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Article published In:
Current trends in analyzing syntactic variation
Edited by Ludovic De Cuypere, Clara Vanderschueren and Gert de Sutter
[Belgian Journal of Linguistics 31] 2017
► pp. 301–327

Exploring the Left Dislocation construction by means of multiple linear regression

Complexity and orality of Modern English left-dislocated NPs

| Universidade de Vigo |

This study deals with the complexity of left-dislocated [LDed] noun phrases in the Modern English period (1500–1914). The purpose is twofold: to estimate the effects of a number of theoretically relevant predictors on complexity, operationalized as word-length, and to explore whether shorter LDed NPs, which are characteristic of contemporary spoken English, symbolize the claimed ‘orality’ of earlier speech-related texts. Multiple linear regression is employed in order to assess the correlation between complexity and factors relating to both the context (e.g. genre) and the inner configuration (e.g. augmentation of the LDed constituent) of the tokens extracted from the Penn-Helsinki suite of corpora. The results confirm that shorter LDed items more closely match the characterization previously offered for contemporary spoken Left Dislocation. The results also provide preliminary insight into the accommodation strategies that might facilitate the resumption of heavier LDed NPs. As regards genre, speech-purposed and mixed texts feature a higher relative rate of shorter LDed elements. Thus, if shorter LDed NPs are more closely connected with the spoken variant, it is in speech-purposed and mixed genres where they might be claimed to constitute a trait of orality that is deliberately employed by writers in order to reproduce conversation. Surprisingly, speech-like genres do not include LDed items as often, and these are just as complex as those attested in writing-related texts.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Processing constraints in LD
    • 2.2LD as a feature of orality and informality
  • 3.Data and methods
    • 3.1Length: The continuous dependent variable
    • 3.2Genre cluster
    • 3.3Period
    • 3.4Intervening material
    • 3.5Augmentation
    • 3.6Punctuation
    • 3.7Form of the resumptive
    • 3.8Position of the resumptive
    • 3.9Animacy
    • 3.10The statistical model: multiple linear regression for effect estimation
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Further results on genre and period: LDed NPs and orality
  • 5.Discussion and concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 23 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.00012.tiz
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