Collective nouns and language change

2006 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
MAGNUS LEVIN
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Strong Preference ◽  
British English ◽  
Cd Rom ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Lexical Diffusion ◽  
Collective Nouns

This study concerns the changing and variable agreement patterns with twenty-one low-frequency collective nouns (e.g. trio) in British English. The data come from the 1990 and 2000 CD-ROM editions of The Independent. The token frequencies of nouns do not appear to affect the preference for singular verb agreement. There are, however, clear differences between noun types, as is typical for lexical diffusion. Most nouns have developed a strong preference for singular verb agreement, some remain variable, and some prefer the plural. Many of the agreement patterns for individual nouns can be motivated with reference to the characteristics of the nouns rather than to the semantics of the verbs. This investigation found no evidence that singular verb agreement, which is argued in this study to be the unmarked alternative, is generally on the increase. Rather it seems that nouns which prefer plural verbs continue to move towards plural agreement.

scholarly journals Concord patterns with collective nouns in Hong Kong English. With illustrative material from the International Corpus of English (Hong Kong component)

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
May Lai-Yin Wong
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
British English ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Hong Kong English ◽  
Illustrative Material ◽  
Collective Nouns

This corpus-based study reports on both a quantitative and qualitative account of the use of collective nouns in Hong Kong English, with particular reference to subject-verb agreement/concord patterns. Singular concord was found to be the preferred pattern among thirty-five collective nouns under interrogation in the ICE-HK corpus. It is argued that the preference for singular concord serves as a signal that Hong Kong English might be less conservative than British English in converging towards the norm of using singular concord with collective nouns across the globe.

The present perfect in Nigerian English

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
VALENTIN WERNER ◽  
ROBERT FUCHS
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Internal Variability ◽  
Alternative Measure ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
British English ◽  
Determining Factors ◽  
Substrate Influence

This article offers an analysis of present perfect (PP) use in Nigerian English (NigE), based on the Nigerian component of theInternational Corpus of English(ICE). First, we analyze variable contexts with the Simple Past (PT; determined by temporally specified contexts) as one of the main competitors of the PP, and thus assess the PP-friendliness of NigE in contrast to other varieties. We further provide an alternative measure of PP-friendliness and test register effects in terms of normalized and relative PP and PT frequencies. Our results indicate an overall reduced PP-friendliness of NigE and show internal variability in terms of PP frequencies in different variable contexts. As regards register effects, NigE does not show less variability of PP frequencies compared to British English (BrE). However, the distribution of the PP across registers in NigE does not follow the British pattern where certain registers are particularly PP-friendly. We discuss potential determining factors of the low frequency of the PP in NigE, and conclude that neither substrate influence nor general learning mechanisms on their own can comprehensively account for it. Instead, we suggest that historical influence from Irish and perhaps (at a later point) American English, in conjunction with general learning mechanisms, may be responsible.

Section III

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 253-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trude Schermer ◽  
David Brien ◽  
Mary Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Research Unit ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Commercial Application ◽  
End User ◽  
British English ◽  
Cd Rom ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Additional Funding ◽  
Bright Side

In this paper we wish to describe a joint British/Dutch project that was funded by the European Community under the TIDE programme. The main objective of the project Signbase has been to build a sign language database, which can be used to store linguistic information about a particular sign language. This repository then can be used to generate different types of signed language applications. The project commenced in March 1994 and ended in December 1996. The consortium consisted of people from three different places: the Deaf Studies Research Unit in Durham, UK (DSRU), the Dutch Foundation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Child (NSDSK) in Amsterdam and Bright Side of Life computer consultancy (BSL) in Maarssen. In this paper we discuss the linguistic specifications of Signbase, and then we describe the prototype of two end-user applications (CD-ROM British/English Dictionary and the Educational CD-ROM Nature and Environment) and a commercial application which has been developed during the Signbase project with additional funding (CD-ROM SLN/ Dutch Dictionary for parents and teachers deaf children).

Section III

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 253-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trude Schermer ◽  
David Brien ◽  
Mary Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Research Unit ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Commercial Application ◽  
End User ◽  
British English ◽  
Cd Rom ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Additional Funding ◽  
Bright Side

In this paper we wish to describe a joint British/Dutch project that was funded by the European Community under the TIDE programme. The main objective of the project Signbase has been to build a sign language database, which can be used to store linguistic information about a particular sign language. This repository then can be used to generate different types of signed language applications. The project commenced in March 1994 and ended in December 1996. The consortium consisted of people from three different places: the Deaf Studies Research Unit in Durham, UK (DSRU), the Dutch Foundation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Child (NSDSK) in Amsterdam and Bright Side of Life computer consultancy (BSL) in Maarssen. In this paper we discuss the linguistic specifications of Signbase, and then we describe the prototype of two end-user applications (CD-ROM British/English Dictionary and the Educational CD-ROM Nature and Environment) and a commercial application which has been developed during the Signbase project with additional funding (CD-ROM SLN/ Dutch Dictionary for parents and teachers deaf children).

scholarly journals Das Klassikerwörterbuch: Begründung und Erläuterung eines digitalen Wörterbuchprojekts zum differenten Wortschatz in der klassischen Literatur

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominik Brückner ◽  
Ulrich Knoop
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
German Literature ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Cd Rom ◽  
Computerized Environment

AbstractThis article is a delineation of the „Projekt Klassikerwortschatz“ that collects and processes those words in german literature between ca. 1750 and 1900 which are semantically different in today's german due to language change. It is the aim of the project to publish a dictionary in print, on CD-ROM as well as on the internet that explains these words in order to help to understand the literary language of the german „classic period“. The dictionary will therefore be a beginning of an attempt to fill the gap between Reichmann's FWB, the DWB and the DWDS which curiously coincides with this important period of german literature. The article focuses on the survey phase, when voluntary readers marked those words that made it difficult for them to understand a passage, the digitalization and the processing within the computerized environment. The main focus is on the digital editorial system „Paula“ which has been developped specifically for the „Klassikerwörterbuch“ and enables the lexicographer to focus exclusively on the content of the article rather than its format.

Lexical constraints in phonological acquisition

1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUDITH A. GIERUT ◽  
MICHELE L. MORRISETTE ◽  
ANNETTE HUST CHAMPION
Keyword(s):  
Word Frequency ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Dependent Measure ◽  
Sound Change ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Lexical Diffusion ◽  
Phonological Change ◽  
Lexical Constraints ◽  
Neighbourhood Structure

Lexical diffusion, as characterized by interword variation in production, was examined in phonological acquisition. The lexical variables of word frequency and neighbourhood density were hypothesized to facilitate sound change to varying degrees. Twelve children with functional phonological delays, aged 3;0 to 7;4, participated in an alternating treatments experiment to promote sound change. Independent variables were crossed to yield all logically possible combinations of high/low frequency and high/low density in treatment; the dependent measure was generalization accuracy in production. Results indicated word frequency was most facilitative in sound change, whereas, dense neighbourhood structure was least facilitative. The salience of frequency and avoidance of high density are discussed relative to the type of phonological change being induced in children's grammars, either phonetic or phonemic, and to the nature of children's representations. Results are further interpreted with reference to interactive models of language processing and optimality theoretic accounts of linguistic structure.

scholarly journals Studying Lexical Dynamics and Language Change via Generalized Entropies: The Problem of Sample Size

Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Koplenig ◽  
Sascha Wolfer ◽  
Carolin Müller-Spitzer
Keyword(s):  
Sample Size ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Similarity Measures ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
News Magazine ◽  
Text Length ◽  
Symbol Sequences ◽  
Generalized Entropies

Recently, it was demonstrated that generalized entropies of order α offer novel and important opportunities to quantify the similarity of symbol sequences where α is a free parameter. Varying this parameter makes it possible to magnify differences between different texts at specific scales of the corresponding word frequency spectrum. For the analysis of the statistical properties of natural languages, this is especially interesting, because textual data are characterized by Zipf’s law, i.e., there are very few word types that occur very often (e.g., function words expressing grammatical relationships) and many word types with a very low frequency (e.g., content words carrying most of the meaning of a sentence). Here, this approach is systematically and empirically studied by analyzing the lexical dynamics of the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel (consisting of approximately 365,000 articles and 237,000,000 words that were published between 1947 and 2017). We show that, analogous to most other measures in quantitative linguistics, similarity measures based on generalized entropies depend heavily on the sample size (i.e., text length). We argue that this makes it difficult to quantify lexical dynamics and language change and show that standard sampling approaches do not solve this problem. We discuss the consequences of the results for the statistical analysis of languages.

scholarly journals The Phonological Variation of Pakistani English in comparison to Standard British English: A case study ofBaloch English speaking students in SBKWU, Quetta

Al-Burz ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-128
Author(s):  
Zainab Akram ◽  
Dr. Alia Ayub ◽  
Hina Arfeen ◽  
Mehwish Malghani
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Language Change ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
English Department ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Phonological Variation ◽  
British English ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Convenience Sampling

With a small amount of language items i.e. words and one variable i.e. phonology, the present atudy aims to exploring the external and internal influences in language change in terms of phonology. The native Balochi speakers while speaking English as a second language face problems in producing some of English language sounds. The phonological differences were observed amongBalochi English speakers in terms of L1 impact on L2 and the influence of social surroundings have been studied in this paper. Employing qualitative mode of inquiry, the present study was conductedin SardarBahadur Khan Women University (SBKWU), Quetta. The population of this paper consisted of Balochi speaking undergraduate studentsfrom three main regions of Baluchistan, from the English Department. Exploiting convenience sampling, three students from each of the three Baloch regional groups and total of 9 students between ages 19 to 22, were selected as subjects of this study. A list of 20 English words based on problematic utterance of phonemes, was recorded while uttered by the students; transcribed and employing the contrastive analysis the results were displayed in a diagrams. First column displays the region, the second depicts the phonemes uttered by the participants and the third shows the Standard British English pronunciation (SBE). This enabled the researcher to trace the phonological variations, influence of L1 on L2 and the geographical influences on the phonological difference.

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