Where shall I put this? Distance-to-V, length and verb disposition effects on PP placement in Belgian Dutch Annelore Willems, Gert De Sutter Faculty of.

Where shall I put this?

Distance-to-V, length and verb disposition effects on PP placement in Belgian Dutch

Annelore Willems, Gert De Sutter Faculty of Translation Studies

University College Ghent – Ghent University

{annelore.willems,gert.desutter}@hogent.be

New Ways of Analyzing Variation 2012

(1) A multifactorial investigation of PP placement in Dutch subordinate clauses

(2) Refine common assumptions in syntactic and psycholinguistic theory

Dutch language users do not strive at maximally reducing the distance between depending elements

Goals

dat ikSU binnen een vijftiental ondernemingen van de Bel20 contacten hebV-final.that ISU within about five enterprises of the Bel20 contacts haveV-final.

Midfielddat ikSU contacten hebV-final binnen een vijftiental ondernemingen van de Bel20.that ISU contacts haveV-final within about five enterprises of the Bel20.

Postfield

The structural position before V-final (midfield) is the standard slot for PPs, with the slot after V-final being an expansion tank for an overladen midfield slot (ANS 1997, Jansen 1979)

The distance between SU and V should be reduced as much as possible (Jansen 1979, Van Haeringen 1949)

Research object

Dutch Parallel Corpus (DPC)• a 10-million-word, parallel corpus of Dutch, English and French• sentence-aligned with basic linguistic annotations• 5 different text genres but for this presentation only journalistic

texts

Data selection:• dependent clauses starting with the grammatical conjunction dat

(= that)• PP phrases where variation between extraposition and non-

extraposition is possible• Belgian Dutch

Method: Corpus and data

Logistic regression analysis and generalised linear mixed model

PP position (midfield vs. postfield) as binary response variable Predictor variables:

Fixed effects1. The length of the PP 2. The distance-to-V 3. The distance between V and the end of the clauseRandom effects1. Verbs2. Prepositions

Method: Statistical evaluation

Results

Overview general distribution Monofactorial analysis

1. Fixed effect 1: Length of PP2. Fixed effect 2: Distance-to-V3. Fixed effect 3: Distance between V and end

Multifactorial analysis

Overview Results

[…] dat de Belgen aan de Olympische Spelen deelnamen […] that the Belgians in the Olympics take part […] dat de Belgen deelnamen aan de Olympische Spelen […] that the Belgians take part in the Olympics

Distribution of PPs in midfield or postfield

MidfieldPostfield

58%42%

Operationalised in terms of syllables Example:

[…] dat de Belgen aan /de/ O/lym/pi/sche/ Spe/len deelnamen = 8

Also counted in terms of words

Fixed effect1: The length of the PP

Fixed effect1: The length of the PP

1 = 2 syllables2 = 3 to 7 syllables3 = 8 to 12 syllables4 = 13 or more syllables

AV = postfieldMV = midfield

Statistical evaluation:

Fixed effect1: The length of the PP

Length of the PP O.R. p-value

syllables 12.05 < 2e-16 ***

Operationalised for the syllables between SU and V (o.a. Jansen 1978, Gibson 2000)

Example:dat ik binnen een vijftiental ondernemingen van de Bel20

con/tac/ten heb.= 3 syllables

Also counted in terms of words and phrases

Fixed effect2: Distance-to-V

Fixed effect2: Distance-to-V

1 = 0 syllables2 = 1 or 6 syllables3 = 7 or more syllables

AV = postfieldMV = midfield

Fixed effect2: Distance-to-V

1 = 0 syllables2 = 1 or 6 syllables3 = 7 or more syllables

AV = postfieldMV = midfield

Fixed effect2: Distance-to-V

1 = 0 syllables2 = 1 or 6 syllables3 = 7 or more syllables

AV = postfieldMV = midfield

?

Statistical evaluation:

Fixed effect2: Distance-to-V

Distance-to-V O.R. p-value

syllables 1.48 0.0001***

Operationalised in terms of syllables Example:

Dat mensen een sympathieke collega zullen verkiezen als/ part/ner.

= 3 syllable

Also counted in terms of words

Fixed effect3: Distance between V and the end

Fixed effect3: Distance between V and the end

1 = 0 syllables2 = 1 or more syllables

AV = postfieldMV = midfield

Statistical evaluation:

Fixed effect3: Distance between V and the end

Distance-V-end O.R. p-value

syllables 0.43 <2e-16 ***

No correlation No interaction Multicollinearity C concordance = 0.75

Logistic regression analysis

Factor O.R. p-value

Length PP 12.48 <2e-16 ***

Distance-to-V 1.62 0.0001***

Distance-V-end 0.48 5.47e-13 ***

Verbs and preposition as random variables

C Concordance = 0.86

Generalised mixed effect model

variance Std.Dev.

Verbs 0.53 0.72

Prepositions 0.36 0.59

O.R. p-value

Length PP 16.89 <2e-16 ***

Distance-to-V 1.68 0.00***

Distance-V-end 0.43 6.15e-14 ***

Gries, Stefanowitsch 2004: Collostructional analysis An analysis of the verbs/prepositions that are distinctive for each

construction may help us elucidate the existence and degree of fine semantic differences that might explain the different restrictions.

Interpretation random effects

Collostructional analysis (Gries, Stefanowitsch 2004) :

PP disposition

MV AV

in 7.33 van 5.29

binnen 2.7 voor 3.64

na 2.68 aan 1.5

tijdens 1.76 met 1.47

Collostructional analysis (Gries, Stefanowitsch 2004) :

Verb disposition

MV AV

Doen 3.02 Recht hebben 1.89

Komen 2.53 Rol spelen 1.89

Staan 1.95 Deel uitmaken 1.65

Beschikken 1.78 Bezig zijn 1.42

Halen 1.62 Tevreden zijn 1.42

lijden 1.52 Verantwoordelijk zijn 1.41

Collostructional analysis (Gries, Stefanowitsch 2004) :

Verb disposition

MV AV

Doen 3.02 Recht hebben 1.89

Komen 2.53 Rol spelen 1.89

Staan 1.95 Deel uitmaken 1.65

Beschikken 1.78 Bezig zijn 1.42

Halen 1.62 Tevreden zijn 1.42

lijden 1.52 Verantwoordelijk zijn 1.41

1. Postfield position is more often preferred than midfield position

2. PP placement will be determined by 3 length factors 2 random effects

Summary

Common assumption:dat ik contacten heb V-final binnen een vijftiental ondernemingen van de Bel20.

But the structural position before V-final (midfield) is not the standard slot for PPs.

Implications for linguistic theory

MidfieldPostfield

OR Distance-V-end 0.43> OR Distance-to-V 1.68

Subject and verb in subordinate clauses are mostly not adjacentDistance between subject and V is not to be reduced as

much as possible in Dutch dependent clauses

Implications for linguistic theory

Thank you!

For further [email protected]

The length of the PP [words]

1 = 2 or 3 words2 = 4 to 6 words3 = 7 to 11 words4 = 12 or more words

AV = extrapositionMV = midfield

Logistic regression analysis:

Correlation = 0.81, p < 2.2e-16

The length of the PP

Factor O.R. p-value

words 25.79 1.62e-11 ***

syllables 12.05 < 2e-16 ***

Distance-to-V [words]

1 = 0 words2 = 1 or 2 words3 = 3 or more words

AV = extrapositionMV = midfield

Distance-to-V [phrases]

1 = 0 phrases2 = 1 phrase3 = 2-4 phrases

AV = extrapositionMV = midfield

Logistic regression analysis:

Correlation [words, syllables] = 0.84, p < 2.2e-16 Correlation [words, phrases] = 0.64 , p < 2.2e-16 Correlation [syllables, phrases] = 0.58 , p < 2.2e-16

Distance-to-V

Factor O.R. p-value

words 1.41 0.00***

syllables 1.48 0.00***

phrases 0.49

Verbs as random variable Mixed effect in logistic regression:

C Concordance = 0.85

Verb disposition

Factor O.R. p-value

Length PP 15.61 <2e-16 ***

Distance-to-V 1.6 0.00***

Distance-V-end 0.42 1.61e-15 ***