Feast and Famine: Confronting Overabundance and Defectivity in Language

每天，当我们使用语言时，我们会无意识地选择感觉“合适”的单词形式来表达我们想说的话。然而，有时，多种形式可能会竞争一个位置，例如“证明”的分词(have proven ？有证明吗?);在这里，用户发现这两种形式都足够了，尽管我们每个人可能只使用其中一种。在其他地方，我们缺乏一个合适的形式，而这是我们所期望的：我们可能会在形成动词“故障排除”的过去式时，我们有一个“槽”（一个特定单词的过去式），但没有一个形式可以充分填补它(疑难？解决?)这些“盛宴”（多种形式）和“饥荒”（无形式）的例子表明，选择“正确”的词形并不是一个从功能到形式的机械映射过程；相反，用户会从一篮子可用的表单中权衡和选择表单，有时会保留不必要的表单，有时会找不到适合我们的表单。语言学家称第一种不匹配为“过剩”，第二种为“缺陷”。这些不匹配给传统的语言理论带来了困难，这些理论假设我们使用的每种形式都满足一个功能，而每种功能都可以通过一种形式来实现。在大多数情况下，这是对的：如果成年英语母语者需要动词“choose”的过去式，他们会准确地用“selected”开头，而不会用“choosed”或“chost”。这导致了一种假设，即变形（形式选择）是自动的，没有判断的，天生的，而不是学习的。语言手册将这种假设付诸实践，描述的形式和特征与说话者实际使用它们的方式非常不同。传统上，缺乏和过剩被视为不同的现象，出现在不同的环境中，可以解释它们不同的结果。我们的项目突出了这些情况下的共性——结果（多种形式或没有）标志着它们的不同。使用来自形态复杂语言（捷克语、克罗地亚语、爱沙尼亚语和PDRA选择的另一种语言）的数据，我们探索了一个基本问题：哪些因素促使用户和使用模式走上一条或另一条道路？捷克国家语料库研究所将使用语料库数据，特别是来自更“自然”的字幕语料库，来发现识别文本“真实世界”中的竞争（过剩）和差距（缺陷）的新方法：他们的方法（搭配、关键字分析、频率分布）将通过实验和计算方法在项目语言上进行改进、阐述和测试。谢菲尔德将使用来自成年母语人士的实验数据，通过类似的结构测试来检查语言使用者对过多和缺陷的反应——这些测试显示我们的反应在哪些方面与这两种槽型有明显的不同。这些数据还将有助于评估社会语言学差异的各个方面，如教育和阅读技能。-约克将测试、完善和开发屈折形态的计算模型，以了解它们如何处理和预测过多和有缺陷的槽。萨格勒布和约克将在自然主义和实验环境中收集语言习得数据，以阐明学习者如何理解“混乱”的数据，例如那些在过多和有缺陷的插槽中发现的数据。过剩和不足将被视为对不确定可预测性结构的潜在不同的、暂时的反应。作为项目的一个组成部分，萨格勒布和布拉格的工作人员将把我们的研究结果翻译成语言使用者指南，并直接提供给面向公众的语言资源，如在线词典和目标语言手册。与目前语言学家为他们设计的理想化系统不同，使用者将以一种清晰和用户友好的形式获得关于他们的语言如何被使用的信息。

Every day, as we use language, we unconsciously select forms of words that feel "right" for what we want to say. Occasionally, however, multiple forms may compete for a slot, such as the participle of 'prove' (have proved? have proven?); here, users find both forms adequate, although each of us might only use one of them. Elsewhere, we lack a suitable form where one is expected: we may baulk at forming the past tense of the verb 'troubleshoot', where we have a "slot" (past tense of a particular word) but no form that can adequately fill it (troubleshot? troubleshooted?).These examples of "feast" (multiple forms) and "famine" (no forms) show that selecting the "right" word form is not a process of mechanically mapping from function to form; instead, users weigh and select forms from a basket of those available to us, sometimes keeping around more forms than necessary and sometimes failing to find a form that works for us. Linguists term the first sort of mismatch 'overabundance', and the second sort 'defectivity'. These mismatches cause difficulty for traditional linguistic theories, which assume that each form we use fulfils one function, and that each function can be fulfilled by one form. For the most part, this is true: if adult native speakers need a past tense of the verb 'choose', they head unerringly for 'chose', never *choosed or *chost. This results in an assumption that inflection (form-selection) is automatic, judgement-free, and innate rather than learned. Language handbooks then write this assumption into practice, describing forms and features very differently from how a speaker might actually use them. Defectivity and overabundance have traditionally been treated as separate phenomena, arising in different circumstances that explain their divergent outcomes. Our project highlights the commonalities in these circumstances - it is the outcomes (multiple forms or none) that mark them as distinct. Using data from morphologically complex languages - Czech, Croatian, Estonian and a further language chosen by the PDRA - we explore a fundamental question: which factors push users and models of use down one or the other path? We converge on an answer by considering multiple perspectives: - The Czech National Corpus Institute will use CORPUS DATA, particularly from more "naturalistic" subtitle corpora, to uncover new methods for identifying competition (overabundance) and gaps (defectivity) in the "real world" of texts: their methods (collocation, keymorph analysis, frequency distribution) will be refined, elaborated and tested on project languages via experimental and computational methods. - Sheffield will use EXPERIMENTAL DATA from adult native speakers to examine language users' reactions to overabundance and defectivity by confronting them in similarly structured tests - which show in what way our reactions are (or are not) measurably different to these two slot types. These data will also help assess aspects of SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION, such as education and reading skills. - York will test, refine and develop COMPUTATIONAL MODELS OF INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY to see how they handle and predict overabundant and defective slots. - Zagreb and York will collect LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DATA in naturalistic and experimental settings to illuminate how learners make sense of "messy" data such as those found in overabundant and defective slots. Overabundance and defectivity will be examined as potentially differing, temporary responses to structures of uncertain predictability. As an integral part of the project, staff in Zagreb and Prague will translate our findings into GUIDELINES for language users, feeding directly into public-facing language resources such as online dictionaries and handbooks of the target languages. Instead of seeing idealised systems that linguists project for them, as at present, speakers will get information on how their language is used in a clear and user-friendly format.