Part of
On Spoken French: An Ashby ReaderWilliam J. Ashby
[Studies in Language Companion Series 226] 2023
► pp. 371–388
This article uses the quantitative methodology of GoldVarb to examine the variable distribution of lexical noun phrases representing core arguments of the verb in a corpus of spoken French and a corpus of spoken Spanish. It is shown that this distribution is not random, but instead conforms to a grammatically and pragmatically motivated pattern known as Preferred Argument Structure.