Summarine

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.

Usage-based approaches to language change

Introduction

formal linguistics (p. 1)

  • studies linguistic system in its own right
  • i.e. in isolation from its use in human interaction
  • no relation with human cognition

↕

usage-based models of language (p. 1)

  • intimate relation between linguistic structure and usage
  • not a homogeneous theory of language → converging ideas within a larger functional/cognitive framework

Original context of the notion ‘usage-based’

beginning of term ‘usage-based’ (p. 2)

  • Langacker (1987, p. 46)
  • employed in a descriptive sense to distinguish his concept of ‘Cognitive Grammar’ from ‘Generative Grammar

In describing cognitive grammar as a “usage-based” model of language structure, I have in mind the “maximalist”, “non-reductive”, and “bottom-up” character of the general approach (as compared to the minimalist, reductive, and top-down spirit of the generative tradition). (Langacker 1988, p. 131)

‘bottom-up’? (p. 2)

  • usage data are the basis for the mental representations
    • ‘usage’ = interaction between speaker and hearer

↕

top-down (p. 2)

  • representations originate in some language faculty
  • i.e. a genetically determined module in the human brain

Geeraerts & Cuyckens (2007, pp. 5–6) point out that there is another fundamental distinction between Cognitive Grammar and Generative Grammar. While the former sees mental representations of linguistic structures as representing world structures and thus as knowledge about the world, the latter views mental representations as an individual’s knowledge about language alone. But this distinction, crucial though it is, does not concern us here.

Key features of usage-based models

  • an intimate relation between linguistic structures and instances of use of language,
  • the importance of frequency,
  • comprehension and production as integral, rather than peripheral, to the linguistic system,
  • focus on the role of learning and experience in language acquisition,
  • linguistic representations as emergent, rather than as fixed entities,
  • importance of usage data in theory construction and description,
  • the intimate relation between usage, synchronic variation and diachronic change,
  • the interconnectedness of the linguistic system with non-linguistic cognitive systems,
  • the crucial role of context in the operation of the linguistic system.

Barlow (2000, pp. viii–xxii)

Not all of these points are equally central for a usage-based understanding of language. Some of them seem (nowadays) almost trivial, but should be seen as a response to the huge impact some Chomskyan presuppositions have had on linguistics. In other words, had there not been very influential claims to their contrary from the generative tradition, it had not been as important to point them out. For instance the interconnectedness of language with other areas of cognition deserves mention because the Chomskyan project started off by claiming not only the autonomy of the language faculty, but also a relative autonomy of certain areas of linguistic description such as syntax and morphology. Also, that language data should be taken from usage is ultimately a response to the methodological assumption that the best access a linguist can get to language was the speaker’s intuition. (p. 3)

The interplay between usage and grammar

How does usage affect structure?

‘usage’ (p. 4)

  • the exchange of an utterance in the speaker-hearer interaction (= ‘usage event’)

mapping of structure and usage (p. 4)

  • not flawless → structure is open to variation (and change)

Types of innovation and change

new meanings out of old ones (p. 5)

  • in each usage event, speaker and hearer engage in the negotiation of (new) meanings
  • context can dictate a new interpretation → new meaning inferenced
    • through repetition, these new interpretations can become conventional

1. reshaping the denotation itself (p. 5)

  • changes made to the core meaning
  • i.e. through innovative use

2. pragmatic, social or psychological change (p. 5)

  • innovative usage is triggered for instance by the mere wish to achieve the highest possible attention for the point a speaker intends to make, by the attempt to achieve a best possible basis for a potentially face threatening claim or simply the best possible self-image irrespective of the actual proposition

Formally, the simplest effects of this behaviour are cases of ‘reinforcement’ – the speakers’ tendency to augment highly frequent and therefore rather mundane expressions with additional material (e.g. not at all vs. not). The socio-psychological motivation for this behaviour is often labelled ‘extravagance’ or ‘expressiveness’ (see, e.g. Keller 1994, Section 4). Negotiating one’s social stance or simply exerting politeness strategies are instantiated by resorting to new unexpected ways of expressing things. (p. 5)

3. analogy (p. 5-6)

  • a construed correspondence between a known pattern and some element that is to be categorised or fit into a new instantiation of that pattern
  • given pattern serves as a model for a new structure
  • e.g. metaphorical extensions of lexical meaning

Acknowledging the role of analogy in language change is of course a major endorsement of the cognitivist position. These types of transfer from a known structure onto a new pattern cannot be accounted for without cognitive activity on part of the individual speaker – in the form of analogical inferences during online mental processing. At the same time, a necessary precondition of such an analogical transfer is that there is some novel aspect in each usage event for which a known pattern is being employed. (p. 6)

4. frequency effects (p. 7)

  • higher frequency allows for the phonetic reduction of a form
  • higher frequency endorses a form’s entrenchment in the linguistic system
  • ⟷ low frequency: necessitates clear articulation, form can sometimes even get lost

According to the cognitivist position, the repetition of such usage events may also give rise to changes in the linguistic structure because the repeated co-occurrence of a string of elements for instance leads to the establishment of neuromotor routines that facilitate their production. These routines do not only lead to an increasing reduction of phonological substance in usage but will ultimately affect the mental representation of these elements as one unit (cf. Bybee & Scheibman 1999; Bybee & Thompson 2000; Bybee 2010). (p. 7)

↳ frequency? (p. 7)

  • frequency per context (not absolute frequency)
  • reduction of an expression, in the sense of a string of articulation units (phonemes), is possible if (and only if) it can be expected in a specific situation

For instance, the phonetic string of the German expression wiedersehen ‘see again’, can be (and is) reduced drastically if (and only if) this string is used in the highly conventionalised formula for saying ‘goodbye’ (Auf Wiedersehen ‘on seeing (each other) again’). Reductions can go as far as a bisyllabic /'vɪǝzen/ for a four-syllabic /'viːdɐzeǝn/. This is not possible if the string is uttered in a situation, in which the interlocutors do not part, even if it specifically refers to the formulaic ‘farewell’ rather than to the lexical ‘see again’, as for instance in reported speech. (p. 7)

An increase in frequency automatically also results in the increase of the degree of conventionality of an expression or construction. The more often a linguistic form occurs, the more routinely it is processed in both production and perception and hence the more likely it is re-used by an individual speaker. (p. 8)

What all these phenomena or aspects of language change share is their context-dependence. In principle, they all require the uniqueness of each individual context or speech situation (usage event). If the specific circumstance of an individual usage event did not play any role, there would be no need for innovation. (p. 8)

From a cognition-centred to a communication-centred usage-based perspective

usage-based model of language (p. 9)

  • grammar is based on usage but located and processed in the human mind
  • ⇒ cognitive approach

‘individuality’ of language (p. 9)

  • innovative language use happens in the speaker
  • however: some system needs to be shared → otherwise, successful communication is impossible
  • ⇒ language as a social-communicative activity

Social cues

a pragmatically-oriented cognitive linguistics needs to recognize three different but intimately connected objects of description:

  1. the flow of usage is the basic level, but in addition there is
  2. language as a property of the speech community […], and finally
  3. language as a property of individual speakers (that which qualifies them to be members of the speech community)

(Harder 2012, p. 519)

↳ “the individual level just does not capture all there is to say” (Harder 2010, p. 6)

social aspect (p. 10)

  • Emergent Grammar (Hopper 1987), Invisible Hand (Keller 1994)
  • show how linguistic structures are formed (“emerge”) through communication according to the patterns of social systems

↓

complex-adaptive system (p. 11)

  • “language is in principle dynamic rather than static”
  • “synchronic stages are random snapshots of what is a constantly (re-)emerging system”

↓

usage-based approach: summary

  • the circumstances and input of the speaker-hearer interaction need to be taken into account in an analysis of linguistic structures
  • this makes a cognitivist position plausible

Usage, variation and change

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.