Variation in morphological productivity in the history of ...morphology in adult speech: A corpus analysis using MorphoQuantics. Language Studies Working Papers: University of Reading,

VariationinmorphologicalproductivityinthehistoryofEnglish

Thecaseof-er

TanjaSäily,Jukka Suomela &Eetu Mäkelä

Nominalsuffixes-er and-or

• Typicallyderiveagentiveorinstrumentalnounsfromverbs:driver,governor,filler– Also:person‘concernedwithN’/‘livinginN’– Here:divisionintoanimatevs.inanimate

• -or:Latinatevariantof-er– Pronouncedidentically(adviser/advisor)à treatedasasinglesuffixhere(Plag2003:89;Bauer2001:199–203)

Productivityof-er and-or

• Sociolinguisticvariation?– “Default”suffix(Baueretal.2013:232)à no?– Säily (2011):womenuse-ity lessproductivelythanmen;lower-classwomen:also-ness• Genderedstyles?

• Productivity≈ typefrequency– Numberofdifferentwordscontainingthesuffix– Baayen (2009),Säily &Suomela (2009)

Material

• BNC=BritishNationalCorpus,early1990s– Demographicallysampledspokencomponent,bothgender&socialclassknown:358speakers,2.6Mw

• CEEC=CorporaofEarlyEnglishCorrespondence,C18section(1680–1800)– Speech-likegenre,socialmetadata– 315writers,2.2Mw

Methods

• Typescross-checkedwithMorphoQuantics(Laws&Ryder2014a,b)

• CEEC:FiCa interfaceforclassifyingdata(developedbyEetu Mäkelä)

• Analysisofproductivity:types2(Suomela 2014,2015)

FiCa

types2Atoolforexploringword-frequency

differencesincorpora

Comparingwordfrequencies

• Typefrequency=extentofuseorrealisedproductivity(Baayen 2009)– Cannotbenormalisedà difficulttocomparesubcorpora,e.g.differentsocialgroups

• types2:permutationtesting– Comparesinglesubcorpus withmultiplerandomlycomposedsubcorpora ofthesamesize

– Randomsubcorpora sampledfromtheentirecorpusà representwhatisnormalinit

Exploringwordfrequencies

• Typically:statictables,figures– Notconducivetorapidexploration

• Interpretation ofresults?– Needtogobacktotheconcordances&metadata

• types2:onlineinterfacewithinteractivefigures,linkeddata

Case1:BNCDemographicallysampledspokencomponent,

early1990s

BNC:Summaryofresults

• Menuse-ermoreproductivelythanwomen

• Especiallyoldermen,evenathome

• Working-classwomenunderuseanimate-er

Women’suseofinanimate-er

Men’suseofinanimate-er

Whoarethemaleusers?

Oldermenathome

Men’suseofanimate-er

BNC:Interpretationofresults• Menuse-ermoreproductivelythanwomen– Focusontools&occupations,playfulname-calling:masculineidentity-building?

• Especiallyoldermen,evenathome– Keune etal.(2006,2012):highlyeducatedoldermenarethemostproductiveusersofDutchaffixes

– Štekauer etal.(2005):highlyeducatedolderspeakersprefermoreexplicitnamingstrategiesinEnglish

• Working-classwomenunderuseanimate-er– Preferotherstrategiesofreferringtopeople?– Involvedstyle?à fewernouns(cf.Säily 2011)

Case2:CEECCorporaofEarlyEnglishCorrespondence,

1680–1800(pilotresults,handlewithcare!)

CEEC:Summaryofresults

• Productivityof-er increasesovertime– Inanimate-er veryinfrequentcomparedtoBNC

• Menwritingtotheirclosefriendsoveruse-er

• Clergyunderuse-er

Men’suseof-er toclosefriends

Whoarethemaleusers(TC)?

CEEC:Interpretationofresults

• Productivityof-er increasesovertime– Stylisticchangeorcontinuedsemanticexpansion?(Säily forthcoming,-ity;Dalton-Puffer1994)

– Inanimate-er veryinfrequentcomparedtoBNC• Latertechnologicaldevelopments?

• Menwritingtotheirclosefriendsoveruse-er– Less stablerelationshipatriggerforproductivity?(cf.Wolfson1990;Säily forthcoming,-ity)

• Clergyunderuse-er– ???

Futurework

• Furtherclassification– Agent/instrument/location?– Occasional/habitual/professionalagent?(cf.Dalton-Puffer1994)

– Bywordclass&etymologyofbase• Studybothderivationandinflection– Next:inflectionalcomparative-er– Similarvariation&changeinproductivity?à bothcontributetosyntheticity (Danchev 1992)

References• Baayen,R.H.2009.Corpuslinguisticsinmorphology:Morphological

productivity.A.Lüdeling &M.Kytö (eds.),CorpusLinguistics:AnInternationalHandbook,899–919.Berlin:MoutondeGruyter.

• Bauer,L.2001.MorphologicalProductivity.Cambridge:CUP.• Bauer,L.,R.Lieber &I.Plag 2013.TheOxfordReferenceGuidetoEnglish

Morphology.Oxford:OUP.• BNC=TheBritishNationalCorpus,version3(BNCXMLedition).2007.

DistributedbyOxfordUniversityComputingServicesonbehalfoftheBNCConsortium.

• CEEC=CorporaofEarlyEnglishCorrespondence.CompiledbyT.Nevalainen,H.Raumolin-Brunberg etal.attheUniversityofHelsinki.http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/CoRD/corpora/CEEC/

• Dalton-Puffer,C.1994.AreShakespeare’sagentnounsdifferentfromChaucer’s?– Onthedynamicsofaderivationalsub-system.Kastovsky,D.(ed.),StudiesinEarlyModernEnglish,45–58.Berlin:MoutondeGruyter.

• Danchev,A.1992. AnalyticandsyntheticdevelopmentsinEnglish.M.Rissanen etal.(eds.),HistoryofEnglishes,25–41.Berlin:MoutondeGruyter.

References• Keune,K.,R.vanHout &R.H.Baayen.2006.Socio-geographicvariationin

morphologicalproductivityinspokenDutch:Acomparisonofstatisticaltechniques.J-M.Viprey &Lexicometrica (eds.),Actes deJADT2006 :8esjournées internationales d’analyse statistique desdonnées textuelles,571–581.Besançon:Université deFranche-Comté.

• Keune,K.,R.vanHout &R.H.Baayen 2012.DerivationalandlexicalproductivityacrosswrittenandspokenDutch.Chapter4inK.Keune,ExplainingRegisterandSociolinguisticVariationintheLexicon:CorpusStudiesonDutch.PhDdissertation,Radboud UniversityNijmegen.

• Laws,J.V.&C.Ryder2014a.MorphoQuantics.http://morphoquantics.co.uk/

• Laws,J.V.&C.Ryder2014b.Gettingthemeasureofderivationalmorphologyinadultspeech:AcorpusanalysisusingMorphoQuantics.LanguageStudiesWorkingPapers:UniversityofReading,Vol.6,3–17.

• Plag,I.2003.Word-FormationinEnglish.Cambridge:CUP.• Säily,T.2011.VariationinmorphologicalproductivityintheBNC:

Sociolinguisticandmethodologicalconsiderations.CorpusLinguisticsandLinguisticTheory 7(1):119–141.

References• Säily,T.Forthcoming.Changeorvariation?Productivityofthe

suffixes-ness and-ity.T.Nevalainen,M.Palander-Collin&T.Säily(eds.),SociolinguisticChangein18th-CenturyEnglish.

• Säily,T.&J.Suomela 2009.Comparingtypecounts:Thecaseofwomen,menand-ity inearlyEnglishletters.A.Renouf &A.Kehoe(eds.),CorpusLinguistics:RefinementsandReassessments,87–109.Amsterdam:Rodopi.

• Štekauer,P.,D.Chapman,S.Tomaščíková &Š.Franko.2005.Word-formationascreativitywithinproductivityconstraints:Sociolinguisticevidence.OnomasiologyOnline 6:1–55.

• Suomela,J.2014. types2:Typeandhapaxaccumulationcurves.http://users.ics.aalto.fi/suomela/types2/

• Suomela,J.2015.bnc-affix:AnalysingproductivityofaffixeswithBNC&MorphoQuantics data.github.com/suomela/bnc-affix

• Wolfson,N.1990.Thebulge:Atheoryofspeechbehavior andsocialdistance.PennWorkingPapersinEducationalLinguistics 2(1):55–83.