David Lorenz

Lund University | LU · English Unit

This paper deals with the potential grammaticalization of English (it) could be and (it) might be into epistemic sentence adverbs in analogy to maybe . They can occur in adverb-like positions and functions in informal language use, e.g. (it) could be something good has begun , often with the pronoun it omitted. But, given that no diachronic develop...

Starting from the premise that English negative modal contractions constitute partly variable patterns of associations that include both the preceding subject and the following verb infinitive, the study sets out to investigate distributional differences between can’t , shouldn’t , and won’t and their corresponding uncontracted parent forms. Given...

The cognitive entrenchment of frequent sequences comes as ‘chunking’ (holistic storage) and as ‘procedure strengthening’ (predicting elements in a sequence). A growing body of research shows effects of entrenchment of multi-word sequences in the native language, which is learned and shaped continuously and intuitively. But how do they affect second...

This volume on grammaticalization focuses on new theoretical and methodological challenges underpinning language change. It provides new approaches and insights deepening our understanding of the cognitive, pragmatic, and socio-cultural mechanisms that trigger the formation and the change of grammars. In this volume, grammaticalization is dealt wit...

Starting from the assumption that grammaticalization is rooted in situated language use, the present study tests the connection between functional reanalysis and formal reduction with a synchronic approach. It investigates a case of potential (but not actuated) grammaticalization in Present-Day English, the use of epistemic phrases of the type it c...

There is ample psycholinguistic evidence that speakers behave efficiently, using shorter and less effortful constructions when the meaning is more predictable, and longer and more effortful ones when it is less predictable. However, the Principle of No Synonymy requires that all formally distinct variants should also be functionally different. The...

Following the quantitative turn in linguistics, the field appears to be in a methodological “wild west” state where much is possible and new frontiers are being explored, but there is relatively little guidance in terms of firm rules or conventions. In this article, we focus on the issue of variable selection in regression modeling. It is common to...

We review reduction and contraction in modalizing expressions of the type V-to-Vinf from the perspective of production, perception and mental representation. A corpus study of spoken American English shows reduction/contraction as a continuous process which is subject to phonological and communicative constraints. Generally, reduction (articulatory...

The guiding question of this paper is how (horizontal) connections are established when new items enter the network of constructions. It presents a quantitative, corpus-based study of the development of to-contraction (e.g. want to > wanna) in American English since the 19th century. From a plethora of earlier forms, gonna, wanna and gotta emerge,...

Frequently used linguistic structures become entrenched in memory; this is often assumed to make their consecutive parts more predictable, as well as fuse them into a single unit (chunking). High frequency moreover leads to a propensity for phonetic reduction. We present a word recognition experiment which tests how frequency information (string fr...

This paper explores the potential of corpus data to account for language users' mental representations of a high frequency item that is prone to phonetic reduction. It presents an analysis of the realizations of semi-modal have to in spoken American English, which is a candidate for to-contraction (viz. wanna, gotta) but has no clearly established...

This paper addresses the issue of coalescence of frequent collocations and its consequences for their realization and mental representation. The items examined are ‘semi-modal’ instantiations of the type V-to-Vinf, namely have to, used to, trying to and need to, in American English. We explore and compare their realization variants in speech, consi...

This article investigates the emergence and early use of possessive havegot in English. Two hypotheses about its emergence are tested on historical data ( c .1460–1760). One hypothesis is based on communicative functionality, suggesting that got was inserted as a ‘pattern preserver’ to compensate for the increased reduction of have . The other hypo...

The current restructuring of the English modal system has long been noted as an ongoing language change process. Semi-modal constructions such as 'BE going to' and 'HAVE got to' are textbook cases of grammaticalization. As grammaticalization comes with a rise in frequency, these semi-modals are also typical examples of the ‘reducing effect’ of freq...

The English modal expressions 'BE going to', 'HAVE got to', and 'want to' are often contracted to 'gonna', 'gotta', and 'wanna' in spoken language. These contracted forms have gained both in frequency and conventionality in recent times. In this article, I present an investigation into the status of the contractions between phonetic reduction and l...

In this paper, I report on an experiment to examine the perceptual differences between full and contracted semi-modals in English, i.e. the distinction of going to vs gonna and (HAVE) got to vs gotta. It is a listen-and-repeat experiment and is informed by the findings of a corpus study of the use of these forms in American English (AmE). It thus a...

We provide a robust and detailed annotation scheme for information status, which is easy to use, follows a semantic rather than cognitive motivation, and achieves reasonable inter-annotator scores. Our annotation scheme is based on two main assumptions: firstly, that information status strongly depends on (in)definiteness, and secondly, that it oug...