Research Dirk Pijpops

Abstract

Mechanisms of language variation and change often take as starting point lexical biases in grammatical variation, i.e. the finding that particular words engender speakers to prefer one construction over another while forming utterances. For example, a frequent word that is biased towards a construction may 'rub off' its meaning to the construction itself. What is unclear, however, is how such lexical biases develop in the first place. To understand this, the project introduces two mechanisms that can create such lexical biases, viz. exemplar-driven and index-driven lectal contamination. Both mechanisms start from language contact between two varieties of the same language, but differ in how such contact leads to lexical biases within the varieties. Exemplar-driven contamination relies on the cognitive storage of exemplars, while index-driven contamination assumes that the words and constructions act as social indices. A pilot study focusing on nominal morphological variation has already been completed, with positive results. The project will conduct three more corpus-based case studies that test the effect of both mechanisms among other types of variation. Next, I will build an agent-based simulation of each mechanism. This will allow us to validate both mechanisms in-silico and derive exact theoretical predictions for each mechanism. Finally, these predictions will be put to the test through corpus research and a forced-choice and receptive experiment.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Pijpops Dirk

Research team(s)

• Centre for Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Dutch features both two-place verbs with direct and indirect objects where the use of the preposition aan 'to' is optional, e.g. respectively 'ik bouw (aan) een konijnenverblijf' ('I'm building (to) a rabbit shelter') en 'het contract ontglipte (aan) ons bedrijf' ('the contract slipped away from our company'). There are also a number of verbs whereby the status of the object is unclear, e.g. 'hij gehoorzaamt (aan) de heilige wet' ('he obeys the holy law'). This project aims to find out (i) when and why language users choose to employ or omit the preposition aan 'to' among these verbs, and (ii) which objects behave more like direct or indirect objects. The answer to the first question will also inform the second: for which verbs does the alternation behave more like the dative alternation (e.g. 'Sophia geeft (aan) hem een dikke knuffel' 'Sophia gives him a big hug') or more like the transitive-prepositional alternation (e.g. 'Frederik zoekt (naar) zijn vrachtwagen' 'Frederik is searching for his lorry'). These questions will be dealt with through in-depth corpus research and experiments.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Pijpops Dirk
• Fellow: Van Herpe Alexander

Research team(s)

• Centre for Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS)

Project type(s)

• Research Project