Noun phrase complexity across varieties of English

Abstract

The noun phrase (NP) is at the heart of several studies investigating regional variation in varieties of English. While so far the bulk of research has focused on isolated structural features, the present study is a comparative analysis of NP complexity across varieties of English. NP complexity is compared across five regional varieties and four text categories, based on data from the International Corpus of English. The study adopts a multinomial regression approach, which takes into consideration the interaction of three potential predictors: syntactic function, text type, and variety. The results underline the need for text-type-sensitive studies and add to an understanding of syntactic contact phenomena in varieties of English. More specifically, we find marked differences in the predictive power of the variables and illustrate how focusing on the interaction of syntactic functions, text type and regional variety contributes to a systematic description of variation in the NP in world Englishes.

Global Syntactic Variation in Seven Languages: Toward a Computational Dialectology

“…Most previous work relies on phonetic or phonological features (Kretzschmar, 1992 , 1996 ; Heeringa, 2004 ; Labov et al, 2005 ; Nerbonne, 2006 , 2009 ; Grieve et al, 2011 , 2013 ; Wieling and Nerbonne, 2011 , 2015 ; Grieve, 2013 ; Nerbonne and Kretzschmar, 2013 ; Kretzschmar et al, 2014 ; Kruger and van Rooy, 2018 ) for the simple reason that phonetic representations are relatively straight-forward: a vowel is a vowel and the measurements are the same across varieties and languages. Previous work on syntactic variation has focused on either (i) an incomplete set of language-specific variants, ranging from only a few features to hundreds (Sanders, 2007 , 2010 ; Szmrecsanyi, 2009 , 2013 , 2014 ; Grieve, 2011 , 2012 , 2016 ; Collins, 2012 ; Schilk and Schaub, 2016 ; Szmrecsanyi et al, 2016 ; Calle-Martin and Romero-Barranco, 2017 ; Grafmiller and Szmrecsanyi, 2018 ; Tamaredo, 2018 ) or (ii) language-independent representations such as function words (Argamon and Koppel, 2013 ) or sequences of part-of-speech labels (Hirst and Feiguina, 2007 ; Kroon et al, 2018 ). This forces a choice between either an ad hoc and incomplete syntactic representation or a reproducible but indirect syntactic representation.…”

Thomas Brunner, Simplicity and typological effects in the emergence of New Englishes: The noun phrase in Singaporean and Kenyan English (Topics in English Linguistics, TiEL 97). Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017. Pp. xix+341. ISBN 9783110516593 (hardback).

“…overview). Most recently, a number of researchers have sought to shift the imbalance, resulting in the publication of corpus studies on NP syntax in World Englishes (see Brunner 2014;Schaub 2016;Schilk & Schaub 2016;Akinlotan 2018). Another relatively new strand of scholarly inquiry combines corpus-linguistic research into varieties of English with probabilistic grammar research on syntactic variation (see Szmrecsanyi et al 2016 for a detailed description of this ongoing research).…”

“…In the analysis, it is impossible to disentangle whether any effects on NP structure are due to the level of formality or the modality of the text category. Such an analysis would minimally require a 2x2 set of text categories, where each category represents one end of the formality and modality dimensions (see Schilk & Schaub 2016 for such an approach). More generally, it is clear from the results of the present study and similar studies that the strong influence of register (including formality and modality as separate characteristics of it) and syntactic function (and the interaction of all factors involved) must take centre stage in any research design hoping to uncover any other factors influencing NP variation.…”

“…This assessment is confirmed by Martínez-Insua & Pérez-Guerra (2011) in their introduction to a special issue on noun phrase structure in English, where it is reported that ‘[s]tudies on noun phrases abound in the linguistics literature, and come from a variety of different perspectives and theoretical backgrounds’ (Martínez-Insua & Pérez-Guerra 2011: 201). In particular, the relevance of the English NP in the context of linguistic complexity has been increasingly acknowledged in research from variationist (Brunner 2014; Schilk & Schaub 2016), register (Biber & Gray 2011) and second-language perspectives (Biber, Gray & Ponpoon 2011; Parkinson & Musgrave 2014; Kreyer & Schaub 2018). Despite the growing interest in the English NP, Jucker’s statement still rings true for research in the World Englishes paradigm, where studies on verb phrase variation prevail (see, e.g., Hundt & Gut 2012).…”

“…Existing corpus research on noun-phrase-related phenomena in regional varieties of English is mostly limited to individual morphosyntactic features such as irregular pluralisation or article use (see Mesthrie & Bhatt 2008: 47–58, for an overview). Most recently, a number of researchers have sought to shift the imbalance, resulting in the publication of corpus studies on NP syntax in World Englishes (see Brunner 2014; Schaub 2016; Schilk & Schaub 2016; Akinlotan 2018). Another relatively new strand of scholarly inquiry combines corpus-linguistic research into varieties of English with probabilistic grammar research on syntactic variation (see Szmrecsanyi et al 2016 for a detailed description of this ongoing research).…”