Cognitive indigenization effects in the English dative alternation
-
,
Abstract
We advance theory formation in cognitive sociolinguistics by exploring the extent to which language users’ probabilistic grammar varies regionally. For this purpose, we investigate the effects of constraints that influence the choice between the two syntactic variants in the well-known dative alternation (I give Mary a book vs. I give a book to Mary) across nine post-colonial varieties of English. Using mixed-effects logistic regression and adopting a large-scale comparative perspective, we illustrate that on the one hand, stability in probabilistic grammars prevails across speakers of diverse regional and cultural backgrounds. On the other hand, traces of indigenization are found in those contexts where shifting usage frequencies in language-internal variation seem to have led to regional differences between users’ probabilistic grammar(s). Within a psycholinguistically grounded model of probabilistic grammar, we interpret these results from various explanatory perspectives, including language contact phenomena, second language acquisition, and semantic variation and change.
Acknowledgments
Funding by the Research Foundation Flanders (grant no. G.0C59.13N) is gratefully acknowledged. We would like to thank Benedikt Heller for his help in the annotation process, Dirk Geeraerts and Marianne Hundt for insightful comments on an early version of this paper, Christy Ha for her thorough proof-reading, and three anonymous reviewers and the editors for their helpful comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimers apply.
Appendix
Overall proportion of dative tokens by variety and variant.
| Variety | ditransitive dative | prepositional dative | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| CanE | 630 (73.3 %) | 230 (26.7 %) | 860 |
| BrE | 609 (73.9 %) | 215 (26.1 %) | 824 |
| HKE | 794 (66.1 %) | 407 (33.9 %) | 1201 |
| IndE | 563 (56.1 %) | 440 (43.9 %) | 1003 |
| IrE | 611 (74.2 %) | 212 (25.8 %) | 823 |
| JamE | 665 (73.2 %) | 243 (26.8 %) | 908 |
| NZE | 699 (71.3 %) | 282 (28.7 %) | 981 |
| PhiE | 619 (65.9 %) | 321 (34.1 %) | 940 |
| SinE | 735 (72.8 %) | 274 (27.2 %) | 1009 |
| TOTAL | 5925 | 2624 | 8549 |
Overall distribution of dative tokens by verb and variant.
| Verb | ditransitive | prepositional | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| accord | 4 | 3 | 7 |
| advise | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| (re-)allocate | 0 | 12 | 12 |
| allot | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| allow | 66 | 7 | 73 |
| answer | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| appoint | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| assign | 8 | 30 | 38 |
| assure | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| award | 4 | 12 | 16 |
| bequeath | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| bid | 9 | 6 | 15 |
| bring | 82 | 122 | 204 |
| carry | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| cause | 44 | 53 | 99 |
| cede | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| charge | 21 | 6 | 27 |
| concede | 0 | 6 | 6 |
| convey | 1 | 34 | 35 |
| deal | 3 | 5 | 8 |
| deliver | 3 | 23 | 26 |
| demonstrate | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| deny | 30 | 5 | 35 |
| drop | 30 | 2 | 32 |
| entrust | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| explain | 2 | 48 | 53 |
| extend | 3 | 32 | 35 |
| feed | 5 | 9 | 14 |
| flick | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| forward | 3 | 8 | 11 |
| get | 2 | 7 | 9 |
| give | 3,686 | 926 | 4,612 |
| grant | 41 | 29 | 70 |
| guarantee | 10 | 1 | 11 |
| hand | 39 | 28 | 67 |
| impart | 0 | 9 | 9 |
| inform | 5 | 1 | 6 |
| issue | 1 | 27 | 28 |
| keep | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| leave | 31 | 33 | 64 |
| lend | 26 | 38 | 64 |
| loan | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| lose | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| (e-)mail | 6 | 7 | 13 |
| name | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| offer | 161 | 83 | 244 |
| owe | 36 | 29 | 65 |
| pass | 15 | 46 | 61 |
| pay | 91 | 210 | 301 |
| permit | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| play | 8 | 12 | 20 |
| pose | 0 | 16 | 16 |
| post | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| prescribe | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| present | 3 | 62 | 65 |
| promise | 18 | 2 | 20 |
| propose | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| quote | 3 | 6 | 9 |
| read | 10 | 16 | 26 |
| recommend | 1 | 12 | 13 |
| refuse | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| render | 2 | 7 | 9 |
| return | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| sell | 21 | 83 | 104 |
| send | 326 | 218 | 544 |
| serve | 13 | 11 | 24 |
| set | 7 | 2 | 9 |
| show | 316 | 71 | 387 |
| sing | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| slip | 4 | 1 | 5 |
| submit | 0 | 63 | 63 |
| suggest | 1 | 6 | 7 |
| take | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| teach | 118 | 16 | 134 |
| tell | 422 | 23 | 445 |
| throw | 6 | 6 | 12 |
| toss | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| vote | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| wish | 99 | 0 | 99 |
| write | 46 | 48 | 94 |
| yield | 0 | 5 | 5 |
Division of the subregisters in the ICE corpora into spoken formal (SpokForm), spoken informal (SpokInf), written formal (WritForm) and written informal (WritInf).
| Register | Subregisters in ICE |
|---|---|
| SpokForm | public dialogues, scripted monologues |
| SpokInf | private dialogues, unscripted monologues |
| WritForm | academic writing, popular writing, instructional writing |
| WritInf | student writing, letters, reportage, persuasive writing, creative writing |
References
Arnold, Jennifer E., Anthony Losongco, Thomas Wasow & Ryan Ginstrom. 2000. Heaviness vs. newness: The effects of structural complexity and discourse status on constituent ordering. Language 76(1). 28–55.10.1353/lan.2000.0045Suche in Google Scholar
Baayen, R. Harald. 2008. Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511801686Suche in Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas, Martin Mächler, Benjamin M. Bolker & Steven C. Walker. 2015. Fitting linear mixed effect models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software 67(1). 1–48.10.18637/jss.v067.i01Suche in Google Scholar
Behaghel, Otto. 1909. Beziehungen zwischen Umfang und Reihenfolge von Satzgliedern. Indogermanische Forschungen 25. 110–142.Suche in Google Scholar
Berlage, Eva. 2014. Noun phrase complexity in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139057684Suche in Google Scholar
Bernaisch, Tobias, Th. Gries Stefan & Joybrato Mukherjee. 2014. The dative alternation in South Asian English(es): Modelling predictors and predicting prototypes. English World-Wide 35(1). 7–31.10.1075/eww.35.1.02berSuche in Google Scholar
Bock, Kathryn. 1982. Toward a cognitive psychology of syntax: Information processing contributions to sentence formulation. Psychological Review 89(1). 1–47.10.1037/0033-295X.89.1.1Suche in Google Scholar
Branigan, Holly P., Martin J. Pickering & Mikihiro Tanaka. 2008. Contributions of animacy to grammatical function assignment and word order during production. Lingua 118(2). 172–189.10.1016/j.lingua.2007.02.003Suche in Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan. 2007. Is syntactic knowledge probabilistic? Experiments with the English dative alternation. In Sam Featherston & Wolfgang Sternefeld (eds.), Roots: Linguistics in search of its evidential base, 75–96. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Suche in Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan, Anna Cueni, Tatiana Nikitina & Harald Baayen. 2007. Predicting the dative alternation. In Gerlof Boume, Irene Krämer & Joost Zwarts (eds.), Cognitive foundations of interpretation, 69–94. Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Science.Suche in Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan & Marilyn Ford. 2010. Predicting syntax: Processing dative constructions in American and Australian varieties of English. Language 86(1). 168–213.10.1353/lan.0.0189Suche in Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan & Jennifer Hay. 2008. Gradient grammar: An effect of animacy on the syntax of give in New Zealand and American English. Lingua 118(2). 245–259.10.1016/j.lingua.2007.02.007Suche in Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan & Tatiana Nikitina. 2009. The gradience of the dative alternation. In Linda Uyechi & Lian Hee Wee (eds.), Reality exploration and discovery: Pattern interaction in language and life, 161–184. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Suche in Google Scholar
Bruyn, Adrienne, Pieter Muysken & Maaike Verrips. 1999. Double-object constructions in the creole languages: Development and acquisition. In Michel DeGraff (ed.), Language creation and language change: Creolization, diachrony and development, 329–373. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan & Paul Hopper. 2001. Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.45Suche in Google Scholar
Collins, Peter. 1995. The indirect object construction in English: An informational approach. Linguistics 33. 35–49.10.1515/ling.1995.33.1.35Suche in Google Scholar
Cueni, Anna. 2004. Predicting the outcome of the choice between the dative constructions of English. Stanford: ms.Suche in Google Scholar
Davies, Mark. 2013. Corpus of global web-based English: 1.9 billion words from speakers in 20 countries. http://corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/.Suche in Google Scholar
De Cuypere, Ludovic & Saartje Verbeke. 2013. Dative alternation in Indian English: A corpus-based analysis. World Englishes 32(2). 169–184.10.1111/weng.12017Suche in Google Scholar
Divjak, Dagmar, Ewa Dabrowska & Antti Arppe. 2016. Machine meets man: Evaluating the psychological reality of corpus-based probabilistic models. Cognitive Linguistics 27(1). 1–33.10.1515/cog-2015-0101Suche in Google Scholar
Dodson, Kelly & Michael Tomasello. 1998. Aquiring the transitive construction in English: The role of animacy and pronouns. Journal of Child Language 25(3). 605–622.10.1017/S0305000998003535Suche in Google Scholar
Ellis, Nick C. 2002. Frequency effects in language processing: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 24. 143–188.10.1017/S0272263102002024Suche in Google Scholar
Farquharson, Joseph T. 2013. Jamaican structure dataset. In Susanne Maria Michaelis, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath & Magnus Huber (eds.), Atlas of Pidgin and Creole language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. http://apics-online.info/contributions/8, (accessed 20 January 2017).Suche in Google Scholar
Ferreira, Fernanda. 1994. Choice of passive voice is affected by verb type and animacy. Journal of Memory and Language 33. 715–736.10.1006/jmla.1994.1034Suche in Google Scholar
Filppula, Markku. 1999. The grammar of Irish English: Language in Hibernian style. London & New York: Routledge.10.2307/29742738Suche in Google Scholar
Gahl, Susanne & Susan Garnsey. 2004. Knowledge of grammar, knowledge of usage: Syntactic probabilities affect pronunciation variation. Language 80. 748–775.10.1353/lan.2004.0185Suche in Google Scholar
Garretson, Gregory, M. Catherine O’Connor, Barbora Skarabela & Marjorie Hogan. 2004. Coding practices used in the project optimality typology of determiner phrases. corpus.bu.edu/documentation/BUNPCorpus_coding_practices.pdf.Suche in Google Scholar
Geeraerts, Dirk, Gitte Kristiansen & Yves Peirsman (eds.). 2010. Advances in cognitive sociolinguistics. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9783110226461Suche in Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew. 2008. Scaling regression inputs by dividing by two standard deviations. Statistics in Medicine 27(15). 2865–2873.10.1002/sim.3107Suche in Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew & Jennifer Hill. 2007. Data analysis using regression and multilevel/hierarchical models. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511790942Suche in Google Scholar
Gerwin, Johanna. 2014. Ditransitives in British English dialects. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110352320Suche in Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E. 2002. Surface generalizations: An alternative to alternations. Cognitive Linguistics 13(4). 327–356.10.1515/cogl.2002.022Suche in Google Scholar
Grafmiller, Jason. 2014. Variation in English genitives across modality and genres. English Language and Linguistics 18(3). 471–496.10.1017/S1360674314000136Suche in Google Scholar
Grafmiller, Jason, Benedikt Heller, Melanie Röthlisberger & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi. 2016. Syntactic variation and probabilistic indigenization in World Englishes. Paper presented at the New Ways of Analyzing Syntactic Variation 2 symposium, Ghent University, Belgium, 19–20 May.Suche in Google Scholar
Greenbaum, Sidney. 1996. Comparing English worldwide: The international corpus of English. Oxford & New York: Clarendon.Suche in Google Scholar
Gries, Stefan Th. 2013. Sources of variability relevant to the cognitive sociolinguist, and corpus- as well as psycholinguistic methods and notions to handle them. Journal of Pragmatics 52. 5–16.10.1016/j.pragma.2012.12.011Suche in Google Scholar
Gries, Stefan Th. 2015. The most under-used method in corpus linguistics: Multi-level (and mixed-effects) models. Corpora 10(1). 95–125.10.3366/cor.2015.0068Suche in Google Scholar
Harder, Peter. 2010. Meaning in mind and society: A functional contribution to the social turn in cognitive linguistics. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110216059Suche in Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2013. Ditransitive constructions: The verb “give”. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. http://wals.info/chapter/105.Suche in Google Scholar
Hawkins, John A. 1994. A performance theory of order and constituency. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Heller, Benedikt, Benedikt Szmrecsanyi & Jason Grafmiller. 2017. Stability and fluidity in syntactic variation world-wide: The genitive alternation across varieties of English. Journal of English Linguistics 45(1). 3–27.10.1177/0075424216685405Suche in Google Scholar
Hosmer, David W. & Stanley Lemeshow. 2000. Applied logistic regression, 2nd edn. (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics). New York: Wiley.10.1002/0471722146Suche in Google Scholar
Hundt, Marianne & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi. 2012. Animacy in early New Zealand English. English World-Wide 33. 241–263.10.1075/eww.33.3.01hunSuche in Google Scholar
Kendall, Tyler, Joan Bresnan & Van Herk. Gerard 2011. The dative alternation in African American English: Researching syntactic variation and change across sociolinguistic datasets. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 11. 361–389.10.1515/cllt.2011.011Suche in Google Scholar
Klavan, Jane & Dagmar Divjak. 2016. The cognitive plausibility of statistical classification models: Comparing textual and behavioral evidence. Folia Linguistica 50(2). 355–384.10.1515/flin-2016-0014Suche in Google Scholar
Koch, Peter & Wulf Oesterreicher. 1985. Sprache der Nähe - Sprache der Distanz: Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit im Spannungsfeld von Sprachtheorie und Sprachgeschichte. Romanistisches Jahrbuch 36. 15–43.10.1515/9783112418307-002Suche in Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 2003. Semantic and pragmatic conditions for the dative alternation. Proceedings of the KASELL 2003 International Conference on English Language and Linguistics, 1–14. Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea, 25–26 June.Suche in Google Scholar
Kristiansen, Gitte & Dirk Geeraerts (eds.). 2013. Contexts of use in cognitive sociolinguistics (Thematic Issue of Journal of Pragmatics) 52.10.1016/j.pragma.2012.12.017Suche in Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Leufkens, Sterre. 2013. The transparency of creoles. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 28(2). 323–362.10.1075/jpcl.28.2.03leuSuche in Google Scholar
Levin, Beth. 1993. English verb classes and alternations: A preliminary investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Suche in Google Scholar
MacDonald, Maryellen C. 2013. How language production shapes language form and comprehension. Frontiers in Psychology 4. 1–16.10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00226Suche in Google Scholar
MacWhinney, Brian. 1997. Second language acquisition and the competition model. In A. M. B. De Groot & Judith F. Kroll (eds.), Tutorials in bilingualism: Psycholinguistic perspectives, 113–142. Mahwa, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Suche in Google Scholar
McDonough, Kim. 2006. Interaction and syntactic priming: English L2 speakers’ production of dative constructions. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 28(2). 179–207.10.1017/S0272263106060098Suche in Google Scholar
Meade, Rocky R. 2001. Acquisition of Jamaican phonology. Delft: De Systeem Drukkers.Suche in Google Scholar
Menard, Scott W. 2010. Logistic regression: From introductory to advanced concepts and applications. Los Angeles: SAGE.10.4135/9781483348964Suche in Google Scholar
Michaelis, Susanne Maria, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath & Magnus Huber (eds.). 2013. APiCS Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. http://apics-online.info/.Suche in Google Scholar
Milin, Petar, Dagmar Divjak, Strahinja Dimitrijevic & R. Harald Baayen. 2016. Towards cognitively plausible data science in language research. Cognitive Linguistics 27(4). 507–526.10.1515/cog-2016-0055Suche in Google Scholar
Mukherjee, Joybrato & Sebastian Hoffmann. 2006. Describing verb-complementational profiles of New Englishes: A pilot study of Indian English. English World-Wide 27. 147–173.10.1075/eww.27.2.03mukSuche in Google Scholar
Perek, Florent. 2012. Alternation-based generalizations are stored in the mental grammar: Evidence from a sorting task experiment. Cognitive Linguistics 23(3). 601–635.10.1515/cog-2012-0018Suche in Google Scholar
Pinheiro, José C. & Douglas M. Bates. 2000. Mixed-effects models in S and S-PLUS. New York: Springer.10.1007/978-1-4419-0318-1Suche in Google Scholar
R Core Team. 2014. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. http://www.R-project.org/.Suche in Google Scholar
Sand, Andrea. 2004. Shared morpho-syntactic features in contact varieties of English: Article use. World Englishes 23(2). 281–298.10.1111/j.0883-2919.2004.00352.xSuche in Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar. 2007. Postcolonial English: Varieties around the world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511618901Suche in Google Scholar
Scott-Phillips, Thomas C. & Simon Kirby. 2010. Language evolution in the laboratory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 14(9). 411–417.10.1016/j.tics.2010.06.006Suche in Google Scholar
Siegel, Jeff, Benedikt Szmrecsanyi & Bernd Kortmann. 2014. Measuring analyticity and syntheticity in creoles. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 29(1). 49–85.10.1075/jpcl.29.1.02sieSuche in Google Scholar
Siemund, Peter. 2013. Varieties of English: A typological approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139028240Suche in Google Scholar
Stefanowitsch, Anatol & Th. Gries Stefan 2003. Collostructions: Investigating the interaction of words and constructions. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 8(2). 209–243.10.1075/ijcl.8.2.03steSuche in Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt, Jason Grafmiller, Benedikt Heller & Röthlisberger. Melanie 2016. Around the world in three alternations: Modeling syntactic variation in varieties of English. English World-Wide 37(2). 109–137.10.1075/eww.37.2.01szmSuche in Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A. 2014. A comparative sociolinguistic analysis of the dative alternation. In Rena Torres-Cacoullos, Nathalie Dion & André Lapierre (eds.), Linguistic variation: Confronting fact and theory, 297–318. London & New York: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar
Theijssen, Daphne, Louis Ten Bosch, Lou Boves, Bert Cranen & van Halteren. Hans 2013. Choosing alternatives: Using Bayesian networks and memory-based learning to study the dative alternation. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 9(2). 227–262.10.1515/cllt-2013-0007Suche in Google Scholar
Wasow, Thomas & Jennifer Arnold. 2003. Post-verbal constituent ordering in English. In Günter Rohdenburg & Britta Mondorf (eds.), Determinants Of grammatical variation in English, 119–154. Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110900019.119Suche in Google Scholar
Wolk, Christoph, Joan Bresnan, Anette Rosenbach & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi. 2013. Dative and genitive variability in Late Modern English: Exploring cross-constructional variation and change. Diachronica 30(3). 382–419.10.1075/dia.30.3.04wolSuche in Google Scholar
Zaenen, Annie, Jean Carletta, Gregory Garretson, Joan Bresnan, Andrew Koontz-Garboden, Tatiana Nikitina, Mary Catherine O’Connor & Thomas Wasow. 2004. Animacy encoding in English: Why and how. In Donna Byron & Bonnie Webber (eds.), Proceedings of the 2004 ACL Workshop on Discourse Annotation, Barcelona, July 2004, 118–125. East Stroudsburg, PA: Association for Computational Linguistics.10.3115/1608938.1608954Suche in Google Scholar
Zuur, Alain F., Elena N. Ieno, Neil J. Walker, Anatoly A. Saveliev & Graham M. Smith. 2009. Mixed effects models and extensions in ecology with R. New York: Springer.10.1007/978-0-387-87458-6Suche in Google Scholar
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Testing the boundaries of the middle voice: Observations from English and Romanian
- Conceptual representations and figurative language in language shift
- Cognitive indigenization effects in the English dative alternation
- Cognitive Grammar and English nominalization: Event/result nominals and gerundives
- Gradual development of constructional complexity in German spatial language
- Book Reviews
- Rochelle Lieber: English Nouns: The Ecology of Nominalization
- Geert Brône Kurt Feyaerts Tony Veale: Cognitive Linguistics and Humor Research
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Testing the boundaries of the middle voice: Observations from English and Romanian
- Conceptual representations and figurative language in language shift
- Cognitive indigenization effects in the English dative alternation
- Cognitive Grammar and English nominalization: Event/result nominals and gerundives
- Gradual development of constructional complexity in German spatial language
- Book Reviews
- Rochelle Lieber: English Nouns: The Ecology of Nominalization
- Geert Brône Kurt Feyaerts Tony Veale: Cognitive Linguistics and Humor Research
