The present study weighs the effect of well-established language-internal factors of the dative alternation such as animacy or pronominality of the object phrases against language-external factors such as origin of the speaker. For that purpose, the study samples three types of dative variants… read more
The present chapter explores the variable nature of speakers’ (probabilistic) grammar by analysing variation in the English dative alternation across World Englishes. While the numerous constraints that impact the choice of variant are well-known, the extent to which the regional variability of… read more
Prepositional phrases (PPs) play an important part in English argument structure constructions, but pose considerable challenges for linguistic investigations of any kind. In addition to the fact that PP-attachment is generally notoriously difficult to model computationally, a particularly… read more
This paper investigates the relationship between the stylistic context of utterance production and the language user’s regional background as influencing factors in one syntactic alternation, i.e., variation between the double object and the prepositional dative construction. To that end, this… read more
We sketch a project that marries probabilistic grammar research to scholarship on World Englishes, thus synthesizing two previously rather disjoint lines of research into one unifying project with a coherent focus. This synthesis is hoped to advance usage-based theoretical linguistics by adopting… read more