. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 1235–1246.Google Scholar
Kortmann, Bernd, & Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt. (2009). World Englishes between simplification and complexification. In Siebers, L. & Hoffmann, T. (eds.), World Englishes: Problems, Properties and Prospects. Philadelphia: Benjamins. 265–285.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press.Google Scholar
Mair, Christian. (1997). Parallel corpora: A real-time approach to the study of language change in progress. In Ljung, M. (ed.), Corpus-based studies in English. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 195–209.Google Scholar
Mair, Christian. (2006). Twentieth-century English: History, variation, and standardization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mair, Christian, & Hundt, Marianne. (1997). The corpus-based approach to language change in progress. In Sauer, H. & Böker, U. (eds.), Anglistentag 1996: Proceedings. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 71–82.Google Scholar
Mair, Christian, Hundt, Marianne, Leech, Geoffrey, & Smith, Nicolas. (2002). Short-term diachronic shifts in part-of-speech frequencies: A comparison of the tagged LOB and F-LOB. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 7:245–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marty, Anton. (1908). Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie. Halle a.S.: Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mesthrie, Rajend. (2006a). World Englishes and the multilingual history of English. World Englishes 25(3/4):381–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mesthrie, Rajend. (2006b). Anti-deletions in an L2 grammar: A study of Black South African English mesolect. English World-Wide 27(2):111–145.Google Scholar
Orwin, Robert. (1994). Evaluating coding decisions. In Cooper, H. & Hedges, L. (eds.), The handbook of research synthesis. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 139–162.Google Scholar
Potter, Simeon. (1975). Changing English. London: Deutsch.Google Scholar
August Wilhelm von., Schlegel (1818). Observations sur la langue et la littérature provençales. Paris: Librairie grecque-latine-allemande.Google Scholar
August Wilhelm von., Schlegel. (1846). Œuvres de M. Auguste-Guillaume de Schlegel: Écrites en français et publiées par Ėdouard Böcking. Leipzig: Weidmann.Google Scholar
Schwegler, Armin. (1990). Analyticity and syntheticity: A diachronic perspective with special reference to Romance languages. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stepanov, Arthur V. (1995). Automatic typological analysis of Semitic morphology. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 2(2):141–150.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt, & Hernández, Nuria. (2007). Manual of information to accompany the Freiburg Corpus of English Dialects Sampler (“FRED-S”). Freiburg: English Dialects Research Group. Available online at:http://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/2859/.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt, & Hinrichs, Lars. (2008). Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: A multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres. In Nevalainen, T., Taavitsainen, I., Pahta, P., & Korhonen, M. (eds.), The dynamics of linguistic variation: Corpus evidence on English past and present. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 291–309.Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt, & Kortmann, Bernd. (2009). Between simplification and complexification: Non-standard varieties of English around the world. In Sampson, G., Gil, D., & Trudgill, P. (eds.), Language complexity as a variable concept. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 65–79.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. (2001). Contact and simplification: Historical baggage and directionality in linguistic change. Linguistic Typology 5(2/3):371–374.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. (2009). Vernacular universals and the sociolinguistic typology of English dialects. In Filppula, M., Klemola, J., & Paulasto, H. (eds.), Vernacular universals and language contacts: Evidence from varieties of English and beyond. London: Routledge. 304–322.Google Scholar
Vennemann, Theo. (1982). Isolation—Agglutination—Flexion? Zur Stimmigkeit typologischer Parameter. Fakten und Theorien. In Heinz, S. & Wandruszka, U. (eds.), Festschrift für Helmut Sinn zum 65. Geburtstag. Tübingen: Narr. 327–334.Google Scholar
Wagner, Susanne. (2007). Null subjects in English—economically motivated? Paper presented at the 36th Conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV36). Philadelphia.Google Scholar