Harnessing Linguistic Variation to Improve Education

2012 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Variation

New Directions in the Computational Analysis of Biblical Hebrew Grammar

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Miller-Naudé ◽  
Jacobus A Naudé
Keyword(s):  
Southern Hemisphere ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
North American ◽  
Computational Analysis ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
European Database ◽  
New Directions ◽  
African Context

The concern of the paper is to highlight how computational analysis of Biblical Hebrew grammar can now be done in very sophisticated ways and with insightful results for exegesis. Three databases, namely, the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC) Database, the Accordance Hebrew Syntactic Database, and the Andersen-Forbes Syntactic Database,are compared in terms of their relation to linguistic theory (or, theories), the nature and spectrum of retrieved data, and the representation of synchronic and diachronic linguistic variation. Interaction between different contexts, including the African context, are promoted namely between linguists working on Biblical Hebrew and exegetes working on the Hebrew Bible by illustrating how exegesis and language are intimately connected, as well as among geographical contexts by comparing a European database (ETCBC), a North American database (Accordance) and a Southern hemisphere database (Andersen-Forbes).

The Scribal Repertoire of Amennakhte Son of Ipuy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphane Polis
Keyword(s):  
Multidimensional Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
New Kingdom ◽  
The Core ◽  
Scribal Habits

This chapter investigates linguistic variation in the texts written by the Deir el-Medina scribe Amennakhte son of Ipuy in New Kingdom Egypt (Twentieth Dynasty; c. 1150 BCE). After a discussion of the challenge posed by the identification of scribes and authors in this sociocultural setting, I provide an overview of the corpus of texts that can tentatively be linked to this individual and justify the selection that has been made for the present study. The core of this paper is then devoted to a multidimensional analysis of Amennakhte’s linguistic registers. By combining the results of this section with a description of Amennakhte’s scribal habits—both at the graphemo-morphological and constructional levels—I test the possibility of using ‘idiolectal’ features to identify the scribe (or the author) of other texts stemming from the community of Deir el-Medina and closely related to Amennakhte.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuhui Hu
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Diachronic Change ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Motion Event ◽  
Applicative Constructions ◽  
The One ◽  
Chinese And English

This chapter summarizes the major points developed throughout the book. The theoretical points of the syntax of events proposed in Chapter 2 are listed. The conclusions on the syntax of English and Chinese resultatives, applicative constructions in various languages, and Chinese non-canonical object and motion event constructions are presented, together with the implications for the verb/satellite-framed typology. The explanation of diachronic change and cross-linguistic variation is summarized, including both the historical development of Chinese resultatives, the variation of resultatives between Chinese and English on the one hand, and English and Romance on the other hand. The Synchronic Grammaticalisation Hypothesis is also summarized.

Syntactic representation of null arguments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Ruda
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Syntactic Representation ◽  
Independent Features ◽  
Argument Omission ◽  
Type Shifting

Focusing on definite-argument drop, this chapter puts forward the hypothesis that null arguments are minimally represented as [nPn] and maximally as a fully-fledged pronoun ([DP D [PersP Pers [NumP Num [nPn]]]] or [PersP Pers [NumP Num [nPn]]]). The (un)availability of such arguments in a language is a consequence of independent features of its grammar: the lexical specification of its nominalizing n heads (esp. their association with phonetic material) and the avaialbility of post-syntactic type-shifting operations (esp. ι‎). The working of this approach is illustrated mostly with data from English, Polish, and Kashubian. The two latter languages are argued here to differ from English with respect to the inflectional properties of their nouns, as well as with respect to the mechanisms of NP interpretation. The chapter discusses the predictions thehypothesis makes about the identity of null arguments with respect to cross-linguistic variation in the patterns of argument omission.

Language Form and Linguistic Variation: Papers Dedicated to Angus McIntosh

Language ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 686
Author(s):  
Ronald K. S. Macaulay ◽  
John Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Language Form

Defining the envelope of linguistic variation: The case of “don't count” forms in the copula analysis of African American Vernacular English

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renée Blake
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African American Vernacular English ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
American Vernacular ◽  
Variable Analysis

ABSTRACTEver since Labov, Cohen, Robbins, and Lewis's (1968) pioneering study, it has been commonplace to set aside certain tokens in analyzing variability in the English copula as “don't count” (DC) forms. These cases are most often occurrences of the copula that exhibit categorical behavior (as with the full copula in clause-final position), as well as those that are ambiguous or indeterminate. In this article, I propose a set of copula forms that should be set aside from variable analysis as instances of DC forms to allow for systematic comparisons among studies. I review the major alternative descriptions of DC copula cases in the literature and analyze the behavior of the traditional DC categories. New data are presented to support the exclusion of particular DC cases from analyses of copula variability. Among the conclusions are that [was], [thas], and [is] should be excluded from quantitative analyses of variation in the copula because of their invariant status, and that a number of tokens commonly included (e.g., questions) should be excluded on various grounds.

scholarly journals Variation in Faroese and the development of a spoken standard: In search of corpus evidence

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remco Knooihuizen
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Morphological Variation ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Phonological Variation ◽  
Rapid Social Change ◽  
Variationist Sociolinguistics ◽  
Constrained Variation

Although Faroese exhibits extensive linguistic variation and rapid social change, the language is near-uncharted territory in variationist sociolinguistics. This article discusses some recent social changes in Faroese society in connection with language change, focusing in particular on the development of a de facto spoken standard, Central Faroese. Demographic mobility, media and education may be contributing to this development in different ways. Two linguistic variables are analysed as a first step towards uncovering the respective roles of standardisation, dialect levelling and dialect spread as contributing processes in the formation of Central Faroese: morphological variation in -st endings and phonological variation in -ir and -ur endings. The analysis confirms previously described patterns of geographically constrained variation, but no generational or stylistic differences indicative of language change are found, nor are there clear signs that informants use Central Faroese. The results may in part be due to the structure of the corpus used.

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