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Linguistic Profiles for Investigations of Form and Meaning

Linguistic Profiles for Investigations of Form and Meaning. Laura A. Janda CLEAR (Cognitive Linguistics: Empirical Approaches to Russian) UiT The Arctic University of Norway. A Big Question perspective. Big Questions Transcend theory Interesting for all linguists Theory

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Linguistic Profiles for Investigations of Form and Meaning

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  1. Linguistic Profiles for Investigations of Form and Meaning Laura A. Janda CLEAR (Cognitive Linguistics: Empirical Approaches to Russian) UiT The Arctic University of Norway

  2. A Big Question perspective Big Questions Transcendtheory Interesting for all linguists Theory Helps to focus Big Questions Operationalization Facilitatesquantitativemethods

  3. Overview • Big Questions • Theoretical perspective • Operationalization • Portable • Multipurpose • Examples • Infrastructure • Applications

  4. 1. Some Big Questions What is the relationship between form and meaning? What is the relationship between lexicon and grammar? What is the structure of linguistic categories? What is the structure of linguistic constructions?

  5. 2. Theoretical perspective:Cognitive linguistics Minimal Assumption: language can be accounted for in terms of general cognitive strategies • no autonomous language faculty • no strict division between grammar and lexicon • no a priori universals Usage-Based: generalizations emerge from language data • no strict division between langue and parole • no underlying forms Meaning is Central: holds for all language phenomena • no semantically empty forms • differences in behavior are motivated (but not specifically predicted) by differences in meaning

  6. Big Questions focused byCognitive Linguistics What is the relationship between form and meaning? How does form reflect meaning? Can we use difference in form as a measure of meaning? What is the relationship between lexicon and grammar? How do we account for meaning in grammar? Can we use similar models for grammatical meanings? What is the structure of linguistic categories? What is relationship between prototype and periphery? Can we compare category structure across near synonyms? What is the structure of linguistic constructions? Are constructions hierarchical or flat? What is the relationship between constructions and fillers?

  7. 3. Operationalization:Linguistic profiles Focused subsets of behavioral profiles (Firth 1957, Harris 1970, Hanks 1996, Geeraerts et al. 1999, Speelman et al. 2003, Divjak & Gries 2006, Gries & Divjak 2009) Grammatical profiling: relationship between frequency distribution of forms and linguistic categories Semantic profiling: relationship between meanings (semantic tags) and forms Constructional profiling: relationship between frequency distribution of grammatical constructions and meaning Radial category profiling: differences in the frequency distribution of uses across two or more near-synonyms Collostructional profiling: relationship between a construction and the words that fill its slots

  8. 4. Portable Linguistic profiles are portable • across questions • across theories • across statistical models • across languages Linguistic profiles are a suite of methodological ideas that make it possible to approach Big Questions empirically from a variety of angles Ideally results are also portable across platforms • open source, open access, available to all researchers

  9. 5. Multipurpose Quantitatively measured results yield real gains in our understanding of languages These results can serve multiple purposes: • resources for language learners and users • (real, not statistical) machine translation • documentation and revitalization for minority indigenous languages • language policy

  10. 6. Examples • Grammatical Profiles: TAM in Russian • Semantic Profiles: “Empty” prefixes in Russian • Constructional Profiles: SADNESS in Russian • Radial Category Profiles: Ambipositions in North Saami • For eachexamplewewillidentify: • Big Questions • Theoreticalperspective • Operationalization (Profiling) & statisticalmethods • Portability • Multipurposeapplications

  11. Grammatical Profiles: TAM in Russian Janda, L. A. & Lyashevskaya, O. 2011. “Grammatical profiles and the interaction of the lexicon with aspect, tense and mood in Russian”. Cognitive Linguistics 22:4 (2011), 719-763.

  12. Crash course in Russian TAM Tense: Past vs. Non-Past • Non-Past: Imperfective = Present vs. Perfective = Future Aspect: Perfective (marked) vs. Imperfective (unmarked) • All forms of all verbs express aspect • “Aspectual pairs” = same lexical meaning, different aspect, e.g., pisat’‘write[imperfective]’ vs. napisat’‘write[perfective]’ • Aspectual pairs can be formed via both prefixation and suffixation (perepisat’‘rewrite[perfective]’ vs. perepisyvat’‘rewrite[imperfective]’) • ≈1400 imperfective base stems form ≈2000 perfective aspectual partners using 16 prefixes • ≈20K perfective stems form imperfective partners using 3 suffixes • These affixes are traditionally assumed to be “empty” Mood: imperative, infinitives in modal constructions

  13. Grammatical Profiles: TAM in Russian Big Questions: What is the relationship between form and meaning? ➜ between verb inflection and grammatical meaning of aspect? What is the relationship between lexicon and grammar? ➜ between lexical meaning of verbs and TAM?

  14. Grammatical Profiles: TAM in Russian Theoretical focus: Can we measure the expression of aspect according to distribution of inflected forms? Can we distinguish between prefixation vs. suffixation in formation of aspectual pairs? Can we measure the attraction of lexical classes to grammatical categories?

  15. Grammatical Profiles: TAM in Russian Operationalization: Grammatical profiles: frequency distribution of inflected forms ➜Distribution of Russian verb forms according to subparadigm ➜Distribution of Russian verbs according to subparadigm Data: Approx. 6M verb forms from the Russian National Corpus (http://ruscorpora.ru/ ) Statistics: Chi-square, Cramer’s V effect size, distribution plots

  16. What is a grammatical profile? • Verbs have different forms: • eat 749 M • eats 121 M • eating 514 M • eaten 88.8 M • ate 258 M The grammatical profile of eat

  17. Grammatical Profiles of Russian Verbs chi-squared = 947756 df = 3 p-value < 2.2e-16 effect size (Cramer’s V) = 0.399 (medium-large)

  18. Distribution of Russian verb forms according to subparadigm • Prefixation (dark) vs. suffixation (light): • Statisticallysignificant, BUT effectsizestoosmall (0.076 & 0.037)

  19. Distribution of Russian verbs according to subparadigm: Imperfective verbs and their attraction to imperative • Over 200 outliers

  20. Imperfective imperative “be doing X!” • Polite: guest knows what to expect: razdevajtes’‘take off your coat’, sadites’‘sit down’ • Insistence: hearer is hesitant: stupajte‘get going’, gljadite‘look’, zabirajte‘take’ • Insistence: hearer has not behaved properly (connection with negation): provalivaj‘get out of here’, končaj‘stop’, ne perebivaj ‘don’t interrupt’ • Polite requests: vyručajte‘help’ • Kind wishes: vyzdoravlivajte‘get well’ • Idiomatic: davajteposmotrim‘let’s take a look’ • Idiomatic/culturally anchored: proščaj(te)‘farewell’, soedinjajtes’‘unite’ (slogan), zapevaj‘sing’ (army)

  21. Grammatical Profiles: Findings • Perfective verbs behave differently than imperfective verbs • “Verb pairs” behave the same regardless of which type of morphology (prefixation vs. suffixation) is used to mark aspect • We can identify exactly the verbs that are most attracted to various TAM combinations.

  22. Grammatical Profiles: Portability • Across issues: • Grammatical profiling and gender stereotypes (Kuznetsova 2012) • Across languages: • Gives 96% resolution of perfective vs. imperfective for Old Church Slavonic verbs, as compared with Dostál 1954 (Eckhoff & Janda 2013) • Planned study of grammatical profiles across 4 languages: • Across researchers: • All outlier verbs listed in Janda & Lyashevksaya 2011, data and code for Eckhoff & Janda 2013 on website

  23. Grammatical Profiles: Multipurpose Applications Pedagogical implications: • Strategic combinations of verbs and subparadigms

  24. Semantic Profiles: “Empty” prefixes in Russian Janda, L. A. & Lyashevskaya, O. 2013. “Semantic Profiles of Five Russian Prefixes: po-, s-, za-, na-, pro-”. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 21:2, 211-258.

  25. Semantic Profiles: “Empty” prefixes in Russian Big Questions: What is the relationship between form and meaning? ➜ ...between prefixes and meanings of verbs? Are there any “empty” forms? ➜ Are prefixes empty as claimed?

  26. Semantic Profiles: “Empty” prefixes in Russian Theoretical focus: Can we measure the relationship between prefixes and meanings of verbs? ➜ Distribution of prefixes vs. semantic groups of verbs How do we show that “empty” forms aren’t really empty? ➜ Show that prefixes have different semantic behaviors

  27. Semantic Profiles: “Empty” prefixes in Russian Operationalization: Semantic profiling: relationship between meanings (semantic tags) and forms ➜Distribution of Russian verb prefixes vs. semantic tags Data: 382 verbs with “empty” prefixes from the Exploring Emptiness database (http://emptyprefixes.uit.no/index.php ), semantic tags independently assigned in the Russian National Corpus (http://ruscorpora.ru/ ) Statistics: Chi-square, Cramer’s V effect size, Fisher Test

  28. chi-square = 248, df = 12, p = 2.2e-16; Cramer’s V effect-size = 0.8

  29. Attractions and repulsions measured by Fisher Test

  30. Semantic Profiles: Findings • Each prefix has a unique semantic profile • Each prefix is attracted to and repulsed by a different set of semantic classes of verbs • It is possible to establish meanings of prefixes and expectations for how prefixes combine with verbs

  31. Semantic Profiles: Portability All data, statistical code, lists of verbs available at: http://emptyprefixes.uit.no/semantic_eng.htm

  32. Semantic Profiles: Multipurpose Applications Pedagogical implications: We can design materials that reduce the burden of memorizing ≈2000 correct prefix-verb combinations

  33. Constructional Profiles: SADNESS in Russian Janda, L. A. & Solovyev, V. 2009. “What Constructional Profiles Reveal About Synonymy: A Case Study of Russian Words for sadness and happiness”. Cognitive Linguistics 20:2, 367-393.

  34. Crash course in Russian case & SADNESS Nouns are obligatorily case-marked 6 cases: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Instrumental, Genitive, Locative • All cases can appear with a preposition • All cases except Locative can also appear without a preposition • 70 constructions [(preposition) [NOUN]case] SADNESS: 6 near-synonyms, no “umbrella term” • grust’, melanxolija, pečal’, toska, unynie, xandra

  35. Constructional Profiles: SADNESS in Russian Big Questions: What is the relationship between form and meaning? ➜What is the relationship between words and grammatical constructions? ➜What is the relationship between synonyms?

  36. Constructional Profiles: SADNESS in Russian Theoretical focus: Can we measure the difference between synonyms in terms of distribution in grammatical constructions?

  37. Constructional Profiles: SADNESS in Russian Operationalization: Constructional profiling: relationship between frequency distribution of grammatical constructions and meaning ➜SADNESS words vs. distribution in [(preposition) [NOUN]case] constructions Data: 500 sentences for each word from Russian National Corpus, Biblioteka Maksima Moškova Statistics: Chi-square, Cramer’s V effect size, Hierarchical Clustering (squared Euclidean distance)

  38. Chi-square = 730.35, df = 30, p < 0.0001, Cramer’s V = 0.305

  39. ‘Sadness’ Hierarchical Cluster xandra melanxolija grust’ unynie pečal’ toska

  40. Constructional Profiles: Findings Each synonym has a unique constructional profile Some synonyms are closer together, others are farther apart

  41. Constructional Profiles: Portability • Across issues: • Logistic regression analysis of Russian gruzit’‘load’ with 3 “empty” prefixes across Locative Alternation constructions (Sokolova 2012, Sokolova, Janda and Lyashevskaya 2012) • Analysis of aspectual pairs formed by prefix pro- (Kuznetsova 2012) • Across languages: • North Saami anaphoric possessive constructions: reflexive pronoun vs. possessive suffix (forthcoming) • Data published in Janda & Solovyev article; data and code for gruzit’ on website.

  42. Constructional Profiles: Multipurpose Applications Pedagogical implications: Teach relevant constructions with near-synonyms Possible implication for machine translation: Lexical selection informed by constructional profiles

  43. Radial Category Profiles: Ambipositions in North Saami Antonsen, L., Janda, L. A., & Baal, B. A. B. “Njealji davvisámi adposišuvnna geavahus” [“The Use of Four North Saami Adpositions”], co-authored with Lene Antonsen[1] and Berit Anne Bals Baal[3], Sámi dieđalaš áigečála 2012, v. 2. 32pp. Janda, L. A., Antonsen, L. & Baal, B. A. B. Forthcoming. “A Radial Category Profiling Analysis of North Sámi Ambipositions”. High Desert Linguistics Society Proceedings, Volume 1. 11 pp.

  44. Crash course in North Saami ambipositions Unusually large number of adpositions that can appear as both prepositions and postpositions, always use Genitive case 1. a. miehtá dálvvi b. dálvvi miehtá [over winter-G] [winter-G over] ‘during the winter’ 2. a. čađa áiggi b. áiggi čađa [through time-G] [time-G through] ‘through time’ 3. a.rastá joga b. joga rastá   [across river-G] [river-G across] ‘across the river’ 4. a.maŋŋel soađi b. soađi maŋŋel [after war-G] [war-G after] ‘after the war’ 5 = North Saami

  45. Radial Category Profiles: North Saami ambipositions Big Questions: What is the relationship between form and meaning? ➜What is the relationship between position (preposition vs. postposition) and meaning? What is the influence of majority languages (prepositional languages in West vs. postpositional languages in East)? Is there a relationship between frequency of ambipositions and their use to distinguish meaning?

  46. Radial Category Profiles: North Saami ambipositions Theoretical focus: Can we measure the difference between uses in preposition vs. postposition? Can we model the meanings in terms of a radial category? Can we measure dialectal differences?

  47. Radial Category Profiles: North Saami ambipositions Operationalization: Radial category profiling: differences in the frequency distribution of uses across two or more near-synonyms ➜Distribution across uses in radial category for preposition vs. postposition Data: 100+ sentences for each position from 10M word newspaper corpus, plus exx. from literature, Bible translation Statistics: Chi-square, Cramer’s V effect size

  48. Radial categories:miehtá‘over’in newspapers time 95% extent 5% time 9% extent 79% motion 12% postposition preposition chi-squ = 170, df = 2, p < 2.2e-16; Cramer’s V = 0.85

  49. Distribution of adpostitions Х2=129.7, df=2, p<2.2e-16 Cramer’s V=0.48

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