How gradual change progresses: The interaction between convention and innovation

Abstract

This paper hypothesizes that as an expression becomes more frequent in one grammatical context, its mental retrievability improves, which in turn makes it more easily available in different yet closely related (analogous) grammatical contexts. Such a mechanism can account for the progression of gradual change. The hypothesis generates two testable predictions. First, innovative constructions should be more likely to emerge if their analogical models are better entrenched. Second, an expression's retrievability can also be improved by priming, which in the short term should have a similar effect to entrenchment. These predictions are tested against the development of the noun key into an adjective (as in a very key argument). The change is gradual, starting with increased productivity of compounds with key as specifying element, leading later to debonded and clearly adjectival uses. The development of key is analyzed using data from the British Houses of Parliament. The effect of entrenchment is tested against individual variation. Next, situations are investigated where key has been primed, either by an earlier instance of key or by a collocate of key. The evidence supports the hypothesis. Innovative uses of key are favored under conditions that improve the retrievability of its more conventionalized uses.

Toward an optimal code for communication: The case of scientific English

“…Crucially, conventionalization/entrenchment has been argued to be an important precondition for innovative use (cf. De Smet 2016), which is in line with communicative explanations of language change and variation.…”

The diachronic development of combining forms in scientific writing

“…Secondly since -lysis as a noun becomes more conventionalized, it is increasingly used in other related word classes: first adjectives, followed by verbs and then adverbs. This result confirms the above-mentioned observation by De Smet (2016). Thirdly, the use within these word classes shows how some forms become established with a relatively conventionalized use allowing new forms to arise within a word class with an increase in productivity.…”

“…De Smet 2016). This hypothesis is tested by considering conventionalized vs. productive use of CFs considering also word classes changes over time.…”

“…we test whether the use of CFs becomes more conventionalized and whether these forms become more easily available and productive in different, yet closely related, analogous grammatical contexts (cf. De Smet 2016).…”

The decline of the Deontic nci construction in Late Modern English

“…Petré (2016) investigates the competition between [GO to INF] and [BE going to INF] in the works of nineteen 17 th -and early 18 th -century writers to find evidence that the latter construction was an "extravagant" innovation. De Smet (2016) analyses data for 169 different speakers collected from the Hansard Corpus, covering the three final decades of the 20 th century, to study the recent development of the noun key into an adjective, connecting individual speakers' use of the innovative construction with their use of more conventional constructions that provide "analogical support". All of this is research on grammatical innovations, however; historical idiolectal corpora have so far not been deployed in the investigation of constructional attrition.…”