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Structural autonomy and aspectual import: A new(er) Spanish Progressive
Abstract
The current study analyzes distributional frequencies of the Spanish Progressive construction (ESTAR+Gerund) in a corpus of late twentieth century conversational speech in order to assess changes in structure and meaning. The analysis incorporates structural priming as a measure of analyzability and autonomy, and utilizes both lexical and contextual measures of aspect to assess the construction’s preferred environment relative to its competing gram: the simple Present. Results of a multivariate analysis (N=1017) indicate that over the last one hundred years, the construction has lost analyzability, further coalescing into a single grammatical unit. This new unit has also acquired the ability to express limited duration (progressive, continuous) aspect with stative as well as dynamic verbs, indicating the consolidation of the construction’s aspectual import. At the same time, its presence in extended duration contexts is attributed to strong effects of Progressive-Progressive priming and, to a lesser extent, licensing by a co-occurring temporal adverbial. By situating these results within the construction’s diachrony, it is concluded that the increased grammaticalization of the Spanish Progressive in the twentieth century, as assessed quantitatively, is markedly distinct from previous centuries.
This paper examines the dynamics of linguistic change in Madrid (Spain), exploring the ways in which values related to the dialect–standard dichotomy help explain them. The analysis focuses on the delateralization of the palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/ and the development of yeísmo (merger). Three concentric levels of dissemination of the innovation can be distinguished in Madrid: 1) the city center, where yeísmo seems to be stable and shows no variation; 2) the cities on the outskirts of the metropolitan area, which show variable yeísmo; and 3) the towns of the region, where there is the highest variability.
This analysis broadens the scope of the research to Vallecas, a neighborhood to the southeast of Madrid, where immigrants from rural Spain settled throughout the 20th century, to demonstrate the geographic and social sequence of change: rural towns in the region > peripheral urban communities > districts on the outskirts of Madrid > center of Madrid.
Language contact and linguistic change are thought to go hand in hand (e.g. Silva-Corvalán 1994), however there are methodological obstacles, such as collecting data at different points in time or the availability of monolingual data for comparison, that make claims about language change tenuous. The present study draws on two different corpora of spoken Spanish - bilingual New Mexican Spanish and monolingual Ecuadorian Spanish - in order to quantitatively assess the convergence hypothesis in which contact with English has produced a change to the Spanish verbal system, as reflected in an extension of the Present and Past Progressive forms at the expense of the synthetic Simple Present and Imperfect forms. The data do not show that the Spanish spoken by the bilinguals is changing to more closely resemble the analogous English progressive constructions, but instead suggest potential weakening of linguistic constraints on the conditioning of the variation between periphrastic and synthetic forms.
While rarely difficult for the average speaker/listener, the ubiquity of variation at all levels of linguistic production is a challenge for modern psycholinguistic models of language processing. Variation is perhaps most extreme at the levels of phonetics and phonology, but many models of language processing all but eschew these levels altogether. The current paper posits that cognitive control mechanisms, when divided into proactive and reactive control via a dual mechanisms framework (e.g., Braver et al. 2007), can effectively describe the strategies individuals use to process linguistic variation and, when incorporated into language processing models, can generate novel, testable predictions regarding the origin and propagation of individual differences. By means of example, I illustrate how dual mechanisms of control can be incorporated into a connectionist model of language production (Dell 1985, 1986). I then describe how dual mechanisms of cognitive control might be relevant for the Adaptive Control Hypothesis (Abutalebi and Green 2013) and how individual differences in processing strategies may modulate participation in language changes-in-progress. Acknowledgements: The constructive criticism of two anonymous reviewers has dramatically improved the quality of this work. Gratitude is also extended to Jason Gullifer and Rena Torres Cacoullos, who kindly gave their time to review earlier versions of this manuscript.
Description Fit linear and generalized linear mixed-effects models. The models and their components are represented using S4 classes and methods. The core computational algorithms are implemented using the 'Eigen' C++ library for numerical linear algebra and 'RcppEigen' ``glue''.
This paper examines the trajectory of a spectacular change in the development of future temporal reference in Brazilian Portuguese over five centuries. Focus- ing on four competing exponents of futurity, we show how the incoming form gradually expropriates the preferred contexts of the older variants, prior to ousting them from the sector. These results confirm that the transition period in linguistic change is not abrupt, but proceeds as a series of small adjustments, as incoming and outgoing variants jockey for position in the system. As a vari- ant recedes, constraints on its selection do not remain constant, though the distinctions it conveyed may be transferred to another exponent. These findings challenge some widely-held assumptions (i.e., that change affects all contexts simultaneously, or that the grammar remains invariant during the course of change).
Speakers often repeat syntactic structures that have recently been used by them or their interlocutors. Such syntactic persis- tence has variously been attributed to social causes (mimicking to be well-liked), to an effort to reduce processing costs, or as a side effect of either transient activation of previously pro- cessed structure or implicit learning. We present new evidence from syntactic persistence in conversational speech consistent with the view that syntactic persistence is an epiphenomenon. We propose that syntactic persistence is linked to the updat- ing and maintenance of probabilistic syntactic knowledge. We find that syntactic persistence is SURPRISAL-SENSITIVE and CUMULATIVE: Syntactic persistence is stronger the less prob- able the prime and it is sufficiently long-lived to be cumulative.
Structural priming in language production is a tendency to recreate a recently uttered syntactic structure in different words. This tendency can be seen independent of specific lexical items, thematic roles, or word sequences. Two alternative proposals about the mechanism behind structural priming include (a) short-term activation from a memory representation of a priming structure and (b) longer term adaptation within the cognitive mechanisms for creating sentences, as a form of procedural learning. Two experiments evaluated these hypotheses, focusing on the persistence of structural priming. Both experiments yielded priming that endured beyond adjacent sentences, persisting over 2 intervening sentences in Experiment 1 and over 10 in Experiment 2. Although memory may have short-term consequences for some components of this kind of priming, the persisting effects are more compatible with a learning account than a transient memory account.
Traditional mechanistic accounts of language processing derive almost entirely from the study of monologue. Yet, the most natural and basic form of language use is dialogue. As a result, these accounts may only offer limited theories of the mechanisms that underlie language processing in general. We propose a mechanistic account of dialogue, the interactive alignment account, and use it to derive a number of predictions about basic language processes. The account assumes that, in dialogue, the linguistic representations employed by the interlocutors become aligned at many levels, as a result of a largely automatic process. This process greatly simplifies production and comprehension in dialogue. After considering the evidence for the interactive alignment model, we concentrate on three aspects of processing that follow from it. It makes use of a simple interactive inference mechanism, enables the development of local dialogue routines that greatly simplify language processing, and explains the origins of self-monitoring in production. We consider the need for a grammatical framework that is designed to deal with language in dialogue rather than monologue, and discuss a range of implications of the account.
The present study is a corpus-based investigation of syntactic priming, i.e. the tendency to reuse syntactic constructions. On the basis of data from the ICE-GB corpus, I analyze two different pairs of syntactic patterns, the so-called dative alternation and particle placement of transitive phrasal verbs. Although it has sometimes been argued that only experimental data can contribute to studies of priming, the analysis shows that (a) the corpus-based results for datives are very similar to the experimental ones; (b) priming is also obtained for the verb-particle construction, a construction hitherto not explored in the priming literature and (c), most importantly, in line with much previous psycholinguistic and corpus-linguistic work, priming effects turn out to be strongly verb-specific such that some verbs are much more resistant or responsive to priming than others. I conclude with a discussion of how corpus data relate to experimental data and how the corpus-based findings can contribute to psycholinguistic model building.
Psycholinguistic research has shown that the influence of abstract syntactic knowledge on performance is shaped by particular sentences that have been experienced. To explore this idea, the authors applied a connectionist model of sentence production to the development and use of abstract syntax. The model makes use of (a) error-based learning to acquire and adapt sequencing mechanisms and (b) meaning-form mappings to derive syntactic representations. The model is able to account for most of what is known about structural priming in adult speakers, as well as key findings in preferential looking and elicited production studies of language acquisition. The model suggests how abstract knowledge and concrete experience are balanced in the development and use of syntax.
Repetition is a central phenomenon of behavior, and researchers have made extensive use of it to illuminate psychological functioning. In the language sciences, a ubiquitous form of such repetition is structural priming, a tendency to repeat or better process a current sentence because of its structural similarity to a previously experienced ("prime") sentence (J. K. Bock, 1986). The recent explosion of research in structural priming has made it the dominant means of investigating the processes involved in the production (and increasingly, comprehension) of complex expressions such as sentences. This review considers its implications for the representation of syntax and the mechanisms of production and comprehension and their relationship. It then addresses the potential functions of structural priming, before turning to its implications for first language acquisition, bilingualism, and aphasia. The authors close with theoretical and empirical recommendations for future investigations.
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. The authors demonstrate that the semantic content of these categories evolves gradually and that this process of evolution is strikingly similar across unrelated languages. Through a survey of seventy-six languages in twenty-five different phyla, the authors show that the same paths of change occur universally and that movement along these paths is in one direction only. This analysis reveals that lexical substance evolves into grammatical substance through various mechanisms of change, such as metaphorical extension and the conventionalization of implicature. Grammaticization is always accompanied by an increase in frequency of the grammatical marker, providing clear evidence that language use is a major factor in the evolution of synchronic language states. The Evolution of Grammar has important implications for the development of language and for the study of cognitive processes in general.
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 the dynamic processes that create languages and give them their structure and variance. It outlines a theory of language that addresses the nature of grammar, taking into account its variance and gradience, and seeks explanation in terms of the recurrent processes that operate in language use. The evidence is based on the study of large corpora of spoken and written language, what we know about how languages change, as well as the results of experiments with language users. The result is an integrated theory of language use and language change which has implications for cognitive processing and language evolution.
With the goal of elucidating the diachronic trajectory of a progressive, multivariate analysis is used to track the linguistic factors conditioning variation between the Spanish Progressive and the simple Present, in 13th–15th, 17th, and 19th century texts. The Progressive begins as more of a locative construction, as shown by the early favoring effect of co-occurring locatives. The direction of this co-occurring locative effect is retained over time, but the magnitude weakens relative to aspectual constraints (limited vs. extended duration contexts, dynamic vs. stative verbs), and the Progressive is increasingly disfavored in negatives and interrogatives. Increasing frequency is accompanied by changes in linguistic conditioning. An aspectual opposition arises as, in the course of speakers’ recurrent choices between variant forms, the variants develop functional differentiation.
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 prefabs play a role in advancing formal and semantic change. We argue that (1) prefabs are ahead of the general construction in unit-hood status in early stages and thus demote the independent lexical status of the emerging grams, and (2) in their association with semantic classes of which they are the most frequent member, prefabs promote the productivity of the general construction. The evidence shows that prefabs maintain associations with the related general construction.
Activation processes appear to have an important impact on the mechanisms of language use, including those responsible for syntactic structure in speech. Some implications of this claim for theories of language performance were examined with a syntactic priming procedure. On each priming trial, subjects produced a priming sentence in one of several syntactic forms. They then viewed an unrelated event in a picture and described it in one sentence. The probability of a particular syntactic form being used in the description increased when that form had occurred in the prime, under presentation conditions that minimized subjects' attention to their speech, to the syntactic features of the priming sentences, and to connections between the priming sentences and the subsequent pictures. This syntactic repetition effect suggests that sentence formulation processes are somewhat inertial and subject to such probabilistic factors as the frequency or recency of use of particular structural forms. Two further experiments showed that this effect was not appreciably modified by variations in certain conceptual characteristics of sentences, and all three experiments found evidence that the effects of priming were specific to features of sentence form, independent of sentence content. The empirical isolability of structural features from conceptual characteristics of successive utterances is consistent with the assumption that some syntactic processes are organized into a functionally independent subsystem.
Se presenta un análisis de la variación gramatical de las formas presente simple y presente progresivo en el español monolingüe y bilingüe. Por medio de una encuesta contextualizada y codificada según el aspecto léxico del verbo y el valor semántico de los adverbios de tiempo, se muestran los contextos en los que hay variación de dichas formas. Además de los factores lingüísticos, se incluyen en el análisis los factores extralingüísticos de sexo y nivel de bilingüismo. Los resultados indican que tanto el aspecto léxico del verbo como el valor semántico del adverbio son factores significativos en la predicción de ambas formas. De igual manera, el factor extralingüístico que considera el nivel de bilingüismo de los hablantes tiene un efecto significativo. El instrumento empleado en la investigación contribuye metodológicamente al estudio de la variación de las formas del presente simple y del presente progresivo en cuanto al control de las variables lingüísticas, dado que se evaluaron contextos idénticos y se obtuvo el mismo número de respuestas por participante. Por último, el estudio aporta a la literatura una nueva perspectiva sobre el tema al mostrar que las formas presente simple y presente progresivo aparecen en variación en un número de contextos diferentes a los previamente identificados en otros estudios, lo cual permite definir apropiadamente el ámbito de la variación.
This paper presents an account of the variation in Spanish Progressive constructions from the perspective of grammaticization. Retention of features of meaning from the source constructions is reflected in distribution constraints on the different auxiliaries, which, nevertheless, are converging toward continuous meaning. The evidence supports the hypothesis that progressives originate as locative or movement constructions and that the process by which they evolve is semantic generalization (as opposed to metaphor or pragmatic strengthening). An important mechanism in this grammaticization process is frequency of occurrence in certain contexts, in support of the view that frequent repetition plays a role in semantic change (Bybee and Thomspon 1997; Haiman 1994).
Linguistic parallelism (i.e., the tendency of similar forms
to occur together within a stretch of discourse) has been shown
to be very strong in many linguistic phenomena and in a vast
number of languages. Examining the role of phrase-level parallelism
on noun phrase number agreement, this article demonstrates that
Puerto Rican Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese exhibit more
similarities than differences with regard to this constraint.
A detailed analysis of Brazilian Portuguese data is presented,
and the results are compared with those found by Poplack (1980a)
for Puerto Rican Spanish. Guy's (1981a) and Labov's
(1994) hypothesis about missing zeroes in Brazilian Portuguese
is also discussed. In conclusion, it is claimed that the
phrase-level parallelism effect on noun phrase number agreement
is embedded in a universal principle of linguistic use: parallel
processing.
Subject/verb agreement and subject/predicate adjective agreement in spoken Brazilian Portuguese are subject to a parallel processing effect, such that marking leads to further marking and lack of marking leads to further lack of marking. For example, semantically plural verb tokens preceded by marked plural subjects in the same clause or other marked verb tokens with the same subject in the preceding discourse are more likely to be explicitly marked for plural than similar tokens preceded by unmarked subjects or verbs. This phenomenon is in direct contradiction to the principle of linguistic economy, since marking tends to occur precisely in those contexts in which it is most highly redundant and could therefore be discarded with no loss of information. Furthermore, the marking of successive plural tokens cannot be considered statistically independent events, since the outcome of previous marking decisions effects future marking. We propose that the parallel processing principle is a universal of language use.
This paper is a quantitative study of the factors that determine the selection of passive constructions over active ones by English speakers. By examining a large body of passives used in spontaneous speech, together with the sentences that show an opposing choice, we are able to throw light on the crucial question of which syntactic and which semantic features of the environment act to constrain the choice and whether syntactic or semantic factors predominate in this case. In the course of the analysis, we will also have something to say about the social factors that have been reported to determine the use of the passive.(Received February 18 1981)
Structural priming refers to the process whereby the use of a
syntactic structure in an utterance functions as a prime on a subsequent
utterance, such that that same structure is repeated. This article
investigates this phenomenon from the perspective of first-person singular
subject expression in Spanish. Two dialects and two genres of spoken
Spanish are studied: New Mexican narratives and Colombian Spanish
conversation. An analysis of 2,000 verbs occurring with first-person
singular subjects reveals that subject expression undergoes a priming
effect in both data sets, but that the effect is more short-lived in the
Colombian data. This is found to be attributable to the interactional
nature of these data, showing that the need to deal with interactional
concerns weakens the priming effect. As the first study to compare priming
of subject expression across distinct genres, this article makes an
important contribution to our understanding of this effect, and in
particular, of factors that play a role in its maintenance or dissipation
in discourse. a
Examination of three variable concord phenomena in spoken Portuguese of Rio de Janeiro (noun phrase, subject/predicate adjective, subject/verb) demonstrates that the most consistent and strongest variable constraint on the use of concord is the discourse level serial (or parallel processing) effect, that is, a preference for similar forms to co-occur in sections of discourse, even if this results in redundancy or lack of economy. Given the strength of this constraint, we separated the data into two subsets such that one contains only serial occurrences, where parallel processing can operate, whereas the other contains only isolated or first occurrences, where there is no preceding form to trigger the parallel effect. In the serial set, the parallel effect is so strong that other nonsocial constraints are not selected. External forces, such as the normative pressure of the school system toward fully redundant marking, have no significant effect on the serial tokens, although education does correlate with increased use of concord in isolated/first tokens. Thus, in the serial context the linguistic system is so highly constrained that external, and even internal, influences are blocked. We conclude that strong constraints should be identified, and that data in which they are operative should be analyzed separately from data in which they are not present in order to understand the interplay of the diverse forces in the linguistic system.
Dialog is a joint action at different levels. At the highest level, the goal of interlocutors is to align their mental representations. This emerges from joint activity at lower levels, both concerned with linguistic decisions (e.g., choice of words) and nonlinguistic processes (e.g., alignment of posture or speech rate). Because of the high-level goal, the interlocutors are particularly concerned with close coupling at these lower levels. As we illustrate with examples, this means that imitation and entrainment are particularly pronounced during interactive communication. We then argue that the mechanisms underlying such processes involve covert imitation of interlocutors’ communicative behavior, leading to emulation of their expected behavior. In other words, communication provides a very good example of predictive emulation, in a way that leads to successful joint activity.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of New Mexico, 1999. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 252-269).
Microfilm/xerographic reprint. Thesis--University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1977.
Structural priming refers to speakers' tendency to produce sentences with previously heard or produced syntactic structures. We review arguments and evidence for three common accounts of the functions of structural priming. One is that structural priming enhances fluency. Only some (reaction time and fluency measure) evidence supports this view. A second account argues that structural priming stems from implicit learning of how features of meaning are linked to syntactic configurations. We describe evidence suggesting that structural priming exhibits effects characteristic of both learning and implicitness. A third account claims that structural priming is an aspect of coordination or alignment among interlocutors. Consistent with this, some evidence shows that structural priming involves a shorter-term component that is broadly sensitive to repeated bindings of wide-ranging types of knowledge. Together, these observations suggest that structural priming is likely a multifaceted force that reflects implicit learning and, possibly independently, alignment among interlocutors.
Implicit learning and syntactic persistence: Surprisal and cumulativity. University of Rochester Working Papers in the Language Sciences
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La perífrasis ESTAR+−NDO en el español puertorriqueño: ¿variación dialectal o contacto lingüístico? [The periphrastic estar+−ndo in Puerto Rican Spanish: Dialectal variation or language contact
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Sociolinguistics and syntactic variation
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¿Qué estás haciendo?: La variación de la perífrasis estar+−ndo en el español puertorriqueño [What are you doing? The variation of the periphrastic estar+−ndo in Puerto Rican Spanish
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