Neil Bermel

Corpus frequency and acceptability judgments: A study of morphosyntactic variants in Czech

Abstract Using data from a 100-million-word representative corpus and a large-scale acceptability survey, we have investigated the relationship between corpus data and acceptability judgments. We conclude that the relative proportions of morphosyntactic variants in a corpus are the most significant predictor of a variants acceptability to native speakers, and that in particular high relative proportions of one variant in a corpus are reliable indicators of high acceptability to native speakers. At the same time we note the limits of this predictability: low-frequency items, as noted elsewhere in the literature, often enjoy high levels of acceptability. Statistical preemption thus appears as a more limited phenomenon than had heretofore been posited.

Czech Diglossia: Dismantling or Dissolution?

This contribution looks at two trends in the evolution of Czech diglossia over the past 100 years that can be described as the ‘dismantling’ and ‘dissolution’ of the diglossic language situation. Dismantling concerns official attempts to reach a ‘rapprochement’ between H and L by modifying the prescribed description of H to incorporate elements from L. Dissolution concerns unofficial changes resulting from societal upheaval and technological advances that have caused a blurring between public and private space and between the formal and informal spheres. The evident retreat of the H code, ‘Literary Czech,’ calls into question the extent to which Ferguson’s classic definitions still apply in the Czech lands. Official changes have attempted to maintain the functionality and prestige of H, but have frequently merely enriched H with previously proscribed features of the dominant L code, ‘Common Czech.’ Unofficial changes have seen L expand into domains that were previously the exclusive preserve of H. Attitudes characteristic of diglossic language situations continue to sustain the distinction, while the actual functional uses of the two varieties have already departed substantially from a diglossic language situation.

Frequency data from corpora partially explain native-speaker ratings and choices in overabundant paradigm cells

Abstract If we can operationalize corpus frequency in multiple ways, using absolute values and proportional values, which of them is more closely connected with the behaviour of language users? In this contribution, we examine overabundant cells in morphological paradigms, and look at the contribution that frequency of occurrence can make to understanding the choices speakers make due to this richness. We look at ways of operationalizing the term frequency in data from corpora and native speakers: the proportional frequency of forms (i. e. percentage of time that a variant is found in corpus data considered as a proportion of all variants) and several interpretations of absolute frequency (i. e. the raw frequency of variants in data from the same corpus). Working with data from unmotivated morphological variation in Czech case forms, we show that different instantiations of frequency help interpret the way variation is perceived and maintained by native speakers. Proportional frequency seems most salient for speakers in forming their judgements, while certain types of absolute frequency seem to have a dominant role in production tasks.