A corpus-driven description of when-adverbial in Nigerian and British Englishes

Glottotheory ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayowa Akinlotan
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Structural Variation ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Distributional Analysis ◽  
British English ◽  
Functional Factors ◽  
New Varieties ◽  
Corpus Data

Abstract Syntactic alternation allows us to understand how structural variation, including crucial factors relevant to their meaning and interpretation, operates linguistic varieties. Empirical evidence from such syntactic alternation study can provide insights into how new varieties differ from the established ones. The present study aims at increasing contributions that show the nature of syntactic alternation from new Englishes such as Nigerian English, and how they differ from established varieties such as British English. Taking when adverbial construction in Nigerian English as a reference point (When Trump realised his reelection loss, he changed his political expectations versus Trump changed his political expectations when he realised his reelection loss), the study shows the extent to which previously tested factors influence the ordering of the construction and how they differ from findings reported in British English. Relying on corpus data, together with descriptive distributional analysis, the study shows that, unlike British English in which functional and cognitive factors strongly influence structural patterning, functional factors outweigh cognitive factors in Nigerian English.

Tiger Woods as a linguistic role model?

English Today ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-61
Author(s):  
Brian Poole
Keyword(s):  
Role Model ◽  
British English ◽  
The Media ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Tiger Woods

ABSTRACTInternational sports stars are often required to speak to the media after their performances. When Tiger Woods does so, it is noticeable that he makes use of the formulaic expression ‘I feel/felt like I’ as a means of introducing descriptions of, or generalizations about, his actions or motivations. Drawing on corpus data, this paper offers some observations about this expression in relation to its use by speakers (and to a lesser extent writers) of both American and British English, and also investigates the apparent disparity in frequency between instances of ‘she’ and ‘he’ when it is used.

scholarly journals Subject-Verb Agreement with Coordinated Subjects in Ancient Greek

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Mambrini ◽  
Marco Passarotti
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Morphological Feature ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Syntactic Features ◽  
Special Domain ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Descriptive Level

In Ancient Greek, as well as in other languages, whenever agreement is triggered by two or more coordinated phrases, two different constructions are allowed: either the agreement can be controlled by the coordinated phrase as a whole, or it can be triggered by just one of the coordinated words. In spite of the amount of information that can be read on this topic in grammars of Ancient Greek, much is still to be known even at a general descriptive level. More importantly, the data still lack a convincing explanation. In this paper, we focus on a special domain of agreement (subject and verb agreement) and on one morphological feature that is expected to covary (number). We discuss the agreement in number for conjoined phrases, by revising some of the modern hypotheses with the support of the empirical evidence that can be collected from the available syntactically annotated corpora of Ancient Greek (treebanks). Results are interpreted according to syntactic features, cognitive factors and semantic properties of the coordinated phrases.

Temporal adverbials and the present perfect/past tense alternation

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentin Werner
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster Analysis ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster ◽  
Phylogenetic Networks ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
British English ◽  
Cultural Proximity ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
The Difference

Specification by certain temporal adverbials has been shown to be one of the typical triggers of the present perfect in British English. Often, however, L2 varieties display different patterns of temporal co-occurrence, especially using the simple past tense. This study is based on corpus data from twelve components of the International Corpus of English and analyzes the distribution between present perfect and past tense for a number of co-occurring temporal adverbials. In addition, it establishes three measures of similarity across the varieties (hierarchical cluster analysis, phylogenetic networks and a distribution-based measure). On the basis of 6 353 adverbials in total, this paper suggests (1) that there is a L1–L2 divide, (2) that the difference between “traditional” and “transplanted” L1 varieties is less pronounced, (3) that L2 varieties allow more variation, which indicates that in these varieties, the present perfect is partly used as a tense (sensu Quirk et al. 1985), and (4) that some temporal adverbials are less categorically attached to either present perfect or past tense than others. Finally, some conclusions with regard to the importance of geographical and socio-cultural proximity of certain varieties can be drawn.

On classifiers and their absence in Classical and Colonial Nahuatl

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-396
Author(s):  
Thomas Stolz
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Qualitative Assessment ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Numeral Classifiers ◽  
Classifier System ◽  
Functional Factors ◽  
Presence And Absence ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract This paper addresses the issue of the reported optional character of numeral classifiers in Classical and Colonial Nahuatl. On the basis of the qualitative assessment of the co-occurrence of numerals with classifiers or zero in constructions which serve the purpose of quantifying or ordinally ranking NPs, the optionality hypothesis is assessed. The question is raised whether or not the presence and absence of classifiers is arbitrary or triggered by formal and/or functional factors. To this end, empirical evidence of the phenomena under review has been gathered from a selection of texts of the colonial era. Quantitative findings based on the Codex Florentinus are presented too. The discussion of these data uncovers that the classifier system of Classical and Colonial Nahuatl does not lend itself to a straightforward characterization so that further investigations are called for.

The Complex History of Have Gotten in American English

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-46
Author(s):  
Lieselotte Anderwald
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Side Effect ◽  
American English ◽  
British English ◽  
Perfect Form ◽  
Text Types ◽  
History Of ◽  
Corpus Data

This article challenges the accepted opinion that the American English perfect form HAVE gotten is a straightforward historical retention of an earlier British English form. Although HAVE gotten was presumably part of the settler input in North America, it (almost) died out in American English as well, but was then revived in the nineteenth century, as historical corpus data show. Contrary to expectations, this revival was not an innovation from below. Instead, the rise of HAVE gotten was promoted by careful writers who deliberately avoided the highly stigmatized stative HAVE got. This explains why perfect HAVE gotten appears in more formal text types first, and how it became specialized to dynamic contexts only. The morphological Americanism HAVE gotten is thus a curious case of an (unintended) side-effect of marginally successful prescriptivism.1

Perspectives in motion: the case of metaphorical temporal statements in Spanish

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
FLORENCIA REALI ◽  
MARTIN LLERAS
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Spatial Reasoning ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Spatial Motion ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Metaphorical Expression

abstractInterpreting temporal statements involves adopting alternative frames of reference. Previous work has shown that people draw on time-moving or ego-moving perspectives to interpret statements such as Next Wednesday´s meeting has been moved forward two days. The expression move forward in English can be translated into Spanish as mover hacia adelante or adelantar. Corpus data show that when these expressions are used metaphorically to describe time, the former is typically used to describe events parting from the ego (ego-moving perspective) while the latter is typically used to describe events moving towards the ego (time-moving perspective). We provide empirical evidence that different frames of reference are elicited depending on the specific metaphorical expression in Spanish (Corpus Analysis, Experiments 1 and 2), to the extent that the use of these linguistic forms in temporal sentences affects subsequent spatial reasoning (Experiment 3). We conclude that Spanish has some metaphorical expressions that are not neutral regarding the ego-/time-moving perspectives, and that their use affects how people draw on spatial motion schemas when thinking about time and space.

scholarly journals Sentence-initial I think (that) and I believe (that)

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Dehé ◽  
Anne Wichmann
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
The Other ◽  
British English ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
The One

Sentence-initial pronoun-verb combinations such as I think, I believe are ambiguous between main clause use on the one hand and adverbial or discourse use on the other hand. We approach the topic from a prosodic perspective. Based on corpus data from spoken British English the prosodic patterns of sentence-initial I think and I believe are analysed and related to their interpretation in context. We show that these expressions may function as main clause (MC), comment clause (CC) or discourse markers (DM) and that the speaker’s choice is reflected in the prosody. The key feature is prosodic prominence: MCs are reflected by accent placement on the pronoun, CCs by an accent on the verb, while DMs are unstressed.

scholarly journals Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences

2016 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Consumer Theory ◽  
Preference Change ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
New Consumer

AbstractStandard economic theory assumes individual preferences to be fixed and exogenously given. This view has been challenged by numerous empirical observations. In reaction to those challenges, economic theory has been modified, mostly by including additional arguments into individuals’ utility functions. Among the approaches that tackle preference change are new consumer theory, habit formation, interdependent and status preferences, social and emotional influences, and reference point-dependent preferences. Hence, while standard economics largely abide by their assumption of stable preferences, an array of alternative approaches is now available to account for changing tastes. Some of these approaches are old and have been discussed in the literature for many decades while others are younger. However, all approaches have in common that they, in some cases surprisingly, have not made it to standard microeconomics textbooks. This survey aims at putting the approaches in perspective. For each of them, empirical evidence as well as methodological issues are discussed.

scholarly journals Investors’ Risk Preference Characteristics Based on Different Reference Point

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fenghua Wen ◽  
Zhifang He ◽  
Xu Gong ◽  
Aiming Liu
Keyword(s):  
Stock Market ◽  
Risk Aversion ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Risk Preference ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Explanatory Variables ◽  
House Money Effect ◽  
Two Factors

Taking the stock market as a whole object, we assume that prior losses and gains are two different factors that can influence risk preference separately. The two factors are introduced as separate explanatory variables into the time-varying GARCH-M (TVRA-GARCH-M) model. Then, we redefine prior losses and gains by selecting different reference point to study investors’ time-varying risk preference. The empirical evidence shows that investors’ risk preference is time varying and is influenced by previous outcomes; the stock market as a whole exhibits house money effect; that is, prior gains can decrease investors’ risk aversion while prior losses increase their risk aversion. Besides, different reference points selected by investors will cause different valuation of prior losses and gains, thus affecting investors’ risk preference.

DISFLUENCIES IN RUSSIAN SPOKEN MONOLOGUES: A DISTRIBUTIONAL ANALYSIS

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. A. Korotaev ◽  
◽  
V. I. Podlesskaya ◽  
K. V. Smirnova ◽  
O. V. Fedorova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Relative Frequency ◽  
Structural Approach ◽  
Distributional Analysis ◽  
Fluent Speech ◽  
Filled Pauses ◽  
Distributional Patterns ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Corpus Data

The paper addresses the overall distribution of speech disfluencies in Russian spoken monologic discourse: basing on corpus data, we investigate qualitatively and quantitatively how disfluencies of different types group (or do not group) with each other and how isolated disfluencies and their sequences are sandwiched with periods of fluent speech in the course of speech production. Self-repairs, filled and silent pauses, and instances of hesitation lengthening were annotated in a subcorpus of the “Russian Pears Chats and Stories” (RUPEX). A distribution-oriented typology of disfluencies was proposed that distinguishes between isolated disfluencies, disfluency clusters, and quasiclusters. We claim that disfluency tokens tend to cluster, as isolated occurrences are significantly less frequent in our data than it could have been expected basing on the relative frequency of tokens. This finding contradicts previous studies that treated disfluency clusters as a more marginal phenomenon, and emphasizes the importance of a distributional, rather than merely structural, approach to annotating disfluencies. Furthermore, individual types of disfluency tokens demonstrate significantly different distributional patterns. Compared to other types, self-repairs occur more often in isolation, while words with hesitation lengthening appear predominantly in clusters, and filled pauses most often group with silent pauses to form quasi-clusters.

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