Research Peter Petré

Abstract

This project will tackle an old and much debated topic in historical English: the origin of English do-support (DS). The new approach is within an interdisciplinary framework of language change and grammaticalisation, and views language as composed of constructions, the process driven by the pragmatics. The focus is the tipping point between the construction as semantically compositional, and the later stages where it is predominantly idiomatic. This research is underpinned by widespread evidence that grammaticalisation pathways for auxiliary verbs are often very similar cross-linguistically (Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1994). It is specifically informed by a recent study of a 'do'-support construction in a different language, the living Romance dialect of Camuno (the researcher's PhD topic: Swinburne 2021), perhaps currently the only example of DS other than English with sufficient data to indicate a grammaticalisation pathway. There are certain similarities between the more primitive forms of DS in modern Camuno and in (south)-western dialects of historical English (1400-1550). These are: 1) semantic preferences in the type of infinitival verb (activity > stative verb) and subject thematic role (agent > experiencer); 2) expression of reality, certainty and existence (in comparison to both main verb-only and modal sentences); 3) an intensifying meaning employed to express doubt or confirmation of a speaker's prior expectation (so in this sense its use is 'presuppositional). Through detailed analysis of certain historical texts, the project explores the meanings and functions of early DS in this period; how these meanings may be predetermined by the lexical meaning of 'do'; and the extent to which syntax played a part in the early developments.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Petré Peter
• Fellow: Swinburne Nicola

Research team(s)

• Grammar and Pragmatics

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

This project focuses on the exploitation of certain linguistic structures in order to convey a sense of unconventionality. In principle, there are countless ways in which language users of different languages can make use of the conventional properties of linguistic items (words, intonation etc.) in order to stand out, yet this project sets out to demonstrate that they can also resort to syntax for these purposes. We focus, more specifically, on three such syntactic constructions: the progressive (expressed by 'be + -ing' in English), GO-constructions, and COME-constructions. Our cross-linguistic study reveals that, irrespective of their degree of entrenchment in a given language, these constructions are being recruited not to encode, say, duration or motion, but simply to convey a sense of unconventionality. The main objective is thus to show that apparently unconventional grammatical choices are not random and unpredictable when looking at them from a crosslinguistic perspective.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: De Wit Astrid
• Co-promoter: Petré Peter
• Fellow: Vancauwenbergh Margot

Research team(s)

• Grammar and Pragmatics

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

English version: The aim of this FWO Scientific Research Network application is threefold: (1) to consolidate the Historical Sociolinguistics Network (HiSoN) and firmly secure the position of Flemish expertise in the research network internationally; (2) to initiate a range of new activities as part of a broader Historical Sociolinguistics Research and Training Program, with a distinct focus on postgraduate training and joint research initiatives; (3) to expand the existing network interdisciplinarily and attract young and established scholars from neighboring disciplines. The research unit Grammar and Pragmatics (GaP, https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/research-groups/grammar-and-pragmatics/) will contribute with its unique expertise on the interaction of sociolinguistic and cognitive factors in language use, variation and change. To this purpose GaP makes use of state-of-the-art methods from computational and corpus linguistics and linguistic ethnography, including data-driven identification of social networks and communities of practice.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Gras Pedro
• Co-promoter: Petré Peter
• Co-promoter: Vandenbroucke Mieke

Research team(s)

• Grammar and Pragmatics

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The main objective of this proposal is to establish the impact of inter-individual differences in cognitive representations on long-term population-level language change. In examining how the individual and community levels interact, the project seeks to contribute to a theory of language as a complex adaptive system. This theory views language as a self-organizing network which at the macro-level shows properties that are not recurrent at the individual level and yet emerge out of complex behaviour at that level. A more specific goal is to chart, and explain, the range of variation in the English complementation system by studying variation between patterns such as 'I remember that a detective came in' and 'I remember a detective coming in'. While a certain amount of variation can probably be accounted for by a desire of varying itself, it has been shown that the choice between complement variants is influenced by factors such as animacy (human or abstract) or clause length. At the same time existing studies have experienced difficulties with robustly accounting for the variation by means of population-level (social) variables only. When social clues are insufficient to determine usage, cognitive mechanisms may come into play that are different between individuals and therefore cannot easily be averaged over. This project seeks to advance our insight in the functionality of abstract grammatical variation of this kind by putting individual-level analysis more central.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Petré Peter

Research team(s)

• Grammar and Pragmatics

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Understanding how, when, and why do the functions and forms of grammar change the way they do, in order to gain insight in human cognition and evolution. The fundamental questions that continue to guide this research are: 1. To what extent is language change dependent on linguistic variation between individuals? For a long time studies on language change treated language as an abstract object cut loose from its users. But obviously language cannot exist without them. While sociolinguists have paid attention to variation between speakers based on social variables (such as age, gender, class), the individual matter less to them, as it is bound to align itself to its peers. Such a view is problematic in view of recent theories that consider language to function as a complex adaptive system, not only at the aggregate level (being an emergent property of the interaction of multiple agents), but also at the level of the individuals themselves. Since language is learnt based on input, which is unique to every individual, different individuals are expected to make different (linguistic) abstractions and generalizations. Cognitive learning styles appear not to be identical either. People do not always share linguistic generalizations even if belonging to the same community. One objective is to shed light on how this cognitive variation feeds into language at the community level. 2. To which degree do individuals change their syntactic behavior across their lifespans? This second question relates to the role of cognitive aging in syntactic change. Two conflicting views have dominated this debate. Research embedded in the generative tradition takes syntactic structures to crystallize into a stable state in early childhood. Proponents of this view typically consider children as the primary instigators of change. Conversely, usage-based/constructionist approaches attribute a central role to language use in both the acquisition process and in language change. Linguistic change is considered to originate in speaker interaction. Speakers may adopt novel constructions both in childhood and later in life, where the second option is the most likely for constructions with complex pragmatic features (such as the grammaticalization of epistemic meaning). From earlier research it appeared that both qualitative and quantitative grammatical change in adult life is attested, but at the same time limited by entrenched use as well as social inhibition. A full understanding of change will have to involve both generational incrementation and lifespan change. 3. To what degree do changes in different constructions affect each other, also at the individual level? During much of its history English has drifted towards a stricter SOV word order, and much more so than other Germanic languages. One effect of this is that the subject slot expanded to host a greater variety of subject types, including for instance a higher rate of inanimate subjects (rather than prototypical agent-subjects). My ERC project investigated the evidence that individuals are perceptive of large-scale shifts like this, and whether their grammars show lifespan developments that feed into them. For example, it appears that there has been an increase of inanimate subjects in progressive constructions. Do individuals, then, who participate in this increase, also partici¬pate in the increase of inanimate subjects in other constructions? Or are individuals unaware of these large-scale emergent properties? Turns out individuals do associate closely related constructions in their minds. However, it has so far been impossible to find conclusive evidence for the idea that such constructions also coevolve across the lifespan. While lack of data is partly to blame, there are indicat¬ions that this type of longer-term coevolution is out of the purview of individual language users and is rather an emergent effect, as is common in complex adaptive systems. The issue will be further investigated.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Petré Peter
• Fellow: Petré Peter

Research team(s)

• Grammar and Pragmatics

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

CATCH 2020 aims to provide a working infrastructure for the computer-assisted transcription of complex handwritten documents. It will do so by building on the existing Transkribus platform for Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) – which allows us to process handwritten textual documents in a way that is similar to how OCR processes printed textual documents.. Rather than producing flat transcripts of digital facsimile images, however, CATCH 2020 will produce structured texts, providing tools to add textual and linguistic dimensions to the transcription by combining the state of the art of the research field of textual scholarship with the state of the art of the research field of computational linguistics.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Van Hulle Dirk
• Co-promoter: Absillis Kevin
• Co-promoter: Daelemans Walter
• Co-promoter: Kestemont Mike
• Co-promoter: Petré Peter
• Co-promoter: Soens Tim

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Centre for Digital humanities and literary Criticism (ACDC)

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The aim of this FWO Scientific Research Network application is threefold: (1) to consolidate the Historical Sociolinguistics Network (HiSoN) and firmly secure the position of Flemish expertise in the research network internationally; (2) to initiate a range of new activities as part of a broader Historical Sociolinguistics Research and Training Program, with a distinct focus on postgraduate training and joint research initiatives; (3) to expand the existing network interdisciplinarily and attract young and established scholars from neighboring disciplines. The research unit Mind-Bending Grammars (https://www.uantwerpen.be/mind-bending-grammars/) will contribute with its unique expertise on the interaction of sociolinguistic and cognitive factors in language variation and change. To this purpose MBG makes use of state-of-the-art methods from computational and corpus linguistics, including data-driven identification of social networks and communities of practice.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Petré Peter

Research team(s)

• Grammar and Pragmatics

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The main goal of the proposed project is to determine the extent to which individual speakers economize their mental grammar by reinterpreting local patterns as belonging to more widely applicable grammatical rules, as manifested in the further generalization of these local patterns. Conversely, analysing this will also lead to insight into which patterns in individuals behave as niches resisting such a realignment to more regularity. These goals tie in with and test psychological assumptions that abstract rules and concrete exemplars (instances accessible in memory) are simultaneously at work in grammatical cognition. The case study that will be analysed to reach this goal is that of the introduction and diffusion of do as a grammatical word in Early Modern English (ca. 1550-1700). Before this period, do was largely limited to its lexical use, illustrated in (1). During this period, however, do was increasingly more often used in, among others, questions (2a) and negative statements (3a), as an alternative to the older structures (2b) and (3b). (1) I already did my homework. (2) a. Do you love me? b. I do not love you. (3) a. Love you me? b. I love you not. By the end of the 17th century do had become more or less obligatory in these uses. As such, it is one of the shibboleths of the English language, not only distinguishing it from other Germanic languages, but exploiting a grammatical option that is very rare across the worlds' languages. The project focuses on the stages of the diffusion of do, where do was already established as an option, but much variation was to be found in the speech community. This poses the fundamental research question of which factors guide this variation at the level of individual speakers. It is examined if, and to what extent, the choice for do is primed by frequent use of modal auxiliaries (will, shall, may, must, can), which typically appear in similar syntactic environments. Together, they could be seen as syntactic markers of all non-neutral statements, i.e. statements that are not (non-emphatic) declaratives. Additionally, it is examined in what contexts patterns like (2b) and (3b) resist the insertion of do the longest. Together, these analyses are expected to considerably advance our knowledge of how much change is possible in abstract cognitive schemas such as grammar across the adult lifespan, and by what kinds of existing regularities this change is guided.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Petré Peter
• Fellow: Budts Sara

Research team(s)

• Grammar and Pragmatics

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Mind-Bending Grammars examines change in mental grammars of 17th century individuals across their lifespan as attested in their writings. The project treats grammar as a self-organizing network of form-meaning schemas continuously fine-tuning itself, where activating one schema may prime formally or functionally associated ones. In analyzing multiple grammar changes in healthy adults it aspires to make a breakthrough in the cognitive modelling of grammar, and is expected to bear on views of cognitive plasticity and self-organizing systems (e.g. ecosystems). To reach these goals it will determine (i) how change in one part of an individual's grammar relates to change in another; (ii) to what extent grammar change in individuals is possible and attested beyond childhood. This is still unsettled. Formal models hold that change occurs in language acquisition, social ones that it mainly results from adult interaction. The first ignore too much adult usage, the second grammar as a system.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Petré Peter

Research team(s)

• Grammar and Pragmatics

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

The research project Mind-Bending Grammars innovatively combines language change research with research on the individual mind. In the past linguistics has overwhelmingly treated change as happening to an abstract object 'language'. But it is the minds of actual people that change language. Mind-Bending Grammars will greatly contribute to our understanding of the adaptive powers of adult cognition. The project specifically aims at making a breakthrough in two key issues in linguistic theory by tracing with the utmost detail step-by-step changes in grammatical constructions.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Petré Peter
• Fellow: Petré Peter

Research team(s)

• Grammar and Pragmatics

Project type(s)

• Research Project