scholarly journals A Dynamic Network Approach to the Study of Syntax

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Diessel
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Dynamic Network ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Network Approach ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Network Analyses

Usage-based linguists and psychologists have produced a large body of empirical results suggesting that linguistic structure is derived from language use. However, while researchers agree that these results characterize grammar as an emergent phenomenon, there is no consensus among usage-based scholars as to how the various results can be explained and integrated into an explicit theory or model. Building on network theory, the current paper outlines a structured network approach to the study of grammar in which the core concepts of syntax are analyzed by a set of relations that specify associations between different aspects of a speaker’s linguistic knowledge. These associations are shaped by domain-general processes that can give rise to new structures and meanings in language acquisition and language change. Combining research from linguistics and psychology, the paper proposes specific network analyses for the following phenomena: argument structure, word classes, constituent structure, constructions and construction families, and grammatical categories such as voice, case and number. The article builds on data and analyses presented in Diessel (2019; The Grammar Network. How Linguistic Structure is Shaped by Language Use) but approaches the topic from a different perspective.

Usage-Based Linguistics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Diessel
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Structural Knowledge ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Language System ◽  
System A ◽  
Linguistic System ◽  
General Goal ◽  
The Relationship

Throughout the 20th century, structuralist and generative linguists have argued that the study of the language system (langue, competence) must be separated from the study of language use (parole, performance), but this view of language has been called into question by usage-based linguists who have argued that the structure and organization of a speaker’s linguistic knowledge is the product of language use or performance. On this account, language is seen as a dynamic system of fluid categories and flexible constraints that are constantly restructured and reorganized under the pressure of domain-general cognitive processes that are not only involved in the use of language but also in other cognitive phenomena such as vision and (joint) attention. The general goal of usage-based linguistics is to develop a framework for the analysis of the emergence of linguistic structure and meaning. In order to understand the dynamics of the language system, usage-based linguists study how languages evolve, both in history and language acquisition. One aspect that plays an important role in this approach is frequency of occurrence. As frequency strengthens the representation of linguistic elements in memory, it facilitates the activation and processing of words, categories, and constructions, which in turn can have long-lasting effects on the development and organization of the linguistic system. A second aspect that has been very prominent in the usage-based study of grammar concerns the relationship between lexical and structural knowledge. Since abstract representations of linguistic structure are derived from language users’ experience with concrete linguistic tokens, grammatical patterns are generally associated with particular lexical expressions.

Language change across a lifetime: A historical micro-perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Bergs
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
The Social ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Linguistic Behavior ◽  
Micro Analysis

Abstract This paper focuses on the micro-analysis of historical data, which allows us to investigate language use across the lifetime of individual speakers. Certain concepts, such as social network analysis or communities of practice, put individual speakers and their social embeddedness and dynamicity at the center of attention. This means that intra-speaker variation can be described and analyzed in quite some detail in certain historical data sets. The paper presents some exemplary empirical analyses of the diachronic linguistic behavior of individual speakers/writers in fifteenth to seventeenth century England. It discusses the social factors that influence this behavior, with an emphasis on the methodological and theoretical challenges and opportunities when investigating intra-speaker variation and change.

Words, constructions and corpora: Network representations of constructional semantics for Mandarin space particles

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvin Cheng-Hsien Chen
Keyword(s):  
Clustering Coefficient ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Scale Free ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
Semantic Fields ◽  
Text Corpora ◽  
Quantitative Properties ◽  
Local Clustering Coefficient ◽  
Linguistic Units

AbstractIn this study, we aim to demonstrate the effectiveness of network science in exploring the emergence of constructional semantics from the connectedness and relationships between linguistic units. With Mandarin locative constructions (MLCs) as a case study, we extracted constructional tokens from a representative corpus, including their respective space particles (SPs) and the head nouns of the landmarks (LMs), which constitute the nodes of the network. We computed edges based on the lexical similarities of word embeddings learned from large text corpora and the SP-LM contingency from collostructional analysis. We address three issues: (1) For each LM, how prototypical is it of the meaning of the SP? (2) For each SP, how semantically cohesive are its LM exemplars? (3) What are the emerging semantic fields from the constructional network of MLCs? We address these questions by examining the quantitative properties of the network at three levels: microscopic (i.e., node centrality and local clustering coefficient), mesoscopic (i.e., community) and macroscopic properties (i.e., small-worldness and scale-free). Our network analyses bring to the foreground the importance of repeated language experiences in the shaping and entrenchment of linguistic knowledge.

scholarly journals Assessment of Different Dimensions of Shame Proneness: Validation of the SHAME

Assessment ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 1699-1717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinna N. Scheel ◽  
Hedwig Eisenbarth ◽  
Katrin Rentzsch
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Sample ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Factor Analyses ◽  
Confirmatory Factor Analyses ◽  
Invariance Testing ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
Shame Proneness ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Different Dimensions

A large body of research revealed that shame is associated with adaptive and maladaptive correlates. The aim of this work was to validate a new dimensional instrument (SHAME), which was developed to disentangle adaptive and maladaptive dimensions of shame proneness. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the three-factorial structure (bodily, cognitive, and existential shame) in American ( n = 502) and German ( n = 496) community samples, using invariance testing. Bifactor model analyses exhibited distinct associations of adaptive (bodily and cognitive shame) and maladaptive (existential shame) dimensions of shame with psychopathology and social functioning. Network analyses highlighted the role of existential shame in psychopathology, especially for a clinical sample of patients with Borderline Personality Disorder ( n = 92). By placing shame pronenesss into a network of similar and dissimilar constructs, the current findings serve as a foundation for drawing conclusions about the adaptive and maladaptive nature of shame.

Language Change, Variation, and Universals

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter W. Culicover
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Plains Cree ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Parameter Theory ◽  
Grammatical Functions ◽  
The Way

This volume is about how human languages get to be the way they are, why they are different from one another in some ways and not others, and why they change in the ways that they do. Given that language is a universal creation of the human mind, the puzzle is why there are different languages at all, why we don’t all speak the same language. And while there is considerable variation, there are ways in which grammars show consistent patterns. The solution to these puzzles, the author proposes, is a constructional one. Grammars consist of constructions that carry out the function of expressing universal conceptual structure. While there are in principle many different ways of accomplishing this task, the constructions that languages actually use are under pressure to reduce complexity. The result is that there is constructional change in the direction of less complexity, and grammatical patterns emerge that reflect conceptual universals. The volume consists of three parts. Part I establishes the theoretical foundations: situating universals in conceptual structure, formally defining constructions, and characterizing constructional complexity. Part II explores variation in argument structure, grammatical functions, and A′ constructions, drawing on data from a variety of languages, including English and Plains Cree. Part III looks at constructional change, focusing primarily on English and German. The study ends with some observations and speculations on parameter theory, analogy, the origins of typological patterns, and Greenbergian ‘universals’.

SMS Texting Practices and Communicative Intention

2010 ◽  
pp. 252-265
Author(s):  
Susana M. Sotillo
Keyword(s):  
Text Messaging ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Semantic Category ◽  
Text Messages ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Communicative Intention ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Predicate Argument Structure ◽  
Structural Simplification

This study focuses on the predicate-argument structure of frequently used lexical verbs in the text messages of members of five SMS social networks. Using a text analysis tool, lexical verbs were identified, coded for semantic category, and tagged for analysis in a corpus of 31, 288 words. Three research questions are addressed in relation to lexical verb usage, structural simplification, recovery of implied argument, and achievement of communicative intention via mobile telephony. The results reveal that (1) predicate-argument structures determined by certain lexical verbs become simplified in text messages; (2) particular ?-roles assigned to particular arguments become implicit but are easily recovered; and (3) text messaging language constitutes a variety of naturally occurring language. It is possible that such language variations in use may bring about language change over time.

Cognition in construction grammar: Connecting individual and community grammars

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-337
Author(s):  
Lynn Anthonissen
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Small Individual ◽  
Age Cohorts ◽  
Term Change ◽  
Language User ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Linguistic Behavior

AbstractThis paper examines, on the basis of a longitudinal corpus of 50 early modern authors, how change at the aggregate level of the community interacts with variation and change at the micro-level of the individual language user. In doing so, this study aims to address the methodological gap between collective change and entrenchment, that is, the gap between language as a social phenomenon and the cognitive processes responsible for the continuous reorganization of linguistic knowledge in individual speakers. Taking up the case of the prepositional passive, this study documents a strong community-wide increase in use that is accompanied by increasing schematicity. A comparison of the 50 authors reveals that regularities arising at the macro-level conceal highly complex and variable individual behavior, aspects of which may be explained by studying the larger (social) context in which these individuals operate (e. g., age cohorts, community of practice, biographical insights). Further analysis, focusing on how authors use the prepositional passive in unique and similar ways, elucidates the role of small individual biases in long-term change. Overall, it is demonstrated that language change is an emergent phenomenon that results from the complex interaction between individual speakers, who themselves may change their linguistic behavior to varying degrees.

scholarly journals Is Global Governance Fragmented, Polycentric, or Complex? The State of the Art of the Network Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 903-931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rakhyun E Kim
Keyword(s):  
Global Governance ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Network Science ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Network Approach ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Institutional Fragmentation

Abstract International institutions such as treaties and organizations shape, and are shaped by, the large web-like architecture of global governance. Yet we know little about what this architecture looks like, why certain structures are observed, and how they are linked to the functioning of international institutions as well as the overall effectiveness of global governance. Over the past decade, network science has emerged as a promising and indispensable approach to unraveling structural nuances and complexities of the system of international institutions. This article presents a state-of-the-art review of this emerging field of research and seeks to stimulate its further development. In this article, I draw connections between various network analyses of global governance that are found in different bodies of literature. In so doing, I integrate three separate but overlapping strands of work on institutional fragmentation, polycentricity, and complexity and bring much-needed conceptual clarity to the debate. Building on previous studies, I propose a framework for operationalizing fragmentation, polycentricity, and complexity in network terms in order to enable systematic and comparative analysis of global governance systems. This article argues that there is much potential in the network approach and makes a case for advancing the “network science of global governance.”

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