scholarly journals A distributional semantic approach to the periodization of change in the productivity of constructions

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florent Perek ◽  
Martin Hilpert
Keyword(s):  
Present Method ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Distributional Semantics ◽  
Semantic Approach ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
First Case ◽  
History Of ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Corpus Data

Abstract This paper describes a method to automatically identify stages of language change in diachronic corpus data, combining variability-based neighbour clustering, which offers objective and reproducible criteria for periodization, and distributional semantics as a representation of lexical meaning. This method partitions the history of a grammatical construction according to qualitative stages of productivity corresponding to different semantic sets of lexical items attested in it. Two case studies are presented. The first case study on the hell-construction (“Verb the hell out of NP”) shows that the semantic development of a construction does not always match that of its quantitative aspects, like token or type frequency. The second case study on the way-construction compares the results of the present method with those of collostructional analysis. It is shown that the former measures semantic changes and their chronology with greater precision. In sum, this method offers a promising approach to exploring semantic variation in the lexical fillers of constructions and to modelling constructional change.

Scales and Units

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn M. de Luna
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
The North ◽  
First Case ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
River Region ◽  
History Of ◽  
Alternative Approaches

This chapter uses two case studies to explore how historians study language movement and change through comparative historical linguistics. The first case study stands as a short chapter in the larger history of the expansion of Bantu languages across eastern, central, and southern Africa. It focuses on the expansion of proto-Kafue, ca. 950–1250, from a linguistic homeland in the middle Kafue River region to lands beyond the Lukanga swamps to the north and the Zambezi River to the south. This expansion was made possible by a dramatic reconfiguration of ties of kinship. The second case study explores linguistic evidence for ridicule along the Lozi-Botatwe frontier in the mid- to late 19th century. Significantly, the units and scales of language movement and change in precolonial periods rendered visible through comparative historical linguistics bring to our attention alternative approaches to language change and movement in contemporary Africa.

scholarly journals Integrating Type Theory and Distributional Semantics: A Case Study on Adjective–Noun Compositions

2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 703-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Asher ◽  
Tim Van de Cruys ◽  
Antoine Bride ◽  
Márta Abrusán
Keyword(s):  
Type Theory ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Semantic Theory ◽  
Formal Semantic ◽  
Distributional Semantics ◽  
Semantic Approach ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
Semantic Framework ◽  
Algebraic Interpretation

In this article, we explore an integration of a formal semantic approach to lexical meaning and an approach based on distributional methods. First, we outline a formal semantic theory that aims to combine the virtues of both formal and distributional frameworks. We then proceed to develop an algebraic interpretation of that formal semantic theory and show how at least two kinds of distributional models make this interpretation concrete. Focusing on the case of adjective–noun composition, we compare several distributional models with respect to the semantic information that a formal semantic theory would need, and we show how to integrate the information provided by distributional models back into the formal semantic framework.

scholarly journals Inferencing, Reanalysis, and the History of the French est-ce que Question

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Waltereit
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Level

Abstract In this paper, I discuss critically the traditional view of reanalysis, taking into account recent debates about the concept. In particular, I argue that the debate about reanalysis tends to conflate two interpretations of reanalysis: reanalysis as a type of language change among other ones, and reanalysis as the recognition or “ratification” of any kind of change. I offer a possible explanation of that potential confusion. I then illustrate this distinction using the history of the French est-ce que question as a case study. I report original diachronic research on the history of that construction. Further, I discuss implications both at a conceptual-theoretical level and at a practical level for further diachronic research. The paper concludes with a summary and discussion of the findings.

Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 310-338
Author(s):  
Hans-Jörg Schmid
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Systematic Description ◽  
Change Direction ◽  
History Of

This chapter discusses how the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model explains language change. First, it is emphasized that not only innovation and variation, but also the frequency of repetition can serve as important triggers of change. Conventionalization and entrenchment processes can interact and be influenced by numerous forces in many ways, resulting in various small-scale processes of language change, which can stop, change direction, or even become reversed. This insight serves as a basis for the systematic description of nine basic modules of change which differ in the ways in which they are triggered and controlled by processes and forces. Large-scale pathways of change such as grammaticalization, lexicalization, pragmaticalization, context-induced change, or colloquialization and standardization are all explained by reference to these modules. The system is applied in a case study on the history of do-periphrasis.

Opera Inside and Out

2021 ◽  
pp. 227-268
Author(s):  
Katharine Ellis
Keyword(s):  
New Music ◽  
Musical Identity ◽  
Paris Opera ◽  
First Case ◽  
History Of

In three main sections, the discussion takes the reader from standard municipal opera in town theaters to the new phenomenon of open-air opera that started fitfully in the late 1860s but which became fashionable and important for decentralist and regionalist reasons from around 1900 onward. In the first case study, Wagner’s Lohengrin is detoxified in 1891 via seven municipal French stages, in advance of its successful appearance at the Paris Opéra. This provincial coup nevertheless indicates the stranglehold of French repertorial centralization, since it was possible only because Wagner was already embarrassingly famous and the violent history of his reception in Paris had paralyzed the capital’s ability to function as normal. Lohengrin was acclaimed in Lille as “local” but contained no audible couleur locale. It was through such “marked” music that opera acted as a vector for the “picturesque” presentation of the French provinces. Changing critical and audience attitudes to couleur locale from the 1830s onward prepared the conditions necessary for the development of regionalist operatic commentary, especially in Brittany and Provence. Identity, whether local and/or national, could also be enacted by audiences attending festival and commemorative performances of opera and stage spectacle in open-air venues. Catalyzed by performances at Orange, a tradition of open-air opera presented a distillation of meridional musical identity from around 1900 in ancient classical venues and their modern equivalents, while the new music it spawned remained stubbornly difficult to transplant to Paris.

Visualizing onomasiological change: Diachronic variation in metonymic patterns for woman in Chinese

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiwei Zhang ◽  
Dirk Geeraerts ◽  
Dirk Speelman
Keyword(s):  
Social Changes ◽  
Distance Calculation ◽  
Beautiful Woman ◽  
Innovative Method ◽  
Scaling Solution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Historical Variation ◽  
Diachronic Changes

AbstractThis paper introduces an innovative method to aid the study of conceptual onomasiological research, with a specific emphasis on diachronic variation in the metonymic patterns with which a target concept is expressed. We illustrate how the method is applied to explore and visualize such diachronic changes by means of a case study on the metonymic patterns for woman in the history of Chinese. Visualization is done with the help of a Multidimensional Scaling solution based on the profile-based distance calculation (Geeraerts et al. 1999; Speelman et al. 2003) and by drawing diachronic trajectories in a set of MDS maps, corresponding to different metonymic targets. This method proves to be effective and feasible in detecting changes in the distribution of metonymic patterns in authentic historical corpus data. On the basis of this method, we can show that different targets exhibit different degrees of diachronic variation in their metonymic patterns. We find diachronically more stable targets (e.g. imperial woman), targets with a dominant trend in diachronic variation (e.g. a woman), and targets with highly fluctuating historical variation (e.g. beautiful woman). Importantly, we can identify the cultural and social changes that may lie behind some of these changes. Examining the results uncovered by the method offers us a better understanding of the dynamicity of metonymic conceptualizations.

scholarly journals Phylogenetic Methods in Historical Linguistics: Greek as a Case Study

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne O. Mooers ◽  
Panayiotis A. Pappas
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Current Frequency ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
History Of

AbstractWe review and assess the different ways in which research in evolutionary-theory-inspired biology has influenced research in historical linguistics, and then focus on an evolutionary-theory inspired claim for language change made by Pagel et al. (2007). They report that the more Swadesh-list lexemes are used, the less likely they are to change across 87 Indo-European languages, and posit that frequency-of-use of a lexical item is a separate and general mechanism of language change. We test a corollary of this conclusion, namely that current frequency-of-use should predict the amount of change within individual languages through time. We devise a scale of lexical change that recognizes sound change, analogical change and lexical replacement and apply it to cognate pairs on the Swadesh list between Homeric and Modern Greek. Current frequency-of-use only weakly predicts the amount of change within the history of Greek, but amount of change does predict the number of forms across Indo-European. Given that current frequency-of-use and past frequency-of-use may be only weakly correlated for many Swadesh-list lexemes, and given previous research that shows that frequency-of-use can both hinder and facilitate lexical change, we conclude that it is premature to claim that a new mechanism of language change has been discovered. However, we call for more in-depth comparative study of general mechanisms of language change, including further tests of the frequency-of-use hypothesis.

Where Fossils Dare and Males Matter: combined morphological and molecular analysis untangles the evolutionary history of the spider ant genus Leptomyrmex Mayr (Hymenoptera : Dolichoderinae)

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Barden ◽  
Brendon Boudinot ◽  
Andrea Lucky
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Morphological Evolution ◽  
Sister Group ◽  
Morphological Characters ◽  
Fossil Material ◽  
First Case ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Surprising Discovery

The distinctive ant genus Leptomyrmex Mayr, 1862 had been thought to be endemic to Australasia for over 150 years, but enigmatic Neotropical fossils have challenged this view for decades. The present study responds to a recent and surprising discovery of extant Leptomyrmex species in Brazil with a thorough evaluation of the Dominican Republic fossil material, which dates to the Miocene. In the first case study of direct fossil inclusion within Formicidae Latreille, 1809, we incorporated both living and the extinct Leptomyrmex species. Through simultaneous analysis of molecular and morphological characters in both Bayesian and parsimony frameworks, we recovered the fossil taxon as sister-group to extant Leptomyrmex in Brazil while considering the influence of taxonomic and character sampling on inferred hypotheses relating to tree topology, biogeography and morphological evolution. We also identified potential loss of signal in the binning of morphological characters and tested the impact of parameterisation on divergence date estimation. Our results highlight the importance of securing sufficient taxon sampling for extant lineages when incorporating fossils and underscore the utility of diverse character sources in accurate placement of fossil terminals. Specifically, we find that fossil placement in this group is influenced by the inclusion of male-based characters and the newly discovered Neotropical ‘Lazarus taxon’.

Language Contact

2020 ◽  
pp. 857-870
Author(s):  
Klaus Beyer
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Contact Linguistics ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Network Approach ◽  
Areal Linguistics ◽  
French Tradition

The chapter starts with a short history of contact studies related to Africa. It briefly looks at early works from Heine (pidgins in the Bantu area) and the French tradition exemplified in the LACITO series on language contact. Considerable space is given to the developments of the last ten years or so when areal linguistics (Aikhenvald and Dixon), linguistic geography (Heine and Nurse), and contact linguistics (Childs, Mesthrie) were put center stage in the African linguistic context. The second part of the chapter looks at methodological issues. Substantial space is given to social contexts in the description of contact-induced language change. The social network approach and other sociolinguistic tools are demonstrated by means of a brief case study from a West African rural contact zone.

Intersubjectification in constructional change

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-120
Author(s):  
Martin Hilpert ◽  
Samuel Bourgeois
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Process Of Change ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Theory Of Language

Abstract This paper addresses constructional change in a dialogical construction that is illustrated by utterances such as sarcastic much?, which typically serve the purpose of an interactional challenge. Drawing on web-based corpus data, we argue that this construction is currently undergoing a process of change that expands its range of possible uses. Specifically, we observe the emergence of uses with a different intersubjective function, in which the writer does not aim for confrontation but is rather seeking the solidarity and alignment of the addressee. We offer an account of this development in terms of constructional change, and we use this case study to explore how intersubjectification and the dialogic nature of language can be accommodated more thoroughly in a constructional theory of language change.

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