Morphosyntactic Variation Research Articles

New perspectives on morphosyntactic variation in African youth language practices

Abstract Recent years have seen an increase in scholarly attention paid to youth language practices in Africa, with studies examining a range of linguistic phenomena. A parallel development has seen the emergence of work studying morphosyntactic microvariation in Bantu languages, with a view to better understanding structural variation in closely related languages or varieties. This special collection brings together those working in the fields of youth language practices and morphosyntactic variation in Bantu, with a view to exploring the synergies in these areas, as well as moving this domain of inquiry forward. The contributions are united by the authors’ commitment to addressing specific morphosyntactic phenomena which may have otherwise gone unnoticed, or which are less documented in the existing literature – in particular, in the scholarship on the respective base language or dominant language. We hope that the collection of papers both contributes to this body of work and inspires others to take up some of these issues in future research.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Investigating Language Variation and Change in Portuguese

This Issue focuses on morphosyntactic variation and change in Portuguese [...]

Explaining morpho-syntactic variation and change: the case of subjunctive II in the Bavarian dialects of Austria

Abstract This paper aims to explain recent empirical findings on subjunctive II formation in the Bavarian dialects of Austria from both functional and formal perspectives. For this purpose, the explanatory power of the functional principles of natural morphology (NM) is compared with the formal framework of constructional morphology (CxM). It is argued that the two approaches complement each other. Thus, it is shown that the key concepts of NM (constructional iconicity, uniformity and transparency) can easily be adapted in terms of CxM. These adjustments are needed to explain the ongoing changes in subjunctive II formation in the Bavarian dialects of Austria. This is due to the well-documented shift towards the use of periphrastic constructions (with the täte- and würde-auxiliary) that are located at the interface between morphology and syntax.

Reanalyzing Variable Agreement with tu Using an Online Megacorpus of Brazilian Portuguese

We reanalyze the phenomenon of verbal (non)agreement with the 2SG tu in a megacorpus of Brazilian Portuguese compiled from the web. Unlike previous research, which has analyzed sociolinguistic interview data and regional differences, we examine these data with a focus on the internal linguistic factors that constrain the variability. Our analysis of 4860 tokens of tu + verb reveals that non-agreement with the 3SG verb form is by far the most common pattern, 2SG agreement being relatively infrequent. Individual verb lexemes show highly distinct rates of (non)agreement. In addition, the specific tense/aspect/mood forms and main/auxiliary status are likewise significant factors affecting the variation. We conclude that future studies of this phenomenon should not ignore these internal linguistic factors. We situate our study within a group of other recent studies in Romance linguistics, which have found that individual verbal and constructional patterns can have diverse effects on morphosyntactic variation.

Morphosyntactic stereotypes of speakers with different genders and sexual orientations: an experimental investigation

Abstract Previous research has identified differences in language use between speakers representing different genders and sexual orientations, as well as stereotypical beliefs about the existence of such differences. The present paper investigates such stereotypical beliefs among speakers of two varieties of Spanish and explores whether linguistic stereotypes of gender and sexual orientation are stronger in a society with more conservative gender roles. We conducted an experiment where 252 speakers of European and Mexican Spanish were shown pairs of texts and sentences depicting the same event but differing in the use of morphosyntactic resources, creating stereotypically “masculine” and “feminine” variants of the same text or sentence. The informants were asked which of the variants was more likely uttered by a woman (rather than a man), a lesbian woman (rather than a straight woman), or a gay man (rather than a straight man). Some of the morphosyntactic features were strongly associated with speaker gender (e.g., use of first- and second-person singular) and others with lesbian (e.g., use of impersonal structures) or gay speakers (e.g., direct reported speech). Contrary to expectations, the responses did not differ according to informants’ age, gender, or nationality. While the present study did not reveal any differences between the two societies, more cross-linguistic and cultural research is needed to elucidate the effect of society on morphosyntactic variation and stereotypes thereof.

Case and agreement variation in contact

Abstract This study investigates the influence of language contact on morphosyntactic variation in World Englishes, specifically focusing on the joint variation of case and agreement in it-clefts with pronominal clefted constituents. Employing a multifactorial approach within the framework of probabilistic grammar, we examine the distribution of the four relevant it-cleft variants in the GloWbE corpus. We find that language contact, as a language-external factor, impacts the strengths and rankings of language-internal factors but not their directions. Additionally, we observe an intricate interplay between language contact and language-internal factors in shaping morphosyntactic patterns: low-contact varieties tend to display feature-based case and agreement with a high degree of variability, while high-contact varieties tend to exhibit position-based case and agreement with a low degree of variability. These findings shed light on the mechanisms underlying the development of language diversity and structural simplification in World Englishes.

Mental states via possessive predication: the grammar of possessive experiencer complex predicates in Persian

Persian possesses a number of stative complex predicates with dâshtan ‘to have’ that express certain kinds of mental state. I propose that these possessive experiencer complex predicates be given a formal semantic treatment involving possession of a portion of an abstract quality by an individual, as in the analysis of property concept lexemes due to Francez and Koontz-Garboden (Language 91(3):533–563, 2015; Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 34:93–106, 2016; Semantics and morphosyntactic variation: Qualities and the grammar of property concepts, Oxford University Press, 2017). Augmented with an analysis of prepositional phrases introducing the target of the mental state and an approach to gradability in terms of measure functions (Wellwood in Measuring predicates, PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2014), the analysis explains various properties of possessive experiencer complex predicates, including the behavior of target phrases, the ability of the non-verbal element to be modified by a range of adjectives, the direct participation of the non-verbal element in comparative constructions, and the ability of degree expressions to modify both the non-verbal element and the VP containing the complex predicate. Theoretically, the analysis ties transitive mental state expressions to the grammar and semantics of property concept sentences, which are expressed via possessive morphosyntax cross-linguistically, and connects with syntactic proposals that independently argue for a universal underlyingly possessive morphosyntax for mental state predicates (Noonan in Case and syntactic geometry, PhD dissertation, McGill University, 1992; Hale and Keyser in Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure, MIT Press, 2002). The work here also motivates modifications to Francez and Koontz-Garboden’s original proposal, and opens new questions in the original empirical domain of the analysis of possessive predicating strategies for the expression of property concept sentences.

Exploring Microvariation in Verb-Movement Parameters within Daco-Romanian and across Daco-Romance

This article reviews some of the principal patterns of morphosyntactic variation within Daco-Romanian and across Daco-Romance in support of a distinction between low vs high V-movement grammars variously distributed in accordance with diatopic variation (Daco-Romance: west vs east, Aromanian: north vs south), diachronic and diagenerational variation (Megleno-Romanian) and endogenous vs exogenous factors (Istro-Romanian). This approach, which builds on the insights of the Borer–Chomsky conjecture, assumes that the locus of parametric variation lies in the lexicon and the (PF-)lexicalization of specific formal feature values of individual functional projections, in our case the clausal heads T and v and the broad cartographic areas that they can be taken to represent. In this way, our analysis locates the relevant dimensions of (micro)variation among different Daco-Romance varieties in properties of T and v. In particular, we show that the feature values of these two heads are not set in isolation, inasmuch as parameters form an interrelated network of implicational relationships: the given value of a particular parameter entails the concomitant activation of associated lower-order parametric choices, whose potential surface effects may consequently become entirely predictable, or indeed render other parameters entirely irrelevant. In this way we can derive properties such as verb–adverb order, auxiliary selection, retention vs loss of the preterite, the availability of a dedicated preverbal subject position, the distribution of DOM, and the different stages of Jespersen’s Cycle across Daco-Romance quite transparently, based on the relevant strength of T and v in individual sub-branches and sub-dialects.

Lexical and morphosyntactic variation in Persian heritage language outcomes

Abstract Individual variation in heritage language (HL) outcomes does not seem to be random. Instead, this variation can be related to the specific exposure and use patterns heritage speakers (HSs) have with their languages in the contexts they reside. In this study, we present data from 38 child HSs of Persian in English dominant contexts (in New Zealand and the UK), their mothers as well as a control group of age-matched monolinguals in Iran. All participants completed a film-retelling task from which their lexical sophistication (LS) and clausal density (CD) were measured. In addition, the HSs’ mothers completed a sociolinguistic questionnaire for their children which was used to calculate proxies for language experiences. Out of the two linguistic measures, the HSs differed from monolinguals only in LS scores. Regarding the relationship between HSs’ linguistic scores and language experiences, Random Forest analyses showed HL literacy to be the most important variable for the CD scores; while it was the HSs’ age-at-testing for LS. The mothers’ scores were only important for the HSs’ LS scores. This study contributes to the ongoing discussions on the nature of HL development, outcomes and individual variation.

A micro-parametric survey on typological covariation related to focus marking strategies, based on the Bantu Morphosyntactic Variation database

A micro-parametric survey on typological covariation related to focus marking strategies, based on the Bantu Morphosyntactic Variation database

The second language development of past perfective forms in Spanish

Research studies on second language (L2) morphosyntactic variation that include multiple learner course or experience levels often conduct separate statistical analyses of the factors affecting variation, one per learner level, and compare significant constraints and their coefficients across these groups as an indication of L2 development. This method of comparing across multiple regression analyses can lead to the perception of differences across participant groups that may not be statistically significant. Thus, the current study reanalyzes the data from Author (forthcoming), who investigated the development of past perfective form variation by 105 English-speaking L2 learners of Spanish from six course levels. Participants selected between the preterit and PP on a written contextualized task, in which 32 discursive contexts in a narrative were manipulated for four linguistic variables known to affect preterit-PP variation in the Spanish-speaking world: time of action, verb lexical aspect, sequencing, and presence of a temporal adverb. In our analysis, we combined the data from the six distinct Spanish L2 course levels into one model, and included an interaction between course level and each of the linguistic constraints manipulated in the task. We then compared our findings to Author (forthcoming) who conducted separate regression analyses for each course level. Findings indicate that only time of action and sequencing demonstrated significantly different effects across course levels, and that separate regression analyses across learner levels may lead to an overestimation of differences among these levels.

Natiolectal Variation in Dutch Morphosyntax: A Large-Scale, Data-Driven Perspective

AbstractIn this article, we report a large-scale corpus study aimed at tackling the (controversial) question to what extent the European national varieties of Dutch, that is, Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch, exhibit morpho-syntactic differences. Instead of relying on a manual selection of cases of morphosyntactic variation, we first marshal large bilingual parallel corpora and machine translation software to identify semiautomatically, in an extensively data-driven fashion, loci of variation from various “corners” of Dutch grammar. We then gauge the distribution of con-structional alternatives in a nationally as well as stylistically stratified corpus for a representative selection of twenty alternation patterns. We find that natiolectal variation in the grammar of Dutch is far more prevalent than often assumed, especially in less edited text types, and that it shows up in inflection phenomena, lexically conditioned syntactic variation, and pure word order permutations. Another key finding is that many cases of synchronic probabilistic asymmetries reflect a diachronic difference between the two varieties: Netherlandic Dutch often tends to be ahead in cases of ongoing grammatical change, with Belgian Dutch holding on somewhat longer to obsolescent features of the grammar.*

In the thick of it: scope rivalry in past counterfactuals of Pomerano

This paper analyzes the morphosyntactic variation in past counterfactuals with modal verbs in Pomerano, a Low German variety spoken in Brazil. The variation concerns (i) the highest verb (temporal auxiliary or modal verb), (ii) the morphological form of the temporal auxiliary (blocking of tense and/or person agreement), (iii) the frequently unexpected position of the modal verb (verb clusters in the CP-domain), and (iv) the overall number of verbs (syntactic doubling and/or PF-insertion). Analyzing more than 6,000 translated sentences, scope rivalry between the temporal auxiliary and the modal verb proves to be the major catalyst of an intriguing instance of language variation and change. The derivation of the extant variants grants us a privileged view of the clausal architecture of Pomerano—including cases of derivational misfiring—as well as of more general processes of clause formation.

Pain Constructions in modern Arabic dialects: a typological overview

AbstractPain Constructions (PCs) constitute a class of experiential constructions expressing situations that involve unpleasant physical experiences (e.g.headache,burning eyes, dizziness, etc.). Previous cross-linguistic comparisons have shown that, though languages do not have dedicated morphosyntactic structures for encoding pain, there are certain constructions that are more likely to express physical experiences. Based on original data elicited by means of a situational questionnaire, this paper aims at analyzing the semantic and syntactic properties of PCs in modern Arabic dialects and to make typological generalizations about their cross-dialect variation. Benefiting from insights from both linguistic typology and contact linguistics, the study eventually shows that, despite considerable lexicosemantic and morphosyntactic variation, PCs in Arabic can be reduced to two main syntactic types: locational and inverse constructions.

Visibility Dependency of Morphosyntactic Variations: A Study on Malabar Mappila Malayalam

The paper introduces the concept of ‘visibility’ of the linguistic variant and looks at how it influences language variation by examining the morphosyntactic variations in the discourses in Mappila Malayalam, a sociolect of Malayalam spoken by the Muslim community in Northern Kerala, India namely Mappilas. The study maps the variations in serial verb constructions, case marking, and the perfect aspect marker within the socio-historical context of Mappila Malayalam. The paper also develops towards a theoretical understanding of variation based on the visibility of the variants. Throughout, I observe the variants in Mappila Malayalam that contribute to a unique identity of the community and its extended variations. As such, I adopt a Labovian framework and included aspects of discourse analysis. I advance the work on sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology by discussing the development of a progressive model of variation, while further evidencing that the structure of the variation and social factors conjointly promote further variation concurrently dependent on the visibility of the variant, while considering instances from Mappila Malayalam.

Los pronombres clíticos de tercera persona en el corpus PRESEEA-Medellín

This paper describes the analysis of the form, function and distribution of third person object clitic pronouns in the corpus PRESEEA-Medellín, and aims to widen the knowledge of clitic pronouns’ morphosyntactic variation in different Spanish varieties. Our findings show that the selection of the forms lo(s), la(s) and le(s) is determined by case, gender and number, independently of the animate/inanimate or continuous/discontinuous nature of the referent, which corresponds to the use of a case distinguishing system. The grammaticalization process of indirect object (IO) doubling is almost absolute (99%), and the depronominalization of le in presence of a canonic io shows an advanced degree, considering that in 61.5% cases the dative singular clitic le cooccured with a plural lexical IO in canonic position, a tendency reported for many other varieties of Spanish (see Fernández Soriano, 1999; Company, 2002; Huerta, 2005; Mojedano, 2014).

Epicentral effects on ‐ed/‐t inflectional variation in Australasian Englishes 1850–2020

AbstractThis research examines the possibility of epicentral influence of AusE on NZE, focusing on morphosyntactic variation over 170 years in verb inflections (‐ed/‐t) for the past tense/participles of a set of 12 verbs including burn, learn, spell, spoil. To obtain a diachronic perspective on them in Australasian Englishes we use historical data from 19th‐ and 20th‐century corpora, and 21st‐century data from the NOW corpus of online news. Most verbs show increasing use of ‐t forms in AusE from the 19th to 20th century, and an increase in NZE in the later 20th century, which could be construed as epicentral influence from west to east. But in 21st‐century data from NOW, the ‐ed/‐t balance shifts to ‐ed in both Australasian varieties for eight out of 12 verbs. The fact that ‐t usage on some remains higher in contemporary NZE than AusE suggests a kind of epicentral lag.

Towards an updated dialect atlas of British English

AbstractThis paper presents the results of a survey of phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic variation in British English, based on over 14,000 responses. We map twelve variables using geospatial “hotspot” analysis. One of our aims is to document the patterning of under- and unstudied variables. A second aim is to track changes in real time, which we do by comparing our findings to those of the 1950s-era Survey of English Dialects (SED; Orton, 1962). We improve upon previous dialectological work by paying careful attention to the phonemic status of mergers and splits: In our contemporary data, we do this by asking subjects if they have a phonemic contrast; in the SED data, we do this by superimposing the isoglosses for individual phones. We find evidence for both stability and change; we document previously unverified patterns. Perhaps most importantly, we identify a number of directions for future research.

Linguistic traits as heritable units? Spatial Bayesian clustering reveals Swiss German dialect regions

AbstractIn the early 2000s, the SADS, an extensive linguistic atlas project, surveyed more than three thousand individuals across German-speaking Switzerland on over two hundred linguistic variants, capturing the morphosyntactic variation in Swiss German. In this paper, we applied TESS, a Bayesian clustering method from evolutionary biology to the SADS to infer population structure, building on parallels between biology and linguistics that have recently been illustrated theoretically and explored experimentally. We tested three clustering models with different spatial assumptions: a nonspatial model, a spatial trend model with a spatial gradient, and a spatial full-trend model with both a spatial gradient and spatial-autocorrelation. Results reveal five distinct morphosyntactic populations, four of which correspond to traditional Swiss German dialect regions and one of which corresponds to a base population. Moreover, the spatial trend model outperforms the nonspatial model, suggesting a gradual transition of morphosyntax and supporting the idea of a Swiss Germandialect continuum.

Zur Sprachdynamik des Konjunktivs im Bairischen in Österreich

The paper deals with the morpho-syntactic variation of subjunctive II in Bavarian dialect regions of (former) Austria and focuses on language dynamics.
 The broad empirical basis comes from two different corpora: The first corpus consists of data from the “Dictionary of Bavarian dialects in Austria” (WBÖ), reflecting the base dialects of the first half of the 20th century. These data are supplemented by recent oral data that were elicited in project part 03 “Speech repertoires and varietal spectra” of the Special Research Programme “German in Austria. Variation – Contact – Perception” (DiÖ).
 Combining WBÖ and DiÖ, PP03 data, a real time comparison is carried out. For additional apparent time evidence, the internal variation within the two datasets is taken into account: While in the WBÖ data different registers are compared, variation in the DiÖ, PP03 data is analyzed with respect to different registers and different speaker groups (old vs. young).
 The WBÖ and the DiÖ, PP03 data provide empirical evidence that the -ad-marker that was initially restricted to weak verbs has exceeded its domain and is universally compatible with all verb classes. In connection with this, there is a decrease of strong synthetic subjunctive II forms.
 The real time as well as the apparent time findings indicate an increase of analytic subjunctive II constructions at the cost of synthetic forms. Furthermore, we find an expansion of the werden-periphrasis, while the number of tun-subjunctives declines.