Collocation, Collocation, Collocation: Discourse Formulas in Grammatical Variation

1977

Singularity and Plurality in English Noun Phrases [: A Study in Grammar and Pragmatics.Keith Allan The British Library, Document Supply Centre, 1977.

Studies in comparative Germanic syntax, 1995

RICHARD S. KAYNE AGREEMENT AND VERB MORPHOLOGY IN THREE VARIETIES OF ENGLISH* ABSTRACT. Based on data concerning agreement and floated quantifiers from standard English and two non-standard variants, various generalizations are drawn as to when ...

This paper combines quantitative corpus data and experimental evidence to address the question whether speech perception is influenced by knowledge of grammatical constructions and, more specifically, knowledge of preferred collocation patterns of these constructions. Lexical identification tasks are devised in which subjects are presented with synthesized, phonetically ambiguous stimuli. The results suggest that knowledge of constructions and collocations influences speech perception, thus providing evidence for a usage-based, non-modular view of grammar.

2016

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2017

Pluralization in the English language presents a myriad of problems to the chagrin of the second language user because the formation of plural is fluid and emanates from the etymology of the noun that is affected (word). Plural formation in English has no definite format but for the use of the bound morpheme/s/ which is attached to the common noun that gains in the use of the plural marker. English has enriched its vocabulary by very many languages adopting not only the words but also their plural forms, hence the L2 user of English is often at a loss of which plural markers to use. This paper seeks to address the myriad of problems encountered by the second language user of English in trying to grapple with the various forms of the plural markers. The sentences used must adhere to the forms of plural germane to common nouns in English. The paper recommends that second language users of English should spend sometime learning the structure of the language. This is key to understandin...

In in Heike Behrens and Stefan Pfänder (eds.), Experience Counts: Frequency effects in language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter., 2014

It is a central assumption of usage-based linguistics that syntactic structures, i.e.

Journal of Memory and Language, 2013

The utterance planning processes allowing speakers to produce agreement between subjects and verbs (the cats pl are pl asleep) have been the topic of extensive study as a window into language production mechanisms. A key question has been the extent to which agreement processing is influenced by semantic and phonological factors. Most prior studies have found limited effects of non-syntactic, particularly phonological factors, leading to conclusions that agreement is computed by a process influenced strongly by syntactic factors and with only a minor contribution of semantics. This conclusion may have been influenced by use of agreement error data as the main dependent variable, because errors are rare, potentially reducing sensitivity to the interaction of several factors. Two studies investigate agreement processing in Serbian, which allows both singular and plural verb forms to agree with plural nouns in some constructions. We use these constructions to further investigate the contribution of semantic factors to agreement, by manipulating levels of individuation of the members of a set. In addition, we investigate the effect of morphophonological homophony onto the participants' productions of agreeing forms. The findings are discussed in the context of three models of agreement (Marking & Morphing, competition and controller misidentification), which differ in the extent to which they allow the influence of non-syntactic factors on agreement. We also compare the behavioral findings with the predictions of four computational implementations of the Marking & Morphing account. We discuss the implications of the behavioral and computational findings for models of agreement and the language production more broadly. Rosemary: Some biscuits or a piece of cake… 'goes' or 'go' better with an afternoon tea? In this quote, the speaker expresses indecisiveness about whether the verb should be singular (goes) or plural (go) for the subject noun phrase biscuits or cake. Her utterance is a relatively rare example of a conscious contemplation of subject-verb agreement, which usually proceeds rapidly and without reflection during language production. Despite the typical speed and accuracy with which agreement is computed, the mapping between a subject noun phrase and its agreeing verb is a complex one in many languages, and language production

The Routledge Handbook of North American Languages, 2019

North American languages exhibit a variety of agreement systems, including nominative-accusative, ergative-absolutive, hierarchical/direct-inverse, and agent-patient patterns, as well as phenomena such as object agreement, inverse number, and omnivorous number. This chapter examines the patterning and exponence of agreement in these languages, including the φ-features tracked by agreement, types of agreement systems and how these systems reflect grammatical alignment, debates about the syntactic status of agreement markers (as genuine agreement or clitics), and the points at which agreement can occur in the clausal spine.

Language Variation and Change, 2015

Written and spoken language are known to differ substantially (Biber, 1988; 1995; Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, & Finegan, 1999). Standard written language is highly uniform and governed by prescription, whereas the vernacular is most revealing of structured heterogeneity (Weinreich, Labov, & Herzog, 1968). We focus on four English morphosyntactic variables that problematize assumptions about the nature of variation in the vernacular: the genitive, the comparative, the dative, and relative pronouns. Each is characterized in casual speech by functional divides that reflect discrete configurations of variant use. After detailing the patterning of these variables in speech, we explore a characteristic arguably shared by each: its historical pathway into the language, where analogy and prestige were powerful motivations for variant choice. We suggest that this combination of systemic and social factors contributed to the nature of these variables in the vernacular grammar. Furthermor...

Frontiers in Psychology, 2016

We explore the language production process by eliciting subject-verb agreement errors.

Language Variation and Change, 2012

Tagliamonte, S., and R. H. Baayen What is the explanation for vigorous variation between was and were in plural existential constructions, and what is the optimal tool for analyzing it? Previous studies of this phenomenon have used the variable rule program, a generalized linear model; however, recent developments in statistics have introduced new tools, including mixed-effects models, random forests, and conditional inference trees that may open additional possibilities for data exploration, analysis, and interpretation. In a step-by-step demonstration, we show how this well-known variable benefits from these complementary techniques. Mixed-effects models provide a principled way of assessing the importance of random-effect factors such as the individuals in the sample. Random forests provide information about the importance of predictors, whether factorial or continuous, and do so also for unbalanced designs with high multicollinearity, cases for which the family of linear models is less appropriate. Conditional inference trees straightforwardly visualize how multiple predictors operate in tandem. Taken together, the results confirm that polarity, distance from verb to plural element, and the nature of the DP are significant predictors. Ongoing linguistic change and social reallocation via morphologization are operational. Furthermore, the results make predictions that can be tested in future research. We conclude that variationist research can be substantially enriched by an expanded tool kit.

In two experiments, we examined the functional locus of plural dominance in the French spoken word production system, where singulars and plurals share the same phonological word form. The materials included singular-dominant (singular more frequent than plural) and plural-dominant nouns (plural more frequent than singular). In Experiment 1, participants were instructed to produce determiner-noun phrases in response to singular and plural depictions of objects. In contrast to the dominance-by-number interaction that is typically observed in English, Dutch and German, the French picture-naming data revealed a main effect of number, but no effect of plural dominance. When participants were instructed to produce determiner-noun phrases in a reading aloud task (Experiment 2), where number is orthographically marked, a number-by-dominance interaction emerged. Our data suggest that plural dominance is encoded at the word form level within the context of recent theories of spoken word production.

Psychological Review, 2005

Grammatical agreement flags the parts of sentences that belong together regardless of whether the parts appear together. In English, the major agreement controller is the sentence subject, the major agreement targets are verbs and pronouns, and the major agreement category is number. The authors expand an account of number agreement whose tenets are that pronouns acquire number lexically, whereas verbs acquire it syntactically but with similar contributions from number meaning and from the number morphology of agreement controllers. These tenets were instantiated in a model using existing verb agreement data. The model was then fit to a new, more extensive set of verb data and tested with a parallel set of pronoun data. The theory was supported by the model's outcomes. The results have implications for the integration of words and structures, for the workings of agreement categories, and for the nature of the transition from thought to language.