Activities per year
Abstract
This chapter argues that it will make results of variationist studies more relevant for linguistic theory if internal predictors assumed to constrain syntactic variation are operationalized in a way that explicitly relates them to semantic or—more broadly—functional hypotheses. We use word order in Danish adverbial subordinate clauses as a case study for how a hypothesized semantic difference between variants can be operationalized. This word order alternation concerns the relative placement of sentential adverbials and finite verbs in subclauses. While the variable is structurally well-defined (Adverb<Verb vs. Verb>Adverb), it challenges classic theoretical and methodological assumptions in variationist studies by entailing a semantic difference, since the two word orders conveying subtly different meanings when used in subclauses. For this study, we operationalize a set of linguistic predictors related to the two most prevalent meaning hypotheses given in the literature, the Assertivity and the Foregrounding Hypothesis. Mixed-effect models and random forest analyses are used to examine the effects and strength of intra- and extralinguistic (social) predictors. Geographical differences related with social stratification indicate an ongoing standardization process emanating from the capital of Copenhagen. The import of our findings related to linguistic theory is discussed.
Translated title of the contribution | Når varianter ikke er semantisk ækvivalente |
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Original language | English |
Title of host publication | Explanations in Sociosyntactic Variation |
Number of pages | 35 |
Place of Publication | Cambridge |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Publication date | 2022 |
Pages | 171-206 |
Chapter | 6 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781108492843 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781108674942 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Series | Studies in Language Variation and Change |
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Keywords
- Faculty of Humanities
- syntactic variation
- subordinate clauses
- adverbial clauses
- Word order
- functional linguistics
- mixed effects models
- random forest analysis
- Danish
- LANCHART
Activities
- 1 Lecture and oral contribution
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Præsentation af antologien Explanations in Sociosyntactic Variation med fokus på problemstillinger knyttet til undersøgelser af semantisk variation
Tanya Karoli Christensen (Speaker) & Torben Juel Jensen (Speaker)
4 Oct 2022Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture and oral contribution