Stochastic effects in the grammar : toward a usage-based model of copula contraction
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The aim of this analysis of conversational English corpus data is to unearth living effects of phonological, syntactic, and frequency information in an area of the grammar prone to variation: copula contraction. "Living" effects arise during active language processing and may be contrasted with the products of diachronic coalescence of sev- eral forms into fused units. Researchers have found that English auxiliary contraction (have > 've, has > 's, be > 'm/'re/'s, will/shall > 'll ) is subject to phonological, processing, and grammatical constraints. These constraints are most evident in the study of the copula, as "to be" contracts with a wider range of hosts than other auxiliaries, or preceding words, i.e., with pronominal and lexical noun phrase hosts. The analysis reveals three novel e ndings about copula contraction. First, copula con- traction is sensitive to both the collocational frequency of the copula and its host and the following word, even when lexical noun phrase hosts (as opposed to pronominal hosts) are considered in light of known grammatical constraints. The more frequent the host or the following word, the more likely the copula is to contract. The results also suggest that the role of preceding phonology in predicting contraction may be more sensitive to voicing than the vowel/consonant distinction that has generally been observed. Persistence is also shown to play a role in predicting contraction . Finally, the results suggest that copula reduction and contraction are sensitive to many of the same factors and argue that this is evidence of the same constraints creating allomorphic variation at the morphological level.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Spencer, Jessica Danielle |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Linguistics. |
| Primary advisor | Rickford, John R, 1949- |
| Thesis advisor | Rickford, John R, 1949- |
| Thesis advisor | Anttila, Arto |
| Thesis advisor | Wasow, Thomas |
| Advisor | Anttila, Arto |
| Advisor | Wasow, Thomas |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Jessica Danielle Spencer. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Linguistics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Jessica Spencer
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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