A methodology for qualitative analysis of historical corpus data: New insights about language change from a micro-analytical approach

历史语料库数据定性分析方法：微观分析方法对语言变化的新见解

• 批准号: AH/N002911/1
• 负责人: Tine Breban
• 金额: $ 11.94万
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2016 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FN002911%2F1
• 关键词: methodology; qualitative; analysis; historical; corpus

Linguists have always been interested in finding out how language changes. This area of research was transformed in the 1980s when electronic resources with large sets of historical data (corpora) became available for study. Corpora made it possible to study language change with quantitative methods for the first time. Historical corpus linguistics has focused on the development of more and better corpora and of quantitative methods. Methods for qualitative analysis have not been adapted to exploit all possibilities offered by the new resources. The main objective of this project is to redress this balance and put qualitative research and methodology on the agenda. It will do so by- proposing new qualitative methods to identify changes in historical corpus data, - showing the descriptive gain they offer, - showing that new data found with this methodology can bear on longstanding questions in historical linguistics such as the question how language change happens.First, I will develop new methods to identify one particular type of change, that by which linguistic items acquire a new function. An example is the change of the word 'certain', which originally only occurred in combinations such as 'a certain victory', where it means "sure, guaranteed" and its function is to describe a property of the victory in question. Through language change, 'certain' developed a new function as determiner: e.g. 'certain people don't like cats' where 'certain' is equivalent to 'some'. In this change, the form 'certain' remains the same. This raises the question how we can distinguish between the two functions in historical corpus data and which empirical evidence we can adduce for this change. The new methodology will consist of types of evidence relating to the form of the item and/or the range of contexts the item occurs in (its distribution) because changes to these aspects can be observed when comparing data for different periods. Because the methods investigate individual items, they are said to operate at the micro-level (rather than at the macro-level of abstract concepts such as e.g. word classes). In a second stage, I will test how efficient the new methodology is by applying it to two new sets of data which look at English items like 'certain' which have different functions in the noun phrase (a constituent such as 'a boy', 'the happy parrot', which identifies entities). These sets involve (1) items such as 'pretty' which has an original function of ascribing a property (being good-looking), e.g. 'a pretty girl', but which also has a new function in which it intensifies another item describing a property, e.g. in 'a pretty bad week' and (2) items such as 'hard', which can ascribe a property (being solid, firm), e.g. 'a hard rock', but has developed a new function in 'a hard cheese' where it indicates a subtype of cheese (hard cheeses such as gouda as opposed to soft cheeses such as brie). I will show that the micro-analytical methods improve the description of the changes on the level of the individual items and that of the functions.The third stage of the project reconstructs how change might have happened for the items in these data sets on the basis of the new micro-analytical descriptions. One of the main questions is how the mechanisms found with the new methodology relate to the two main mechanisms of change that have been distinguished in historical linguistics: reanalysis, i.e. the syntax of a linguistic item is reinterpreted in a different way (e.g. 'hamburger' was analysed as hamburg-er, but reanalysed as ham-burger), and analogy, i.e. the extension of a form from one environment to another based on similarity (e.g. 'cheeseburger' and 'fishburger' are created by analogy with 'hamburger' after its reanalysis). My hypothesis is that analogy plays the most important role in the changes of 'pretty', 'hard', but does so in different ways with different elements acting as attractor for the analogy.

语言学家一直对语言的变化感兴趣。这一研究领域在20世纪80年代发生了转变，当时有大量历史数据（语料库）的电子资源可供研究。语料库的出现使语言变化的定量研究首次成为可能。历史语料库语言学一直致力于发展更多、更好的语料库和量化方法。定性分析的方法还没有调整，以利用新资源提供的所有可能性。该项目的主要目标是纠正这种平衡，并将定性研究和方法列入议程。它将这样做-提出新的定性方法来识别历史语料库数据的变化，-显示他们提供的描述性收益，-显示新的数据发现，这种方法可以承担在历史语言学的长期问题，如语言变化如何发生的问题。首先，我将开发新的方法来识别一种特定类型的变化，即语言项目获得新的功能。一个例子是"certain"这个词的变化，它最初只出现在"a certain victory"这样的组合中，它的意思是"确定的，有保证的"，它的功能是描述所讨论的胜利的属性。通过语言的变化，“certain”发展了一种新的限定词功能：例如，“certain people don’t like cats”，其中“certain”相当于“some”。在这种变化中，“某些”的形式保持不变。这就提出了一个问题，我们如何区分历史语料库数据中的两种功能，以及我们可以为这种变化提供哪些经验证据。新方法将包括与项目形式和/或项目出现的背景范围（其分布）有关的证据类型，因为在比较不同时期的数据时可以观察到这些方面的变化。因为这些方法研究单个项目，所以它们被认为是在微观层面上操作（而不是在抽象概念的宏观层面上操作，例如词类）。在第二阶段，我将测试如何有效的新方法是通过将其应用到两个新的数据集，看英语项目，如“某些”，在名词短语中有不同的功能（一个组成部分，如“一个男孩”，“快乐的鹦鹉”，它标识实体）。这些集合包括：（1）“漂亮”等项目，它具有赋予属性的原始功能（好看），例如“漂亮的女孩”，但它也有一个新的功能，其中它加强了另一个描述属性的项目，例如在“相当糟糕的一周”和（2）项目，如“硬”，这可以归因于属性（是固体的，坚硬的），例如"坚硬的岩石"，但是在"坚硬的奶酪"中已经开发了一个新的功能，其中它表示奶酪的一个亚型（与软奶酪如布里相对的硬奶酪如豪达）。我将表明，微观分析方法改善了对单个项目和功能水平上的变化的描述。项目的第三阶段在新的微观分析描述的基础上，重建这些数据集中的项目可能发生的变化。主要问题之一是，新方法论发现的机制如何与历史语言学中区分的两种主要变化机制相关联：重新分析，即以不同的方式重新解释语言项的句法（例如，“汉堡包”被分析为汉堡包，但重新分析为汉堡包），和类比，即，基于相似性将形式从一个环境扩展到另一个环境（例如，"奶酪汉堡"和"鱼汉堡"是在重新分析后通过与"汉堡"类比而创建的）。我的假设是，类比在“漂亮”、“硬”的变化中起着最重要的作用，但不同的元素作为类比的吸引子，以不同的方式起作用。

项目成果

How do grammatical patterns emerge? The origins and development of the English proper noun modifier construction

语法模式是如何出现的？

• DOI: 10.1017/s1360674319000248
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: English Language and Linguistics
• 影响因子: 1
• 作者: BREBAN T

Proper names used as modifiers: a comprehensive functional analysis

用作修饰语的专有名称：全面的功能分析

• DOI: 10.1017/s1360674316000514
• 发表时间: 2017
• 期刊: English Language and Linguistics
• 影响因子: 1
• 作者: BREBAN T

The impact of semantic relations on grammatical alternation: an experimental study of proper name modifiers and determiner genitives

语义关系对语法交替的影响：专名修饰语和限定属格的实验研究

• DOI: 10.1017/s1360674319000261
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: English Language and Linguistics
• 影响因子: 1
• 作者: BREBAN T

Special issue: Different perspectives on proper noun modifiers

特刊：对专有名词修饰语的不同观点

• DOI: 10.1017/s136067431900025x
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: English Language and Linguistics
• 影响因子: 1
• 作者: BREBAN T

A cognitive-functional approach to the order of adjectives in the English noun phrase

英语名词短语中形容词顺序的认知功能方法

• DOI: 10.1515/ling-2019-0003
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: Linguistics
• 影响因子: 1.1
• 作者: Davidse K