Lexical diffusion

Abstract: 1. Introduction to frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure (by Bybee, Joan L.) 2. Part I: Patterns of Use 3. Transitivity, clause structure, and argument structure: Evidence from conversation (by Thompson, Sandra A.) 4. Local patterns of subjectivity in person and verb type in American English coversation (by Scheibman, Joanne) 5. Paths to prepositions? A corpus-based study of the acquisition of a lexico-grammatical category (by Hallan, Naomi) 6. Part II: Word-level frequency effects 7. Lexical diffusion, lexical frequency, and lexical analysis (by Phillips, Betty S.) 8. Exemplar dynamics: Word frequency, lenition and contrast (by Pierrehumbert, Janet B.) 9. Emergent phonotactic generalizations in English and Arabic (by Frisch, Stefan A.) 10. Ambiguity and frequency effects in regular verb inflection (by Hare, Mary L.) 11. Frequency, regularity and the paradigm: A perspective from Russian on a complex relation (by Corbett, Greville G.) 12. Part III: Phrases and constructions 13. Probabilistic relations between words: Evidence from reduction in lexical production (by Jurafsky, Daniel) 14. Frequency effects and word-boundary palatization in English (by Bush, Nathan) 15. The role of frequency in the realization of English that (by Berkenfield, Catie) 16. Frequency, iconicity, categorization: Evidence from emerging modals (by Krug, Manfred G.) 17. Frequency effects on French liaison (by Bybee, Joan L.) 18. The role of frequency in the specialization of the English anterior (by Smith, K. Aaron) 19. Hypercorrect pronoun case in English? Cognitive processes that account for pronoun usage (by Boyland, Joyce Tang) 20. Variability, frequency, and productivity in the irrealis domain of French (by Poplack, Shana) 21. Part IV: General 22. Familiarity, information flow, and linguistic form (by Fenk-Oczlon, Gertraud) 23. Emergentist approaches to language (by MacWhinney, Brian) 24. Inflationary effects in language and elsewhere (by Dahl, Osten) 25. Subject index 26. Name index

Abstract: 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 exemplar model that can account for lexical variation in phonetic detail is outlined here. This model predicts that the frequency with which words are used in the contexts for change will affect how readily the word undergoes a change in progress. This prediction is tested on data from /t, d/ deletion in American English. Finally, the effect of bound morphemes on the diffusion of a sound change is examined. The data suggest that instances of a bound morpheme can affect the rate of change for that morpheme overall.

Abstract: In the literature on sound change, much has been made of the neogrammarian doctrine that sound changes operate without exceptions. Without some such hypothesis any description would be a long list of unsystematic correspondences, with no assurance that the same sound under comparable conditions would not change into a variety of different sounds, with no governing principle whatsoever. This point of view, which Hockett has termed the 'regularity hypothesis', has been richly rewarding in historical research; as a celebrated part of the heritage of modern linguistics, the point needs no elaboration here. When irregularities appear to leak through the net of postulated phonetic laws, there should be an explanation for them. In the words of Karl Verner, 'There must be a rule for irregularity; the problem is to find it.' In searching for a rule that would explain certain residues of Grimm's Law, Verner found it necessary to go beyond the segmental environment into the accentual systems of IndoEuropean and Germanic, though the condition in the rule he discovered is still phonetic. In recent years, an impressive body of evidence has accumulated that there are diachronic rules which depend on conditions that are altogether nonphonetic, e.g. factors which are morphological and syntactic.' That this is so should not be surprising: in phonology, diachronic rules frequently leave counterparts in the form of synchronic rules, and there are numerous instances where synchronic rules are obviously dependent on 'grammatical prerequisites'. Furthermore, the stock of morphemes in a language is often partitioned into several layers according to non-phonetic criteria, where these layers exhibit different phonological behavior. To a large extent, such partitions correlate with the historical sources of the various layers, e.g. Romance versus native morphemes in English, or Chinese versus native morphemes in Japanese.

Abstract: Recent investigations of the history of Chinese have given new support to the view that sound change diffuses gradually across the lexicon. Yet instrumental studies of sound change in progress support the Neogrammarian position that change affects all words that include the sound according to their phonetic environment. The paradox can be resolved by distinguishing abstract phonological change from change in low-level output rules. Both types of rules can be observed in recent studies of sound change in progress in Philadelphia: the lexical split of short a shows lexical diffusion in progress, while raising, lowering, fronting, and backing rules show Neogrammarian regularity. A review of the literature on completed changes and other changes in progress tends to support the relevance of a hierarchy of abstractness in determining the nature of the transition from one stage to the other.*