Mapping out particle placement in Englishes around the world: A study in comparative sociolinguistic analysis

Abstract

This study explores variability in particle placement across nine varieties of English around the globe, utilizing data from the International Corpus of English and the Global Corpus of Web-based English. We introduce a quantitative approach for comparative sociolinguistics that integrates linguistic distance metrics and predictive modeling, and use these methods to examine the development of regional patterns in grammatical constraints on particle placement in World Englishes. We find a high degree of uniformity among the conditioning factors influencing particle placement in native varieties (e.g., British, Canadian, and New Zealand English), while English as a second language varieties (e.g., Indian and Singaporean English) exhibit a high degree of dissimilarity with the native varieties and with each other. We attribute the greater heterogeneity among second language varieties to the interaction between general L2 acquisition processes and the varying sociolinguistic contexts of the individual regions. We argue that the similarities in constraint effects represent compelling evidence for the existence of a shared variable grammar and variation among grammatical systems is more appropriately analyzed and interpreted as a continuum rather than multiple distinct grammars.

Variation-Based Distance and Similarity Modeling: A Case Study in World Englishes

“…For reasons of space, we cannot review the definitions of the variable contexts in detail here; the reader is referred to the discussions in Heller (2018), Röthlisberger (2018), and Grafmiller and Szmrecsanyi (2018). After all interchangeable variants were identified in the materials (dative alternation: N = 13,171; genitive alternation: N = 13,798; particle placement alternation: N = 11,454), each observation was annotated, manually or automatically, for a multitude of known and less-well known constraints on syntactic variation.…”

“…8 A Bonferroni correction could in principle be used to make the alpha level more conservative, but we refrain from doing so here since our main interest lies with comparative analysis (using significance as an auxiliary criterion), and not with statistical significance per se. Genitive alternation (see Heller et al, 2017) Dative alternation (see Röthlisberger et al, 2017) Particle placement alternation (see Grafmiller and Szmrecsanyi, 2018) Possessor Variety A and B agree on the significance of three constraints (a, d, e), and disagree with regard to two constraints. The distance between the two varieties is thus two out of five squared Euclidean distance points.…”

“…(1) The genitive alternation (Heller et al, 2017) a. the country's economic crisis (the s-genitive) b. the economic growth of the country (the of -genitive) (2) The dative alternation (Röthlisberger et al, 2017) a. I'd given Heidi my T-Shirt (the ditransitive dative variant) b. I'd given the key to Helen (the prepositional dative variant) (3) The particle placement alternation (Grafmiller and Szmrecsanyi, 2018) a. just cut the tops off (verb-object-particle order) b. cut off the flowers (verb-particle-object order) 1 The concept of a probabilistic grammar thus largely overlaps with what variationist sociolinguists refer to as a "variable grammar, " defined by Tagliamonte (2006, p. 240), citing Poplack and Tagliamonte (2001, p. 91), as being represented by "the hierarchy of constraints constituting each factor [that regulates variation]".…”

Modeling Global Syntactic Variation in

“…For example, this study of dialect classification contains inner-circle (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, United States), outer-circle (India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Philippines, Pakistan, South Africa), and expanding-circle (Switzerland, Portugual) varieties together in a single model. The problem is that these more recent approaches, while they consider more varieties of English, have arbitrarily limited the scope of variation by focusing on a relatively small number of features (Grafmiller & Szmrecsanyi, 2018;Kruger & van Rooy, 2018;Schilk & Schaub, 2016;Collins, 2012). In practical terms, such work uses a smaller range of syntactic representations than comparable work in authorship analysis (c.f., Grieve, 2007;Hirst & Feiguina, 2007;Argamon & Koppel, 2013).…”

Probabilistic indigenization effects at the lexis–syntax interface

“…Szmrecsanyi et al 2016) or has analyzed variable patterns in one alternation but across several varieties (e.g. Heller et al 2017;Röthlisberger et al 2017;Grafmiller & Szmrecsanyi 2018;Hundt et al to appear). While these studies provide various explanations for probabilistic indigenization effects -drawing on general cognitive processes of language acquisition, language contact and dialect drift -the degree to which the lexical items used in each variant might influence variant choice differently in the alternations has received only little attention (but see Röthlisberger et al 2017: 698-9).…”