Computer simulations of language change notes
This website collects my personal notes on Computer simulations of language change. These notes are provided to bring full transparency to my research process. Of course, since they are only notes, they do not reflect my final thoughts on a topic, and should not be interpreted as such. To read finished papers, please consult my website. Do not use these notes as a basis for your own scientific research. Start from high-quality, peer-reviewed scientific literature instead.
cognitive linguistics
perspective
topics of special interest
Definition
Cognitive Linguistics is the study of language in its cognitive function, where cognitive refers to the crucial role of the intermediate informational structures in our encounters with the world.
view on language
Three fundamental characteristics
How does language work?
Objectivist tradition
Cognitive tradition
embodiment
semantics in cognitive linguistics
↓
construal
A speaker who accurately observes the spatial distribution of certain stars can describe them in many distinct fashions: as a constellation, as a cluster of stars as specks of lights in the sky, etc. Such expressions are semantically distinct; they reflect the speaker’s alternate construals of the scene, each compatible with its objectively given properties. (Langacker 1990a: 61)
↳ many different ways of looking at the world
perspectivisation
schema
↳ elaborations / instantiations / subcases
ability to generalise
hierarchy
image schemas
difference with Langacker’s schemas
ubiquity of schematicity
human capacity to process language
competence
| generative view | cognitive view |
|---|---|
| language users actively search memory for means of encoding what’s on their mind | much of what speakers say is available in memory in prepackaged format |
Convincing evidence for this claim are the words of a language, since these represent nothing else than conceptualizations that have been fossilized by convention in a speech community. We hardly ever stop to think what language would be like without prepackaged concepts readily encodable by words. To refer to a dog that we see running across a meadow, there is no need to consciously construe an appropriate conceptual unit from scratch, because words like dog or poodle are readily available. The question of how to name this entity will not reach a level of conscious awareness, and the activation of concepts matching our experience of the dog will hardly require cognitive effort. The reason is that familiar concepts like ‘dog’ or ‘poodle’ are deeply entrenched in our memory so that their activation has become a highly automated routine.
↳ entrenchment
Geeraerts, Grondelaers, and Bakema (1994) argue for a more refined version of this idea (see section 5). On their account, it is not frequency of use as such that determines entrenchment, but frequency of use with regard to a specific meaning or function in comparison with alternative expressions of that meaning or function.
↳ entrenchment on a group level
Salience has two interpretations in Cognitive linguistics
| cognitive salience | ontological salience |
|---|---|
| a temporary activation state of mental concepts | an inherent and consequently more or less permanent property of entities in the real world |
cognitive salience
↓
1. conscious selection mechanism
2. activation of one concept facilitates activation of others
↳ salient
Since the use of concepts that are already activated requires minimal cognitive effort, a high degree of cognitive salience correlates with ease of activation and little or no processing cost. Currently inactive concepts, on the other hand, are nonsalient.
ontological salience
↳ link between cognitive and ontological salience
For example, a dog has a better attention-attracting potential than the field over which it is running. Therefore, it is likely that observers of the scene will be more aware of the dog and its actions than of the field.
This is perhaps most noticeable in the early stages of language acquisition when active, movable, or otherwise interesting—and therefore salient—entities such as people, animals, or colorful and noisy toys, which have a relatively high potential of attracting children’s attention, stand a better chance of early entrenchment as cognitive units than less salient entities, such as walls or carpets.
There is no one-to-one causal link between ontological salience and entrenchment, because from a certain point onwards, children acquire the ability of adults to conceptualize one entity, say a given dog, via a whole range of differently entrenched concepts such as ‘dog’, ‘poodle’, ‘mongrel’, ‘animal’, or ‘creature’. This shows that it is, of course, not real-world entities themselves that get entrenched but possible concepts of entities.
entrenchment
↳ function as Gestalts
beyond the lexical dimension
sanctioning
If the way to the establishment of novel structures in the repertoire of individual speakers and in the lexicon and grammar of a language is paved by similar structures that are already well entrenched, their entrenchment (i.e., of these novel structures) will be facilitated in turn.
blocking
The entrenchment of potential novel structures like English *stealer or German *Bauer (as a derivation of the verb bauen ‘build’) is blocked by the established words thief and Bauer ‘farmer’ respectively.
effect of spreading activation
↳ supported by association and priming experiments
↓
conceptual organisation may involve two levels of activation
basic-level category
polysemy
polysemy in Cognitive Linguistics
flexible meaning
Frequently mentioned features of prototype-theoretical conception
cognitive linguistics view on polysemy
schematic network model
structure of knowledge
scene
frame
idealised cognitive models (ICMs)
↳ evolutionary advantage
ICM
domain
| basic domain | abstract domain |
|---|---|
| a domain that cannot be fully reduced to any other domains | a domain that defines a higher-order concept |
| e.g. elbow requires knowledge about domain of arm | e.g. up, down (≈ schema) |
| have one or more dimensions | ??? |
| locational domain | configurational domain |
|---|---|
| defined by a location on one or more scales | can accommodate a number of distinct values as part of a single gestalt |
| e.g. temperature, colour | e.g. multi-dimensional domains |
image schema
Accordingly, going to the library and getting a book can be conceptually grouped with a number of instances with little in common save for exhibiting the same image-schematic structure.
Historical definitions
schema
University Library
image
Concepts (even abstract concepts) develop from representations of a perceptual conglomeration of visual, auditory, haptic, motoric, olfactory, and gustatory experiences. Images are always analogue representations of specific things or activities
↓
image schema
For instance, going to the library fits the following image-schematic profile: source-path-goal—container—collection—part-whole—transfer— iteration. The library exists as the end point to a path. It also has an inside and an outside, and thus is capable of containing people and objects. Since the objects it contains are of the same kind, the library exploits the notion of collection, which piggybacks on the opposition between part and whole. Physically possessing one of these contained objects in the collection exploits the transfer schema, and its repeatability exploits the iteration schema. The above profile represents some of the most conceptually assessable schemas used to structure a working notion of library.
cognitive grammar
shared properties with construction grammar
| cognitive linguistics | construction grammar |
|---|---|
| construal deemed important | ignores construal factors |
| all valid grammatical constructs have a conceptual characterisation | grammatical constructs (nouns, verbs, subjects) treated as unanalysable syntactic primitives |
functional cognitive grammar
‘cognitive’ in cognitive linguistics
Cognitive grammar has a language structure of three independent levels
1. descriptive framework
2. universal / prototypical structures
3. functional explanations
Several principles in the description of linguistic structure
1. functional considerations
2. required detail and technical precision
3. language and languages have to be descripted in their own terms
That no attempt has yet been made to formalize Cognitive Grammar reflects the judgment that the cost of the requisite simplifications and distortions would greatly outweigh any putative benefits.
4. compatibility with related disciplines
Widely accepted Cognitive Grammar claims
Unique / notorious claims
Conservative / down-to-earth facts of Cognitive Grammar
Content requirements
language in Cognitive grammar
↳ unit
↳ inventory
↳ structured
becoming a unit
shared units
usage event
↳ abstraction?
Any facets of a usage event, or a sequence of events in a discourse, are susceptible to being abstracted and conventionalised as a unit
Structures relevant to discourse
(Langacker 2001a)
↳ ground
↳ viewing frame
↳ focus
↳ context
↳ shared knowledge
↳ current discourse space
conceptualisation and expression can each be resolved into a number of channels
↓
↳ objective situation
↳ segmental content
abstraction
A unit’s conventional import with respect to various factors often excluded from the scope of linguistic description (e.g., register, affect, discourse function, relative social status of the interlocutors) is also specified in sectors not focused in the viewing frame.
| conceptualisation | expression |
|---|---|
| semantic pole | phonological pole |
| central and significant channels of conceptualisation* | comprises all channels of expression |
* Conceived more broadly, however, the semantic pole includes all the sectors in figure 17.1 (the first picture), regardless of specificity. It is even taken as subsuming the channels of expression, on the grounds that these are also apprehended and for various purposes are advantageously treated as facets of conceptualization (Langacker 1987a: section 2.2.1)
semantic units
phonological units
symbolic unit
These three types of units are the minimum needed for language to fulfil its symbolic function.
A central claim – embodied in the content requirement – is that only these are necessary. Cognitive Grammar maintains that a language is fully describable in terms of semantic structures, phonological structures, and symbolic links between them. Linguistic units are further limited to those arising from occurring expressions via schematization and categorization.
↓
lexicon and grammar
↳ lexicon
specificity
symbolic complexity
Imposing any particular line of demarcation would be arbitrary. Thus, the highly schematic meanings of ‘grammatical’ elements – such as the infinitival to, the preposition of, or the auxiliary verb do – do not prevent them from also counting as lexical items. Nor is lexicon limited to words, compounds, and short phrases. Provided that they are learned as conventional units, expressions of any size qualify as lexical items
Using specificity and symbolic complexity to categorise units
| category | semantic dimension | phonological specificity | symbolic complexity |
|---|---|---|---|
| lexical items | specific | specific | non-complex |
| grammatical markers | schematic | specific | non-complex |
| ‘noun’ and ‘verb’ categories | schematic | schematic | underspecified |
| grammatical rules / combinatory patterns | schematic | scehmatic | complex |
If symbolic structures are schematic rather than specific, they tend to be regarded as grammatical rather than lexical (e.g. grammatical do).
Among the further resources employed are general and contextual knowledge, basic cognitive abilities (e.g., memory, attention, planning, aesthetic judgment), as well as such ‘imaginative’ capacities as metaphor, blending, mental space construction, and the evocation of ‘fictive’ entities (Talmy 1996; Langacker 1999d). Linguistic units themselves reflect such factors internally. These same factors figure as well in the formation of novel expressions, which thus incorporate many features not solely derivable from the linguistic units invoked.
linguistic knowledge
Coding
L: linguistic system U: usage event
unit A (from L) is activated, effecting the categorisation of structure B
| full manifestation | partial / imperfect manifestation |
|---|---|
| full arrow | dashed arrow |
| A is fully manifested in B | A is partially manifested in B |
| the target conforms to the conventional unit invoked | the target distorts the conventional unit in some manner |
| categorising relation of elaboration | categorising relation of extension |
categorisation / coding (1987a)
I think the confirmation / distortion is related to how well it fits a certain category (one of the features which construction grammar has, where there are no exceptions).
Activation of categorising units
T: potential target of categorisation (some facet of an incipient usage event)
↳ on the basis of overlapping features, T tends to activate a set of units each of which has the potential to categorise it
↳ = activation set in (a) → all members are initially activated to some degree
all units of activation set stride for categorisation of T
↳ contributing factors: degree of entrenchment (inherent ease of activation), contextual priming, and extent of overlap with the target
How are units selected for the categorization of usage events? At the processing phase when linguistic units are still being recruited for exploitation, a usage event is only incipient. Before the units employed are selected and fully activated, neither the conceptualization nor the vocalization has yet been fully developed and structured in accordance with their specifications. It is precisely the activation of a particular set of units that results in a full-blown usage event interpreted as manifesting a particular linguistic expression.
A usage event is simultaneously categorized by many conventional units, each pertaining to a particular facet of its structure.
event’s structural description
↓
all categorisations effected on a given occasion are elaborative
some categorisations effected on a given occasion are extensive
It is only when the distortions are drastic enough (individually or collectively) that an expression is judged as being deviant.
| coding | extension |
|---|---|
|
 |
↳ unit A is employed for the categorisation of B, in the context of a single usage event
↳ unit B represents the contextual value assumed by A on that occasion
Suppose, now, that A is used with comparable value on a number of occasions (e.g., a lexical item might be used repeatedly with the same extended meaning). If both B and B’s categorization by A occur across a series of usage events, they—like any other facet of such events—are subject to progressive entrenchment and conventionalization. The result, as shown for the case of extension in figure 17.5 (on the right), is that both achieve the status of conventional linguistic units and are thus incorporated in the linguistic system (as a matter of definition).
Starting from a single unit, A, successive developments of this sort can eventually yield a network of related units linked by categorizing relationships (which can themselves be recognized as units). This network is a complex category, with A as its prototype (Lakoff 1987; Langacker 1987a: chapter 10; Taylor 1995).
↓
this is how linguistic units maintain themselves and evolve!
activation of a unit
lack of activation of a unit
elaboration
extension
Thus, every instance of language use has some impact, however slight, on the linguistic system as currently constituted. In this usage-based perspective (Barlow and Kemmer 2000), synchrony and diachrony are inseparable.
Central claim of Cognitive Grammar: only symbolic structures (form-meaning pairings) need be posited for the characterisation of lexicon and grammar
↓
form a continuum
conceptualisation
I’m skipping this, as it seems vague and not very relevant to me
lexicon -------------------------→ grammar
continuum of assemblies of symbolic structures
any assembly
Cognitive Grammar claims: basic grammatical classes can be characterized semantically
1. only applies to a limited set of categories
2. reference to traditional parts of speech is selective and qualified
The traditional scheme is highly problematic, and of the standard classes only noun and verb correspond to fundamental Cognitive Grammar categories. To some extent the others do, however, have a semantic rationale, which Cognitive Grammar notions allow one to explicate. But in each case a new conceptual description is offered which defines the class in its own, nonstandard way.
I’m skipping the philosophical distinction between noun and verb as it’s not relevant to me at this stage
grammar
morphology ⟷ syntax
A particular complex expression consists of an assembly of symbolic structures, each phonologically specific. The constructional schemas describing their formation consist of symbolic assemblies where some or all of the structures are both semantically and phonologically schematic. Constructional schemas categorize (and are immanent in) instantiating expressions, just as class schemas are.
Constructions (p. 442)
↳ symbolic structures are connected (and form assemblies) by correspondences and relationships of categorisation
A specific example, sketched in figure 17.9, is the nominal expression the table near the door. Correspondences are given as dotted lines. They indicate how symbolic structures conceptually overlap by invoking entities construed as being the same. The arrows for elaboration and extension (solid and dashed, respectively) indicate that certain symbolic structures (or substructures thereof) are fully or partially immanent in others and thus contribute to their emergence. In particular, what is traditionally thought of as semantic and grammatical ‘‘composition’’ is viewed in Cognitive Grammar as a matter of categorization. Two levels of composition are shown in figure 17.9. At the ‘‘lower’’ level, two component structures, near and the door, categorize the composite structure, near the door. At the ‘‘higher’’ level, the component structures the table and near the door categorize the overall composite structure, the table near the door. Observe that near is schematic with respect to near the door, and the table with respect to the table near the door. On the other hand, near the door constitutes an extension vis-à-vis the door, and the table near the door vis-à-vis near the door, owing to discrepancies in the nature of their profiles.
At a given level of organization, ‘‘horizontal’’ correspondence lines specify which facets of the component structures conceptually overlap and thus project to the same substructure at the composite structure level. Here the landmark of near corresponds to the profile of the door, which ‘‘unify’’ to form the composite conception. At the higher level, the trajector of near the door corresponds to the profile of the table. It is typical for one component structure to contain a schematic element which corresponds to the profile of the other component and which is elaborated by this component. This schematic substructure is called an elaboration site (e-site), marked by hatching. The horizontal arrows thus indicate that the door elaborates the schematic landmark of near, and the table the schematic trajector of near the door. It is also typical for one component structure to impose its own profile at the composite structure level. Thus, near contributes its profile to near the door (which profiles the relationship of proximity, not the door), and the table to the table near the door (which profiles the table). Called the profile determinant, the prevailing component is marked with a heavy-line box.
Symbolic assemblies exhibit constituency when a composite structure (e.g., near the door in figure 17.9) also functions as component structure at another level of organization. In Cognitive Grammar, however, grammatical constituency is seen as being variable, nonessential, and nonfundamental. An expression can have the same composite structure and the same grammatical relationships, with alternate orders of composition (or even a totally ‘‘flat’’ structure). The information essential to grammar does not reside in constituency but in the semantic characterizations of symbolic structures and how these relate to one another. A structure’s grammatical class is inherently specified by the nature of its profile. Various other aspects of grammatical organization inhere in relationships of correspondence and categorization.
again, skipping …
usage-based phonology
construction grammar’s basic principle
↓
construction
componential model of organisation of grammar
properties of componential model
Independent operation
⇒ In other words, each component separates out each specific type of linguistic information that is contained in a sentence: phonological, syntactic, and semantic.
Syntactic component: further structure
In addition, all versions of Chomskyan Generative Grammar have broken down the syntactic component further, as levels or strata (such as ‘‘deep structure,’’ later ‘‘D-structure,’’ and ‘‘surface structure,’’ later ‘‘S-structure’’; Chomsky 1981) and modules or theories (such as Case theory, Binding theory, etc.; Chomsky 1981).
↳ general principle
↳ lexicon component
↳ linking rules
idioms
idioms and the componential model
schematic idioms
↓
proposal of constructions
| constructions | lexical items |
|---|---|
| link together idiosyncratic or arbitrary phonological, syntactic and semantic information | |
| at least partially schematic and complex (consisting of more than one syntactic element) | substantive and atomic → minimal syntactic units |
Resultative construction
[NP Verb NP XP]It is a short step from analysing the Resultative construction as a construction to analysing all the syntactic rules of a language as constructions.
Herschrijfregels
VP → V NP can be formulated as schematic construction [V NP]
The only difference between regular syntactic rules and their rules of semantic interpretation and other constructions is that the former are wholly schematic while the latter retain some substantive elements. Likewise, Goldberg (1995: 116–19) suggests that there is a Transitive construction just as there are more specialized schematic syntactic constructions such as the Resultative construction. Reanalyzing general syntactic rules as the broadest, most schematic constructions of a language is just the other end of the substantive-schematic continuum for idioms/constructions.
Turning to semantic interpretation, one can also argue that semantically idiosyncratic constructions and compositional semantic rules differ only in degree, not in kind. Most idioms are what Nunberg, Sag, and Wasow (1994) call idiomatically combining expressions, in which the syntactic parts of the idiom (e.g., spill and beans) can be identified with parts of the idiom’s semantic interpretation (‘divulge’ and ‘information’, respectively). They argue that idiomatically combining expressions are not only semantically analyzable, but also semantically compositional.
(makes sense!)
(p. 469)
The traditional description of idioms is that the meaning of the idiomatically combining expression is ‘‘non-compositional.’’ But this is not the correct description. (p. 469)
Continuum of conventionality in semantic composition
idiomatically combining expressions -----------------------------------→ selectional restrictions
selectional restrictions
compositionality
[The] analysis of idiomatically combining expressions can easily be extended to the general rules of semantic interpretation that link syntactic and semantic structures. In other words,
all syntactic expressions, whatever their degree of schematicity, have rules of semantic interpretation associated with them, although some substantive idioms
appear to inherit their semantic interpretation rules from more schematic syntactic
expressions such as [Verb Object]. In semantics as well as syntax, the concept of
a construction can be generalized to encompass the full range of grammatical
knowledge of a speaker.
Similar arguments can be applied to morphology.
lexicon
| constructions | lexicon |
|---|---|
| complex → made up of words and phrases | syntactically simple |
Some words are morphologically complex, of course. But construction grammar would analyze morphologically complex words as constructions whose parts are morphologically bound.
↓
generalised constructions display a uniform representation of all grammatical knowledge in the speaker’s mind
↳ everything from words to the most general syntactic and semantic rules can be represented as constructions
| construction type | traditional name | examples |
|---|---|---|
| complex and (mostly) schematic | syntax | [sbj be-tns verb-en by obl] |
| complex and (mostly) specific | idiom | [pull-tns NP-’s leg] |
| complex but bound | morphology | [noun-s] [verb-tns] |
| atomic and schematic | syntactic category | [dem], [adj] |
| atomic and specific | word/lexicon | [this], [green] |
great attraction of construction grammar
constructions as symbolic units (👁 ↓)
The symbolic structure of a construction
‘meaning’ in construction grammar
Examples
| componential syntactic theories | construction grammar |
|---|---|
| symbolic link between form and conventional meaning is external (i.e. linking rules) | symbolic link between form and conventional meaning is internal to a construction |
|
|
|
| various syntactic structures are organised independently of the corresponding semantic structures | basic linguistic units are symbolic, and organised as symbolic units |
| basic internal structure | complex internal structure |
Heather sings
The brackets in (a) are labeled with syntactic category labels, while the corresponding boxes in the syntactic structure of figure 18.5b are not labeled. This does not mean that the boxed structures in figure 18.5b are all of the same syntactic type. Construction grammarians, of course, assume that syntactic units belong to a variety of different syntactic categories. The boxes have been left unlabeled because the nature of those categories is one issue on which different theories of construction grammar diverge. That is, we may ask the following question of different construction grammar theories:
What is the status of the categories of the syntactic elements in construction grammar given the existence of constructions?
elements
components
↳ individual symbolic links
↳ whole symbolic link
↳ semantic relation
↳ semantic relation
This symbolic link (the whole symbolic link) is the construction grammar representation of the fact that the syntactic structure of the Intransitive construction symbolizes a unary-valency predicate-argument semantic structure. Each element plus corresponding component is a part of the whole construction (form + meaning) as well. We will use the term ‘unit’ to describe a symbolic part (element + component) of a construction. That is, the construction as a symbolic whole is made up of symbolic units as parts. The symbolic units of Heather sings are not indicated in figure 18.5b for clarity’s sake; but all three types of parts of constructions are illustrated in figure 18.6 (👁 ↓) (see Langacker 1987: 84, figure 2.8a). (Figure 18.6 suppresses links between parts of the construction for clarity.)
Elements, components, and units of a construction
An important theoretical distinction must be made regarding the internal structure of constructions (Kay 1997). The analysis of syntactic structure is unfortunately confounded by an ambiguity in much traditional syntactic terminology. We can illustrate this with the example of the term ‘‘Subject’’ in the Intransitive Clause construction in figure 18.6 illustrated once again by the sentence Heather sings. The term ‘‘Subject’’ can mean one of two things. It can describe the role of a particular element of the construction, that is, a meronomic relation between the element labeled ‘‘Subject’’ in the Intransitive construction and the Intransitive construction as a whole. This is the sense in which one says that Heather is the Subject of the Intransitive clause Heather sings. This part-whole relation is represented implicitly in (10) by the nesting of the box for Heather inside the box for the whole construction Heather sings.
The Subject role defines a grammatical category. But the term ‘‘Subject’’ can also describe a syntactic relation between one element of the construction—the Subject—and another element of the construction—the Verb. This is the sense in which one says that Heather is the Subject of the Verb sings. In other words, the term ‘‘Subject’’ confounds two different types of relations in a construction: the role of the part in the whole and the relation of one part to another part. The difference between the two is illustrated in (11):
organisation of constructions
Any construction with unique idiosyncratic morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic, pragmatic, or discourse-functional properties must be represented as an independent node in the constructional network in order to capture a speaker’s knowledge of their language.
kick the bucket
kick
transitive construction
(p. 473)
(p. 474)S → NP VP and VP → V NPOf course, kick the bucket has the same argument structure pattern as ordinary transitive uses of kick, and ordinary transitive uses of kick follow the same argument structure pattern as any transitive verb phrase. Each construction is simply an instance of the more schematic construction(s) in the chain [kick the bucket] – [kick Obj] – [TrVerb obj] (on schematicity, see Tuggy, this volume, chapter 4).
However, grammatical constructions do not form a strict taxonomic hierarchy. One of the simplifications in the hierarchy of constructions in (12) is the exclusion of Tense-Aspect-Mood-Negation marking, expressed by Auxiliaries and Verbal suffixes. If those parts of an utterance are included, then any construction in the hierarchy in (12) has multiple parents. For example, the sentence [I didn’t sleep] is an instantiation of both the Intransitive Verb construction and the Negative construction, as illustrated in (13):
The sentence [I didn’t sleep] thus has multiple parents in the taxonomy of constructions to which it belongs. This is a consequence of each construction being a partial specification of the grammatical structure of its daughter construction(s). For example, the Negation construction only specifies the structure associated with the Subject, Verb, and Auxiliary; it does not specify anything about a Verb’s Object (if it has one), and so there is no representation of the Object in the Negation construction in (13).
partial specification
For example, the Ditransitive construction [Sbj DitrVerb Obj1 Obj2], as in He gave her a book, only specifies the predicate and the linkings to its arguments. It does not specify the order of elements, which can be different in, for example, the Cleft construction, as in It was a book that he gave her. Nor does the Ditransitive construction specify the presence or position of other elements in an utterance, such as Modal Auxiliaries or Negation, whether in a Declarative Sentence (where they are preverbal, as in 14a) or an Interrogative Sentence (where the Auxiliary precedes the Subject, as in 14b):
Hence any particular utterance’s structure is specified by a number of distinct schematic constructions. Conversely, a schematic construction abstracts away from the unspecified structural aspects of the class of utterances it describes. The model of construction grammar conforms to Langacker’s content requirement for a grammar: the only grammatical entities that are posited in the theory are grammatical units—specifically, symbolic units—and schematizations of those units.
relations between constructions
All of the theories conform to the three essential principles of construction grammar described in sections 2–4:
↓
the different theories tend to focus on different issues, representing their distinctive positions vis-à-vis the other theories
↳ Construction Grammar
↳ Lakoff/Goldberg model
↳ Cognitive Grammar
↳ Radical Construction Grammar
Construction Grammar (in capitals)
In Construction Grammar, all grammatical properties—phonological, syntactic, semantic, and so on—are uniformly represented as features with values, such as [cat v] (syntactic category is Verb) and [gf ¬subj] (grammatical function is not Subject). The value of a feature may itself be a list of features with their own values; these are more generally called feature structures.
The Verb Phrase construction may be represented by brackets around the features and feature structures, as in (15), or by an equivalent ‘‘box’’ notation, as in (16); we will use the box notation in the remainder of this chapter.
In the VP found her bracelet, her bracelet is the one and only complement. In the VP construction, the complements are given the role value ‘‘filler.’’
minimal units
↳ each unit
The basic symbolic structure for Construction Grammar:
…
…
< … >
basic units in CxG
↓
↳ complex units
use of constructions
WXDY construction (Kay and Fillmore 1999)
construction: [What’s X doing Y]
example: What’s this cat doing in here?
[The construction] possesses a number of syntactic and semantic properties not derivable from other constructions or the words in the construction.
Assembly of a construction
↓
three different sets of features
[ role ]
For instance, the Subject-Predicate construction, as in Hannah sings, has the roles [head] for sings and [filler] for Hannah (Kay and Fillmore 1999: 13). These roles, like the categories Verb and Subject, are defined independently of the constructions in which they occur.
I’m going to skip all these theories, since they go reasonably in depth and this is not needed
usage-based model
Very important
Hypothesis 1
The storage of a word form, regular or irregular, is a function of its token frequency.
token frequency
↓
‘autonomy’ (Bybee 1985)
Hence, the concentration of irregular word forms in high-frequency items.
There is also some evidence for the independent storage of high-frequency individual word forms, even when those word forms are fully regular.
Hypothesis 2
The productivity of a schema is a function of the type frequency of the instances of the schema.
type frequency
↓
productivity (Bybee 1985)
For example, the type frequency of the English regular past-tense inflection is the frequency of all the different verbs that use the regular past-tense inflection.
One consequence of this hypothesis is that productivity is predicted to come in degrees: schemas with a low type frequency will have a limited degree of productivity. This appears to be the case: for example, the English irregular past with [ʌ(ŋ)(g/k)] is slightly productive (compare colloquial or dialectal sneak/snuck, bring/brung).
Hypothesis 3
In addition to source-oriented morphological rules/schemas, there also exist product-oriented schemas, which cannot be easily represented by rules.
Many traditional, structuralist and generative theories of morphology assume the existence of rules that derive one word from another, such as the past verb form from the present verb form.
source-oriented schema (Bybee 1985)
↕
product-oriented schema (Bybee 1985)
The English past schema [ʌ(ŋ)(g/k)] is a phonologically coherent and partially productive past-tense schema, but the alleged source forms, the present-tense forms, are phonologically so varied that no single rule can systematically derive the past-tense forms from the present-tense forms.
Hypothesis 4
Strength of connection between word forms, and thus forces influencing their phonological shape (among other things), is a function of similarity. Similarity is measurable by comparing words to each other in both meaning and form; similarity in meaning is much stronger than similarity in form.
taxonomic web
governing principle (Bybee 1985)
It is certainly the case in morphology at least that some word forms are ‘‘closer’’ to each other than to other related word forms; this is the basis for the intuitive organization of forms into paradigms in traditional morphology.
Bybee and Thompson (1997)
the role of token frequency of constructions (defined as token frequency of the substantive elements in the construction) in grammatical organization
| verb type | context | Middle English | Modern English |
|---|---|---|---|
| auxiliary verb | inversion | do I sleep? | |
| negation | I do not sleep | ||
| regular verb | inversion | sleep I? | *sleep I? |
| negation | I sleep not | *I sleep not | |
Croft and Cruse (2004: 313–18)
product-oriented syntactic schemas exist
(this isn’t all that interesting – skipping ahead)
(Croft and Cruse 2004)
For example, the historical shift of the English negative adjectival imperative from Be not cruel! to Don’t be cruel! makes the negative adjectival imperative syntactically more similar to the semantically more similar negative verbal imperative Don’t jump! than the semantically more distant negative adjectival declarative She isn’t cruel (Croft and Cruse 2004: 320–31).
Specific constructions first, generalisation later
In other words, children do not utilize schematic categories such as [Verb] or schematic constructions such as the Transitive construction [Sbj Verb Obj] in their early acquisition, whether these schematic structures are innate or not. Instead, children begin with very low level generalizations based around a single predicate and a single construction in which that predicate occurs and only later in acquisition learn more schematic categories and constructions.
birth and growth of a construction
Development of the way construction
Using data from the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford University Press Corpus of Contemporary English, Israel argues that the modern way-construction grew gradually from two different, more narrowly used way-constructions, the Means and Manner constructions (a third source, the acquisition or continued possession of a path, shrank rather than expanded, although it remains in certain common instances such as find one’s way; Israel 1996: 221, note 3).
This (common) pattern in syntactic change illustrates how a new construction emerges from an often highly specific instance of an existing construction schema and then expands in its own direction. A usage-based model can account for this pattern in that it allows for the entrenchment of specific instances of construction schemas, which function as ‘‘islands’’ from which a new construction expands, establishing and generalizing a new construction schema with its own syntactic and semantic peculiarities.
Finally, as noted in the last section, an important desideratum for most construction grammars is the role of the usage-based model in syntactic representation. Many fundamental questions remain to be addressed:
Substantive answers to these questions will greatly advance the grammatical theory of Cognitive Linguistics.
this chapter
unidirectionality of change
the use of language change
language and embodiment
frequency
phonological production
↳ effect of automation and repetition
It is possible, furthermore, that given a greater understanding of the effects of repetition on neuromotor behavior, a theory could eventually be developed to predict the class of possible sound changes.
The view that sound change results from the natural effects that repetition has on neuromotor behavior is supported by the fact that in the lexical diffusion of a sound change, high-frequency words are affected before low-frequency words in most cases.
what changes are we talking about?
↓
Mowrey and Pagliuca (1995)
✓ requisites
✗ excluded changes
Of course, some problems exist for maintaining this distinction; it is sometimes a matter of dispute whether the origin of a change is physical or social, whether a change is purely internal or due to contact. Nevertheless, an attempt must be made to delimit the set of changes that constitute sound change.
speech stream
↓
articulatory gesture
A typical utterance is composed of multiple gestures overlapping or sequenced with respect to one another. An individual gesture is produced by groups of muscles that act in concert, sometimes ranging over more than one articulator: for instance, constricting lip aperture involves the action of the upper lip, the lower lip, and the jaw, but such a constriction is considered one gesture.
what is ‘sound change’?
Possible origins of sound change (Mowrey and Pagliuca 1995, Pagliuca and Mowrey 1987)
substantive reduction
and/or
temporal reduction
Pagliuca and Mowrey (1987)
Mowrey and Pagliuca (1995)
Browman and Goldstein (1990, 1992)
Browman and Goldstein restrict their hypothesis to casual speech alterations. This restriction has the advantage of defining an empirically verifiable sample of alterations. Mowrey and Pagliuca (1995) wish to address all sound change but with the restrictions stated above.
↓
big claims?
↳ goal of gestural research
Palatalisation of [s] before [i]
Pagliuca and Mowrey (1987)
[si] > [sji] > [ʃi]
The first step changes one feature of [s] to be the same as one feature of [i]. The second step has no clear assimilatory explanation.
Many problems with this form of description could be pointed out, such as the fact that there is nothing to predict that it would be the feature [high] that would change its value rather than some other feature that differs between the two segments, such as [syllabic]. Nor is there any natural way to explain or predict the change in the feature [anterior]. Related to this lack of predictability is the more fundamental fact that this feature-and-segment analysis does not give a very accurate picture of what is really happening in a language with this process.
Pagliuca and Mowrey (1987) argue that it is not a feature or property of [s] that has changed to be more like [i], but rather the formerly sequential gestures producing the [s] and the [i] have gradually been compressed so that first the transition between the [s] and the [i] is highly affected by the position of the tongue for [i]. A further and later development is that the two gestures come to overlap to such an extent that the whole articulation of the fricative is affected by the domed- tongue gesture of the [i], increasing the area of the point of constriction. This analysis is confirmed in Zsiga (1995), whose electropalatographic data show that in productive palatalization of [s + j] across word boundaries (as in miss you), the contact of the tongue with the palate is just what one would expect if the [s] and the [j] were articulated at the same time.
↳ consequence
Other examples of assimilation that can be explained in this way include vowel nasalization, which takes place preferentially when a vowel is followed by a nasal consonant in the same syllable. In this case, the gesture that opens the velum for nasalization is anticipated; it is retimed to occur during the articulation of the vowel. The view of this change as a modification in timing makes it possible to relate articulatory processes of speech to modifications made in other well-rehearsed motor events, where repetition increases efficiency or fluency because sequences of events can be anticipated and one event can begin before the preceding one is totally completed.
skip, not that interesting
reduction
1. lenition / weakening
The reduction of a consonant, such as [p], along a path which is cross-linguistically common, that is, [p] > [θ]/[f] > [h] > ∅ is characterized as a successive decrease and loss of muscular activity. The production of [p] requires muscular activity of both the upper and lower lips, which act to bring them together, as well as the activity required to open the glottis. The production of [f] requires less or no activity in the muscles of the upper lip, but continued activity in the lower lip and glottis. The sound [h] is produced with no activity in the labial muscles at all, but requires the opening of the glottis. Total deletion involves the loss of all the muscular events that were associated with the original consonant (Mowrey and Pagliuca 1995: 81–83).
2. sonorous / ovwel-like consonant
For example, the change of a syllable-final [l] to a back unrounded glide [ɯ] involves the loss of the tongue tip gesture. This change occurs in American English pronunciations of words such as milk as [mɪɯk].
3. temporal reduction of a stop
The English alveolar flap found in words such as latter and ladder [(American English)] is significantly shorter than the [t] or [d] that occurs preceding a stressed vowel (Zue and Laferriere 1979) [(e.g. dome)]. The medial stops in upper and trucker are also shorter than their counterparts preceding the stress [(e.g. party and kosher)], but this difference is not as salient (Hoard 1971).
1. lessening of gesture magnitude
↳ centralisation
↳ shortening
In unstressed syllables, reduction can be manifest in various changes in the gestures, some of which may co-occur.
When reduction leads to complete deletion, both temporal and substantive reduction have occurred.
acoustic-perceptual component
In fact, for a gestural change to proceed and become conventionalized as part of the language, its perceptual effects must be registered in storage.
Roles of perception in sound change
1. L1 issues
2. perceptual extension
For instance, in a situation in which the vowel in a VN sequence is nasalized, if the nasal consonant is also weakening, then the nasalization could be attributed to the vowel rather than to the consonant, thereby contributing to the continuation of the change toward having just a nasalized vowel with a deleted consonant. Ohala (2003) refers to this as a change in the normalization process.
not relevant
lexical diffusion
↓
lexically abrupt sound change
lexically gradual sound change
Schuchardt (1885)
Labov (1981, 1994)
↓
1. regular sound change
2. lexical diffusion change
Labov even goes so far as to propose that certain changes, such as the deletion of glides and schwa, will be regular changes, while the deletion of obstruents will show lexical diffusion. A number of researchers have challenged this position.
effect
Case study: Bybee (2000b) about American [t]/[d]-deletion
[t]/[d]-deletion
| frequency | deletion | non-deletion | % deletion |
|---|---|---|---|
| high frequency | 898 | 752 | 54.5% |
| low frequency | 137 | 252 | 34.3% |
chi-squared = 41.67; p < .001; df = 1
Case study: Bybee (2000b) about New Mexican Spanish [ð]-deletion
| phenomenon | low (0–99) | High (100+) | total |
|---|---|---|---|
| retention | 243 (91.4%) | 287 (78.6%) | 530 (84.0%) |
| deletion | 23 (8.6%) | 78 (21.4%) | 101 (16.0%) |
| total | 266 | 365 | 631 |
chi-squared = 17.3; p < .001; N = 631; df = 1
Fidelholtz (1975)
Van Bergem (1995)
↓ can the same pattern be found in vowel shift changes? ↓
Labov (1994: 506)
Moonwomon (1992)
Moonwomon (1992)
Of the words in the corpus ending in final /t/, got is the most frequently occurring. Moonwomon also shows that the fronting in got is significantly more advanced than in other words ending in alveolars, such as not, god, body, forgot, pot, and so on.
↓
conclusion
The lack of stronger evidence may be due to a greater difficulty in discerning frequency effects in vowel shifts because of the effects of the preceding and following environments, which narrow each phonetic class to a small number of words.
earlier assumption
↓
cognitive representation of a word
↳ cluster organisation
Changes in the phonetic range of the exemplar cluster may also take place as language is used and new tokens of words are experienced. Thus, the range of phonetic variation of a word can gradually change over time, allowing a phonetically gradual sound change to affect different words at different rates. Given a tendency for online (?? TODO) reduction, the phonetic representation of a word will gradually accrue more exemplars that are reduced, and these exemplars will become more likely to be chosen for production where they may undergo further reduction, gradually moving the words of the language in a consistent direction. The more frequent words will have more chances to undergo online reduction and thus will change more rapidly. Words that are more predictable in context (which are often also the more frequent ones) will have a greater chance of having their reduced version chosen, given an appropriate context, and thus will also advance the reductive change more rapidly.
The exemplar model in principle allows every word of a language to have a distinct set of phonetic gestures and an unlimited range of variation. The reason languages do not avail themselves of this possibility is because categorization of the components of words into a small set of gestural constellations is necessary given the size of the vocabulary of natural languages. In order to organize the lexicon and automate production and perception, it is necessary to reuse the same gestures in large numbers of lexical items. Evidence from sound change also shows that the range of variation for a single word tends to narrow as change goes to completion and that this narrowing tends to be consistent across lexical items, with very high frequency items being the only exceptions (Bybee 2000b, 2001). The sets of gestures that are reused across the lexicon are roughly equivalent to phonemes.
misperceptions
↓
pattern of lexical diffusion
Phillips (1984) found a similar pattern of diffusion for some sound changes. For instance, the Old English diphthong <eo> monophthongized to a mid front rounded vowel /ö/, with both a long and a short version in the eleventh to twelfth centuries. In some dialects, these front rounded vowels were maintained into the fourteenth century, but in Lincolnshire, they quickly unrounded and merged with /e(😃/. A text written around 1200 AD, the Ormulum, captures this change in progress. The author was interested in spelling reform, and so, rather than regularizing the spelling, he represented the variation, using two spellings for the same word in many cases (e.g. deop, dep ‘deep’). Phillips found that within the class of nouns and verbs, the low-frequency words are more likely to have the spelling that represents the unrounded vowel.
↓ two general patterns ↓
| phonetically motivated change | perceptually motivated change |
|---|---|
| facilitates production | stem from misinterpretation of words and imperfect learning (Bybee 2001) |
| high-frequency first | low-frequency first |
| adverbs, function words (+ collocations?, nvda) | nouns, verbs |
skipped – no general motivations given
As sound change produces permanent effects on the words of a language, in cases of morphological complexity, there is a potential for the development of alternations in paradigms. These alternations become morphologized, that is, they…
The diachronic trajectory shown below is both universal and unidirectional (Kiparsky 1971; Vennemann 1972; Hooper 1976a; Dressler 1977, 1985; Bybee 2001).
phonetic process > morpholexical alternation
Thus, for example, a phonetic process of voicing of intervocalic fricatives in Old English produced the alternating pairs wife/wives; leaf/leaves; house/hou[z]es; bath/ba[ðz]. Today, however, the alternation is= morphologized, in the sense that it applies only in the plural of nouns (not in possessive form, e.g., wife’s), and it is lexicalized in the sense that it applies only to a certain set of nouns (not, e.g., to chief or class).
after morphologisation / lexicalisation process
most common origin of sound change
↳ usage-based phenomenon
↳ further properties
Where lexical diffusion data are available, we have evidence for which mechanism is involved (👁 table ↑).
analogical change
Indeed, analogy has been regarded as irregular and thus possibly unpredictable, as in Sturtevant’s famous paradox: sound change is regular and creates irregularities (in the morphology); analogy is irregular and creates regularity.
analogical levelling
when does levelling occur?
Thus, if weep is easier to access than wept, a speaker searching for a past may use weep and the regular past suffix to create the new form weeped.
↓
analogical levelling is not change in an old form, but the creation of a new form
High-frequency forms resist leveling because of their greater availability in the experience of the speaker, which affords them a greater lexical strength (Bybee 1985). Thus, it is normal for irregularities among nouns, verbs, and adjectives to be found primarily in the most frequent paradigms (those whose words have high token frequency), such as, man/men, child/children; go/went, have/had; good/better/ best.
Which alternate survives when leveling occurs?
answer
Maǹczak (1978, 1980)
Which alternations are more likely in a paradigm?
formal variants
↓ consequence
locus of analogical levelling
Spanish has perfective/imperfective forms with stem changes, such as supe/sabía and quise/quería, but no stem allomorphy within these aspects that corresponds to person/number distinctions.
Thus, leveling occurs within subparadigms of closely related forms where the more frequent form serves as the basis for the creation of a new form that replaces the less frequent form. For instance, consider the changes in the paradigm for to do in Old and Middle English (Moore and Marckwardt 1960):
| tense | person | Old English | Middle English |
|---|---|---|---|
| prs. ind | 1sg | dō | do |
| 2sg | dēst | dest | |
| 3sg | dēp | doth | |
| pl | dōp | do | |
| pret. ind | 1sg | dyde | dide, dude [dyde] |
| 2sg | dydest | didest, dudest | |
| 3sg | dyde | dide, dud |
| person | tense | form |
|---|---|---|
| 1sg | prs. ind. | do |
| pret. ind. | dode | |
| 2sg | prs. ind. | dest |
| pret. ind. | dedest | |
| 3sg | prs. ind. | deth |
| pret. ind. | dede |
Such changes apparently do not occur because the person/number forms within tenses or aspects (or moods, for that matter) are more closely related to one another than they are to the same person/number forms in other tenses, aspects, or moods. It is notable that the traditional presentation of a verbal paradigm groups person/number forms together according to tense, aspect, and mood, as in (5, first table), and does not group tense/aspect forms together according to person/number. Also, in the languages of the world, alternations often correspond to tense, aspect, or mood and rarely to person/number distinctions across tense, aspect, or mood (Hooper 1979; Bybee 1985).
Note further that the fact that paradigms tend to undergo leveling one by one and not as a group indicates that morphophonological alternations are not generated by rule, but rather that each alternation is represented in memory in the forms of the paradigm. The fact that the more frequent forms resist change and serve as the basis of change for lower-frequency forms means that all of these forms are represented in memory, but that the higher-frequency forms have a stronger representation than the lower-frequency forms.
analogical extension
For instance, while cling/clung and fling/flung have had a vowel alternation since the Old English period, the verb string which was formed from the noun has only had a vowel alternation, string/strung since about 1590. Similarly, the past of strike has had a variety of forms, but most recently, in the sixteenth century, the past was stroke, which was replaced by struck in the seventeenth century.
As mentioned above, it is popular to describe extensions as if they arose through proportional analogies, such as ‘fling is to flung as string is to X’, where the result of the analogy is of course strung. However, there are examples that are very difficult to describe with such formulas.
For instance, the original set of verbs that constitute the class to which string belongs all had nasal consonants in their codas: swim, begin, sing, drink. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, stick/ stuck and strike/struck were added to this class. A little later, the past of regular dig became dug. More recent nonstandard formations are also problematic: sneak/ snuck and drag/drug (both used in my native dialect) present dual problems:
One solution is to suppose that the requisite categorization is of the past/past participle form, not the base form, nor the relation between the base and the past form. Thus, a schema is formed over the past forms, which have similar phonological shape and similar meaning (Bybee 1985, 1988; Langacker 1987).
There is no particular operation specified as to how to derive the past from the base, such as [ɪ] →[ʌ], as such a derivation would not apply to strike, sneak, or drag; rather, there is only the specification of the schema for the past form. Modifications that make a verb fit this schema could be different in different cases (Bybee and Moder 1983). Also, the schema is stated in terms of natural categories; that is, the phonological parameters are not categorical, but rather define family resemblance relations. Since so many members of the class have velar nasals originally, it appears that the feature velar was considered enough of a defining feature of the class that it could appear without the feature nasal, opening the door to extensions to verbs ending in [k], such as stick or strike, and eventually verbs ending in [g], such as dig. A schema defined over a morphologically complex word, such as a past, is a product-oriented schema (Zager 1980; Bybee and Slobin 1982; Bybee and Moder 1983).
However, recently, experimentation with nonce probe tasks and computer simulations of the acquisition of morphological patterns have provided evidence to supplement the diachronic record. (An example is the experiment of Bybee and Moder 1983, cited above.)
Hare and Elman (1995): model of English past-tense verb system
word-by-word
varying strength
grammaticalisation
going to as a marker of future
More recently, it has been observed that it is important to add that grammaticalization of lexical items takes place within particular constructions (Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca 1994; Traugott 2003) and further that grammaticalization is the creation of new constructions (Bybee 2003). Thus, be going to does not grammaticalize in the construction exemplified by I’m going to the store but only in the construction in which a verb follows to, as in I’m going to buy a car.
The canonical type of grammaticalization is that in which a lexical item becomes a grammatical morpheme within a particular construction.
1. phonetical reduction
going to [goiŋthuw] becomes gonna [gənə] and even reduces further in some contexts to [ənə], as in I’m (g)onna [aimənə]
2. generalising meaning
Only (1) was possible in Shakespeare English. (2) and (3), which are more general, are now possible.
3. increased frequency of use
4. gradual and varied
universality
(many examples, which aren’t of particular use to me right now)
grammaticalisation paths
↓
movement path
volition path
(several examples)
What meanings grammaticalise in different languages?
similar meanings across languages!
Heine, Claudi, and Hünnemeyer (1991b)
1. universal
2. concrete and basic
Spatial environment
Body parts
The claim here is not that the abstract concepts are forever linked to the more concrete, only that they have their diachronic source in the very concrete physical experience. Grammatical constructions and the concepts they represent become emancipated from the concrete and come to express purely abstract notions, such as tense, case relations, definiteness, and so on. It is important to note, however, that the sources for grammar are concepts and words drawn from the most concrete and basic aspects of human experience.
automatisation
↓
grammaticalisation as automatisation
(nothing new?)
lexical diffusion in the extension of constructions
In some cases the most frequent instances of a construction retain archaic characteristics so that two means of expressing the same thing exist in a language (Tottie 1991; Ogura 1993). A case studied by Tottie (1991) involves the development of negation expressed by not in English. Synonymous pairs of sentences exist in English using two constructions, of which the one with not is the more recent and now more productive:
Tottie examines a large number of spoken and written texts and finds that the older construction is still used only with very frequent verbs, that is, existential and copular be, stative have, and the lexical verbs do, know, give, and make:
The resistance of particular verb-plus-negative combinations to replacement by the more productive constructions suggests a strong representation of these particular sequences in memory. Even though they are instances of more general constructions, these particular local sequences have a representation that allows them to maintain the more conservative construction. In this case, an understanding of diachrony helps us explain why there are two alternate, synonymous constructions and why they are distributed as they are. It also provides evidence for a strong connection between lexicon and grammar.
decategorialisation
↓ two options
1. remain
go retains many lexical uses, despite the grammaticalization of be going to
2. leave
can is grammaticalized, and the main verb from which it developed, cunnan ‘to know’, has disappeared
↳ restricted distribution
Verbs lose canonical verbal properties when they become auxiliaries. Consider the auxiliary can, which derives from the Old English main verb cunnan ‘to know’. In Old English, cunnan could be used with a noun phrase object, but today can occurs only with a verb complement: *I can that and *I can her are ungrammatical.
constituent structure loss
↳ why?
(several examples)
Almost every case of grammaticalization involves such a change in constituent structure. When viewed in terms of a structural analysis of the successive synchronic states, it is tempting to say that a reanalysis has taken place. For example, in the two cases just examined, what was a verb is reanalyzed as an auxiliary in one case and a preposition in the other.
reanalysis
nature of reanalysis
[The gradual nature of reanalysis] means that when grammaticalization is occurring, it may not be possible to uniquely assign elements to particular grammatical categories or structures.
resegmentation
From the point of view of cognitive and functional theory, the whole notion of reanalysis must be considered suspect because it assumes a grammar that allows only one analysis of a structure at any given synchronic stage. However, if the cognitive system allows redundancy and multiple coexisting analyses, then reanalysis is accomplished by adding an alternate analysis to an existing one.
the role of frequency
(Haiman 1994)
(Bybee 2003)
Just as swear words lose their sting with repetition, so grammaticalizing constructions come to express less meaning as they are used more. As a result, they become applicable in more contexts, and this further depletes their meaning.
bleaching
metaphor as a driving factor
For instance, the phrase the head of X expresses a relation (with reference to humans) between a part of an object that is at the top in relation to the whole object. When this schematic relation is extended to objects other than humans, a metaphorical extension has occurred. Now the meaning of the head of X is generalized or bleached, since it is no longer restricted to the domain of the human body.
In fact, it appears that metaphorical extension is a more important mechanism of change in lexical semantics than in grammaticalization.
pragmatic inferencing
When a particular inference is frequently made in connection with a particular construction, that inference can become conventionalized and thus part of the meaning of the construction. Thus, the source of the new meanings that can be accrued in the grammaticalization process is inference-based on the context.
Since
The conjunction since, which originally meant ‘from the time that’, is used in a temporal sense. However, since events described in temporal relation often also have a causal relation, that is, the first event causes the second (as in 2), and since speakers and addressees are usually less interested in pure temporal sequence and more interested in causes, a causal inference becomes conventionalized as part of the meaning of since. As a result, a sentence such as (2) can have either or both interpretations. In fact, the previously inferred sense can even become independent, leading to sentences such as (3), which has a purely causal interpretation.
1.I have done quite a bit of writing since we last met temporal 1.John has been very miserable since Susan left him temporal/causal
(skipping)
cognitive view
↕
Generative Grammar view
(William Croft 2000)
1. ‘normal’ replication
2. ‘altered’ replication
The mechanisms by which utterances undergo altered replication are precisely the mechanisms of change that have been discussed in this chapter:
↳ invisible hand (Keller 1994)
lexical diffusion
High-frequency items and constructions undergo reductive changes quickly, including phonological reduction, syntactic reduction (loss of constituent structure), and semantic change (generalization, etc.). But in the presence of competition from analogy of newer constructions, high-frequency instances hold out: high-frequency verbs resist regularization, and high-frequency instances of constructions (e.g., I know nothing …) resist reformulation in the new pattern (I don’t know anything …). Thus, diachrony provides us with evidence for the interrelation of lexicon and grammar and also with evidence for the nature of the cognitive representation of phonological and grammatical form.
TODO tabel maken ofzo
gradual change
unidirectionality
Clearly, reference to cognitive factors brings us closer to explanation in both the diachronic and synchronic realms. In diachrony, it is of utmost importance to emphasize not just the motivation for change, but also the mechanism; that is, in order to establish why changes occur in a certain direction, we also have to understand how changes occur.
| semasiology | onomasiology |
|---|---|
| considers the isolated word and the way its meanings are manifested | looks at the designations of a particular concept |
| meaning | naming |
There are two ways in which Cognitive Linguistics contributes to diachronic semasiology
1. metaphor and metonymy
2. prototype structure
Four features of synchronic prototype structure
1. degree
2. family resemlance
3. blurry edges
4. no attributes
↓
now, we convert each of the four characteristics into a statement about the structure of semantic change
By stressing the extensional nonequality of lexical semantic structure, prototype theory highlights the fact that changes in the referential range of one specific word meaning may take the form of modulations on the core cases within that referential range. In other words, changes in the extension of a single sense of a lexical item are likely to take the form of an expansion of the prototypical center of that extension.
blurry meaning
↳ semantic polygenesis
Specifically, when the same marginal meaning occurs at several points in time that are separated by a considerable period, we can conclude that the discontinuous presence of that meaning is not due to accidental gaps in the available textual sources, but that the meaning in question must actually have come into existence independently at the two moments.
non-discreteness
categorisation and onomasiology
| structural | pragmatic |
|---|---|
| “structuralist meaning network” | contextualised choices |
| structure | use |
| qualitative | quantitative |
|---|---|
| what kinds of (semantic) relations hold between the lexical items in a lexicon? | are some categories cognitively more salient than others |
| field relationships, taxonomies, lexical relations such as antonymy | are particular categories more likely to be chosen for designating things out in the world than others? |
| referential | non-referential |
|---|---|
| denotational | connotational |
| descriptive aspects | emotive, stylistic, discursive value |
The ties between nonreferential meaning and onomasiology are perhaps even stronger than those between nonreferential meaning and semasiology.
The very definition of nonreferential meaning involves the concept of onomasiological alternatives. Indeed, we invoke the notion of nonreferential meaning precisely when a word’s communicative value differs from that of a referential synonym or when its communicative value cannot be defined in referential terms.
lexicogenesis
sociolexicology
On the diffusion of new words
We might say, for instance, that German borrows Computer from English. But the language as such is obviously not an anthropomorphic agent: what happens is that individual language users act in a specific way (say, by using a loan word) and that these individual acts lead to changes at the level of the language as a whole—that is, at the level of the speech community. This phenomenon has revealingly been described by Keller (1990), who suggests that linguistic change may be characterized as an ‘‘invisible hand’’ process—a notion he borrowed from economics. As such, changes spread through a linguistic community as if guided by an invisible force, whereas the actual process involves a multitude of communicative acts.1 The invisible hand metaphor, however, stops short of indicating precisely how the transition from the individual level to the global level occurs. What exactly are the mechanisms that enable the cumulative effects? Logically speaking, two situations may occur: either the changes work in parallel, or they take place serially. The first situation occurs when members of a speech community are confronted with the same communicative, expressive problem and independently choose
the same solution. The introduction of Computer as a loan from English into German (and many other languages) may at least to some extent have proceeded in this way. More or less simultaneously, a number of people face the problem of giving a name to the new thing in their native language; independently of each other, they then adopt the original name that comes with the newly introduced object. The second type occurs when the members of a speech community imitate each other. For instance, when one person introduces a loan word, a few others may imitate him or her, and they in turn may be imitated by others, and so on. In the same way, the overall picture of a traffic jam is one in which a great number of cars appear to be halted by an invisible hand, while what actually happens is a cumulative process of individual actions: when the first car brakes to avoid a dog running over the highway, the car behind it has to slow down to avoid an accident, and so on.
(not specifically interesting)
| conceptual onomasiological variation | formal onomasiological variation |
|---|---|
| the choice of different conceptual categories | the use of different names for the same conceptual category |
Grondelaers and Geeraerts (1998) investigate how avoidance strategies influence the choice of cancer designations. More particularly, they are interested in finding out how the emotive value of, on the one hand, generic or specific cancer terms such as cancer or breast cancer and, on the other, vague terms such as disease or illness influence lexical choice; it is indeed to be expected that in some contexts the vaguer terms will be preferred for euphemistic reasons.
They looked for quantitative support for the hypothesis that vague terms for cancer are favored in nonscientific contexts, namely, articles which do not or do not primarily report on medical topics, and in personalized contexts, that is, contexts in which the effects of cancer on individual patients are depicted (in contrast with generic contexts, in which cancer is referred to in general).
As predicted, average hyperonym ratios are indeed significantly higher in nonmedical contexts (0.647>0.126) and personalized contexts (0.837>0.147), which seems to confirm the hypothesis.
Geeraerts, Grondelaers, and Speelman (1999):
Can we quantify the relationship
between Belgian Dutch and Netherlandic Dutch (and the internal stratification of
both varieties)?
Can we calculate how close or how distant both varieties of Dutch
are with regard to each other?
onomasiological profile
| concept | B90 | N90 |
|---|---|---|
| hemd | 31% | 17% |
| overhemd | 69% | 46% |
| shirt | 0% | 37% |
The partial overlap between the profiles is quantified by counting the naming instances for which there is a counterpart in the other profile.
In table 37.3, however, 14 instances of hemd in B90 have no counterpart in N90; 23 Belgian overhemden have no Netherlandic counterpart; and there are no Belgian counterparts for the 37 Netherlandic shirts.
1. diachronic convergence
2. larger synchronic distance
| ratio | uniformity |
|---|---|
| B50/N50 | 69,84 |
| B70/N70 | 74,59 |
| B90/N90 | 81,70 |
| B90/Bsw90 | 45,90 |
| N90/Nsw90 | 67,75 |
The data in table 37.4 unambiguously confirm the diachronic as well as the synchronic hypothesis.
Developments within Cognitive Linguistics that are likely to contribute to an increased interest in sociolinguistic research
Computer simulations of language change notes
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