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Article published In: Diachronic Treebanks
Edited by Hanne Martine Eckhoff, Silvia Luraghi and Marco Passarotti
[Diachronica 35:3] 2018
► pp. 367–392

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Non-configurationality in diachrony

Correlations in local and global networks of Ancient Greek and Latin

 | University of Cambridge
 | University of Pavia
Published online: 5 November 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.00007.pon
Abstract
Non-configurationality is a linguistic property associated with free word order, discontinuous constituents, including NPs, and null anaphora of referential arguments. Quantitative metrics, based both on local networks (syntactic trees and word order within sentences) and on global networks (incorporating the relations within a whole treebank into a shared graph), can reveal correlations among these features. Using treebanks we focus on diachronic varieties of Ancient Greek and Latin, in which non-configurationality tapered off over time, leading to the largely configurational nature of the Romance languages and of Modern Greek. A property of global networks (density of their spectra around zero eigenvalues) measuring the regularity in word order is shown to be strengthened from classical to late varieties. Discontinuous NPs are traced by counting the words creating non-projectivity in dependency trees: these drop dramatically in late varieties. Finally, developments in the use of null referential direct objects are gauged by assessing the percentage of third-person personal pronouns among verb objects. All three features turn out to change over time due to the decay of non-configurationality. Evaluation of the strength of their pairwise correlation shows that null direct objects and discontinuous NPs are deeply intertwined.
Résumé
La non-configurationalité est une propriété de certaines langues, associée à l’ordre des mots libre, aux constituants discontinus et à l’anaphore nulle des arguments verbaux référentiels. Certaines métriques quantitatives, s’appuyant sur les réseaux locaux (arbre syntaxique et ordre des mots d’une seule phrase) et les réseaux globaux (qui intègrent toutes les relations locales dans un graphe partagé), peuvent révéler des corrélations entre ces attributs. Nous nous concentrons sur les variétés diachroniques du grec ancien et du latin, où la non-configurationalité s’amenuise avec le temps. Nous montrons qu’une propriété des réseaux globaux (la densité de leurs spectres autour de « valeurs propres » nulles) qui mesure la régularité dans l’ordre des mots devient plus prononcée des variétés anciennes aux variétés plus récentes. Les constituants discontinus sont mesurés en comptant les mots qui génèrent des arbres de dépendance non-projectifs : ceux-ci chutent de façon spectaculaire dans les variétés tardives. Enfin, les développements dans l’utilisation d’anaphores nulles sont évalués à l’aide du pourcentage de pronoms personnels à la troisième personne parmi les objets verbaux. Tous ces trois attributs s’avèrent changer dans le temps en raison de la décroissance de la non-configurationalité. L’évaluation de la force de leur corrélation par paire montre que les objets directs nuls et les constituants discontinus sont profondément liés.
Zusammenfassung
Nicht-Konfigurationalität ist eine Eigenschaft einiger Sprachen, die mit freier Wortstellung, diskontinuierlichen Konstituenten (Nominalphrasen eingeschlossen) und Nullanapher referentieller Argumente assoziiert ist. Die auf lokalen Netzwerken (syntaktische Bäumen und Wortstellung innerhalb von Sätzen) sowie auf globalen Netzwerken (Relationen innerhalb einer ganzen Baumbank in ein gemeinsames Diagramm inkorporierend) basierende quantitative Metrik kann Korrelationen zwischen diesen Merkmalen deutlich machen. Wir richten unser Augenmerk auf diachrone Varietäten des Altgriechischen und Lateinischen, bei denen die Nicht-Konfigurationalität mit der Zeit abgenommen hat, was zum überwiegend konfigurationellen Charakter des modernen Griechischen und der romanischen Sprachen geführt hat. Es wird gezeigt, dass eine Eigenschaft der globalen Netzwerke (Dichte von deren Spektren um den Eigenwert Null), welche die Regelmäßigkeit in der Wortstellung misst, im Lauf der Entwicklung von den klassischen zu den späten Varietäten verstärkt wird. Diskontinuierliche Nominalphrasen werden dadurch bestimmt, indem die in Dependenzbäumen Nicht-Projektivität erzeugenden Wörter gezählt werden: Diese lassen in den späten Varietäten dramatisch nach. Schließlich wird die Entwicklung des Gebrauchs referentieller Nullobjekte durch die Bestimmung der Prozentzahl der Personalpronomina der dritten Person unter Verbalobjekten abgeschätzt. Diese drei Merkmale ändern sich mit der Zeit wegen des Verfalls der Nicht-Konfigurationalität. Die Abschätzung der Stärke der paarweisen Korrelation zeigt, dass Null-Direktobjekte und diskontinuierliche Nominalphrasen tief miteinander verknüpft sind.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Non-configurationality
    • 2.1Word order
    • 2.2Discontinuous NPs
    • 2.3Definite referential null objects
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1The corpus
    • 3.2Network induction
  • 4.Metrics and results
    • 4.1Free word order
    • 4.2Discontinuous NPs
    • 4.3Referential null objects
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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