Joan Bybee

• University of New Mexico

Studies of word predictability in context show that words in English tend to be shorter if they are predictable from the next word, and to a lesser extent, if they are predictable from the previous word. Some studies distinguish function and content words, but otherwise have not considered grammatical factors, treating all two-word sequences as com...

We advocate for a diachronic typological approach to phonology, arguing that explanation for phonological structure must appeal to dynamic processes. We outline basic assumptions and explanatory mechanisms of this framework and demonstrate its utility by applying it to aspects of consonant phoneme inventory structure. Examining sound change paths t...

Lindblom and Maddieson (1988) observe that “basic” consonants occur in all consonant inventories, but that larger inventories additionally include “elaborated” consonants, which depart from neutral phonation modes, places, and manners of articulation. The hypothesis that larger inventories arise from the smaller ones via sound change is tested here...

From a usage-based perspective, reduction results from automatization of stored gesture sequences corresponding to words and phrases, which accompanies reuse. In this paper, we discuss the mechanisms of and constraints on automatization, and examine its consequences for vocalic gestures in prosodically weak positions in a typologically and genetica...

Using ten English adjectives, this study tests the hypothesis that the vowels in adjectives in predicative constructions are longer than those in attributive constructions in spoken conversation. The analyses considered a number of factors: occurrence before a pause, lexical adjective, vowel identity, probability given surrounding words, and others...

Given the common intuition that consonant lenition occurs more often than fortition, we formulate this as a hypothesis, defining these sound change types in terms of decrease or increase in oral constriction. We then test the hypothesis on allophonic processes in a diverse sample of 81 languages. With the hypothesis confirmed, we examine the input...

The question of whether or not grammatical factors can condition or block sound change has been discussed from many perspectives for more than a century without resolution (Melchert, 1975). Here we consider studies of sound change in progress which show that words or phrases that are used frequently in the phonetic environment for change undergo th...

‘Special reduction’ refers to instances of extreme phonetic reduction which is restricted to particular words or phrases, usually grammaticalizing constructions (going to > [gə̃ɾ̃ə̃]), greetings (hi from how are you), discourse markers (Spanish o sea > sa), or other sequences that are often used together. On the basis of data from English, Brazilia...

Recent research on language change in a broad cross-linguistic perspective shows that patterns of change are very similar even in languages that are unrelated both genetically and areally. This chapter analyzes closely two types of paths of change: those evident in sound change, and those resulting in grammaticalization. It draws several parallels...

This chapter outlines a view of Construction Grammar in which the mental grammar of speakers is shaped by the repeated exposure to specific utterances, and in which domain-general cognitive processes such as categorization and cross-modal association play a crucial role in the entrenchment of constructions. Under this view, all linguistic knowledge...

The article demonstrates many aspects of grammar that can be derived from domain-general cognitive processes, especially those of neuromotor automation, chunking, categorization, inference-making, and cross-modal association. Construction grammar posits a direct connection between the conventionalized constructions of a language and their meanings....

Traditionally, the study of language change has been divided into the areas of sound change, analogy, morphosyntactic change, and semantic change. Diachrony provides evidence for the interrelation of lexicon and grammar as well as evidence for the nature of the cognitive representation of phonological and grammatical form. In particular, it points...

Language demonstrates structure while also showing considerable variation at all levels: languages differ from one another while still being shaped by the same principles; utterances within a language differ from one another while exhibiting the same structural patterns; languages change over time, but in fairly regular ways. This book focuses on t...

Constituent structure is considered to be the very foundation of linguistic competence and often considered to be innate, yet we show here that it is derivable from the domain-general processes of chunking and categorization. Using modern and diachronic corpus data, we show that the facts support a view of constituent structure as gradient (as woul...

Language has a fundamentally social function. Processes of human interaction along with domain-general cognitive processes shape the structure and knowledge of language. Recent research in the cognitive sciences has demonstrated that patterns of use strongly affect how language is acquired, is used, and changes. These processes are not independent...

This book is the first of the two-volume collection of papers on formulaic language. The collection is among the first ones in the field. The book draws attention to the ritualized, repetitive side of language, which to some estimates make up over 50% of spoken and written text. While in the linguistic literature, the creative and innovative aspect...

This chapter discusses the usage-based theory of language. It argues that from this perspective there are very few synchronic universals in the sense of features that can be found in all languages. The only synchronic universal is that all languages have at least some minimal derivational morphology. It further argues that language change has to be...

Studies of grammaticization often reveal skewed distributions of lexical items in grammaticizing constructions, suggesting the presence of prefabs using these constructions. We examine here the role of prefabs in the grammaticization of can in English and the progressive estar 'be (located)' + V-ndo (Gerund) in Spanish. The data suggest that prefab...

Phonological and grammatical structure is shaped by usage patterns, as demonstrated by the effects of context and frequency on variation and change. We argue for an exemplar model of lexical representations, in which tokens of use are registered in memory, including phonetic detail as well as linguistic and social contextual information. Since vari...

This book looks at the relationship between linguistic universals and language change. Reflecting the resurgence of work in both fields over the last two decades, it addresses two related issues of central importance in linguistics: the balance between synchronic and diachronic factors in accounting for universals of linguistic structure, and the m...

This book essentially argues for the importance of word frequency as a factor in the analysis and explanation of language structure. In other words, the roles of words and other linguistic phenomena such as morphology, phonology, and syntax are highly influenced by low, medium, or high frequency with which they occur. The book includes three decade...

Jackendoff and other linguists have acknowledged that there is gradience in language but have tended to treat gradient phenomena as separate from the core of language, which is viewed as fully productive and compositional. This perspective suffuses Jackendoff's (2007) response to our position paper (Bybee and McClelland 2005). We argue that gradien...

A usage-based view takes grammar to be the cognitive organization of one's experience with language. Aspects of that experience, for instance, the frequency of use of certain constructions or particular instances of constructions, have an impact on representation that is evidenced in speaker knowledge of conventionalized phrases and in language var...

This book essentially argues for the importance of word frequency as a factor in the analysis and explanation of language structure. In other words, the roles of words and other linguistic phenomena such as morphology, phonology, and syntax are highly influenced by low, medium, or high frequency with which they occur. The book includes three decade...

A usage-based analysis of four constructions in Spanish, each with a different verb meaning 'become' used with an animate subject and an adjective, provides evidence for exemplar representations of constructions, with analogy to these representations accounting for productive use. We analyze 423 tokens from spoken and written corpora, which we take...

This paper views the alternation between liaison consonants and their absence as due neither to insertion nor deletion, but rather to the existence of alternant morphosyntactic constructions containing the liaison consonant. These alternate constructions can be viewed as irregular in much the same way as certain morphological paradigms are consider...

The hypothesis that inflectional affixes use a restricted set of phonemes and that these are the less marked phonemes of the language is discussed and tested on the verbal affixes in a sample of twenty-three maximally unrelated languages. The results show that the tendency for languages to use only a smaller subset of their phonemes in verbal infle...

It is argued that the principles needed to explain linguistic behavior are do- main-general and based on the impact that specific experiences have on the mental organization and representation of language. This organization must be sensitive to both specific information and generalized patterns. In addition, knowledge of language is highly sensitiv...

The literature on frequency effects in lexical diffusion shows that even phonetically gradual changes that in some cases are destined to be lexically regular show lexical diffusion while they are in progress. Change that is both phonetically and lexically gradual presents a serious challenge to theories with phonemic underlying forms. An alternate...

Phonological evidence supports the frequency-based model proposed in the article by Nick Ellis. Phonological reduction occurs earlier and to a greater extent in high-frequency words and phrases than in low-frequency ones. A model that accounts for this effect needs both an exemplar representation to show phonetic variation and the ability to repres...

This book essentially argues for the importance of word frequency as a factor in the analysis and explanation of language structure. In other words, the roles of words and other linguistic phenomena such as morphology, phonology, and syntax are highly influenced by low, medium, or high frequency with which they occur. The book includes three decade...

A research perspective that takes language use into account opens up new views of old issues and provides an understanding of issues that linguists have rarely addressed. Referencing new developments in cognitive and functional linguistics, phonetics, and connectionist modeling, this book investigates various ways in which a speaker/hearer's experi...

Referencing new developments in cognitive and functional linguistics, phonetics, and connectionist modeling, this book investigates various ways in which a speaker/hearer's experience with language affects the representation of phonology. Rather than assuming phonological representations in terms of phonemes, Joan Bybee adopts an exemplar model, in...

The distinction between regular and irregular morphology is not clear-cut enough to suggest two distinct modular structures. Instead, regularity is tied directly to the type frequency of a pattern. Evidence from experiments as well as from naturally occurring sound change suggests that even regular forms have lexical storage. Finally, the developme...

In this paper we take the position that there are many degrees of constituency and that these derive in a direct manner from the frequency with which elements are used together: elements that are frequently found next to each other show a tighter constituent structure than those that collocate less frequently. We use both phonological and functiona...

This study reports on a significant negative association found in a cross-linguistic sample between the degree of predictability of word stress from a word boundary and the extent to which stress has segmental effects. In other words, in a given language the less predictable stress is from the word boundary, the more likely that the language will h...

Three models of morphological storage and processing are compared: the dual-processing model of Pinker, Marcus and colleagues, the connectionist model of Marchman, Plunkett, Seidenberg and others, and the network model of Bybee and Langacker. In line with predictions made in the latter two frameworks, type frequency of a morphological pattern is sh...

This paper addresses the issue of the relative “naturalness” of affixation and stem change as the expression of morphological categories. According to some accounts, affixation involves symbolic rules that are stored separately from lexically represented morphemes to which they are applied, and that thus enjoy a processing and acquisition advantage...

While morphosyntax and semantics have been studied from a functional and cognitive perspective, much less emphasis has been placed on phonological phenomena in these frameworks. This paper proposes a rethinking of phonology, arguing that (i) the lexical representation of words have phonetic substance that is gradually changed by phonetic processes;...

Joan Bybee and her colleagues present a new theory of the evolution of grammar that links structure and meaning in a way that directly challenges most contemporary versions of generative grammar. This study focuses on the use and meaning of grammatical markers of tense, aspect, and modality and identifies a universal set of grammatical categories....

Consistent error patterns in English past-tense forms are reported for three age groups: preschoolers, 8-10-year-olds, and adults. It is argued that, although irregular forms are rote-learned, speakers make generalizations about such forms. Such a generalization is defined as a SCHEMA which describes general phonological properties of a morphologic...

The degree of autonomy of a word is the extent to which a word is likely to have its own lexical representation. Autonomy is determined by semantic complexity, word frequency, and morphophonemic irregularity, such that the semantically simpler, more frequent, and more irregular words are more autonomous. In morphological systems, nonautonomous word...