Dialect data, lexical frequency and the usage-based approach
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Lynn Clark
Abstract
Unlike most work in the generative tradition, researchers employing usage-based models of language change (e.g. see the collection of papers in Barlow and Kemmer 2000) often incorporate variable data in their model building. Most of this variable data comes from large corpora. While this approach appreciates the importance of testing models of language change on observed language use, it is also problematic because it forces the researcher to test theories of language change on abstract language varieties such as ‘American English’. This is particularly problematic because the usage-based approach assumes that the speakers’ linguistic system is abstracted largely from their previous experience and, hence, that no two speakers will have the same grammar. This paper aims to redress this mismatch by considering the role of lexical frequency in a usage-based model of phonological change in light of new data that was collected from a relatively (geographically and socially) homogeneous group of speakers living within a single dialect area in east-central Scotland.
Abstract
Unlike most work in the generative tradition, researchers employing usage-based models of language change (e.g. see the collection of papers in Barlow and Kemmer 2000) often incorporate variable data in their model building. Most of this variable data comes from large corpora. While this approach appreciates the importance of testing models of language change on observed language use, it is also problematic because it forces the researcher to test theories of language change on abstract language varieties such as ‘American English’. This is particularly problematic because the usage-based approach assumes that the speakers’ linguistic system is abstracted largely from their previous experience and, hence, that no two speakers will have the same grammar. This paper aims to redress this mismatch by considering the role of lexical frequency in a usage-based model of phonological change in light of new data that was collected from a relatively (geographically and socially) homogeneous group of speakers living within a single dialect area in east-central Scotland.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- The dialect laboratory 1
- The evolutionary-emergence model of language change 33
- Dialect data, lexical frequency and the usage-based approach 53
- Dialect areas and linguistic change 73
- The role of implicational universals in language change 107
- On the genesis of the German recipient passive – Two competing hypotheses in the light of current dialect data 121
- Paths to tone in the Tamang branch of Tibeto-Burman (Nepal) 139
- Dialect choice in Fiji 179
- When diachrony meets synchrony. 197
- Geolinguistic data and the past tense debate 227
- Tense and aspect systems of Western and Eastern dialects in Japan 249
- The rise of DP-internal possessors 271
- Index 295
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- The dialect laboratory 1
- The evolutionary-emergence model of language change 33
- Dialect data, lexical frequency and the usage-based approach 53
- Dialect areas and linguistic change 73
- The role of implicational universals in language change 107
- On the genesis of the German recipient passive – Two competing hypotheses in the light of current dialect data 121
- Paths to tone in the Tamang branch of Tibeto-Burman (Nepal) 139
- Dialect choice in Fiji 179
- When diachrony meets synchrony. 197
- Geolinguistic data and the past tense debate 227
- Tense and aspect systems of Western and Eastern dialects in Japan 249
- The rise of DP-internal possessors 271
- Index 295
