Cover not available

Article published In: The locus of linguistic variation
Edited by Constantine Lignos, Laurel MacKenzie and Meredith Tamminga
[Linguistic Variation 16:2] 2016
► pp. 247–266

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Constant effects and the independence of variants in controlled judgment data*

Published online: 27 January 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.16.2.04had
This article proposes that Kroch’s (1989) Constant Rate Hypothesis – the generalization that contextual effects tend to be stable in processes of diachronic variation in production data – be extended to synchronic variation in controlled judgment data. Two recent, large-sample judgment experiments are discussed suggesting that shared contextual effects across speakers in acceptability judgments can be used to infer a single abstract source for patterns of variation across superficially different contexts. At the same time, the results suggest that not all sets of variants – or “ways of saying the same thing” (Labov 1972: 271) – are linguistic variables of this formally defined type.
References (47)
Anagnostopoulou, Elena. 2003. The syntax of ditransitives: Evidence from clitics. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. Holmberg’s generalization and cyclic linearization. Remarks on Fox and Pesetsky. Theoretical Linguistics 31(1–2). 95–110. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ball, Catherine N. 1994. Relative pronouns in it-clefts: The last seven centuries. Language Variation and Change 6(02). 179–200. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barr, Dale J., Roger Levy, Christoph Scheepers & Harry J. Tily. 2013. Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language 68(3). 255–278. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas, Martin Mächler, Ben Bolker & Steve Walker. 2015. Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Science 67(1). 1–48.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight Le Merton. 1971. The phrasal verb in English. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan & Marilyn Ford. 2010. Predicting syntax: Processing dative constructions in American and Australian varieties of English. Language 86(1). 168–213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Campbell-Kibler, Kathryn. 2011. The sociolinguistic variant as a carrier of social meaning. Language Variation and Change 22(3). 423–441. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cukor-Avila, Patricia. 2002. She say, she go, she be like: Verbs of quotation over time in African American Vernacular English. American Speech 77(1). 3–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Den Dikken, Marcel. 1995. Particles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. On the functional structure of locative and directional PPs. In Guglielmo Cinque & Luigi Rizzi (eds.), Mapping spatial PPs, 74–126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drummond, Alex. 2013. Ibex Farm, [URL].
Durham, Mercedes, Bill Haddican, Eytan Zweig, Daniel Ezra Johnson, Zipporah Baker, David Cockeram, Esther Danks & Louise Tyler. 2011. Constant linguistic effects in the diffusion of be like. Journal of English Linguistics 40(4). 316–337. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Elenbaas, Maatje Barbara. 2007. The synchronic and diachronic syntax of the English verb-particle combination, vol. 1491. LOT.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Engels, Eva & Sten Vikner. 2013. Object shift and remnant VP-topicalisation: Danish and Swedish verb particles and let-causatives. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 36(2). 219–244. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fox, Danny & David Pesetsky. 2005. Cyclic linearization of syntactic structure. Theoretical Linguistics 31(1–2). 1–45. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fruehwald, Josef, Jonathan Gress-Wright & Joel Wallenberg. 2009. Phonological rule change: The constant rate effect. In Proceedings of NELS, vol. 401.
Gries, Stefan T. 2001. A multifactorial analysis of syntactic variation: Particle movement revisited. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 8(1). 33–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory. 1980. Variation in the group and the individual: The case of final stop deletion. In William Labov (ed.), Locating language in time and space, 1–36. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. The scope of generalization in phonology. Talk given at Workshp on Variation, Gradience and Frequency in Phonology, Stanford University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haddican, Bill & Anders Holmberg. 2012. Object movement symmetries in British English dialects: Experimental evidence for a mixed case/locality approach. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 15(3). 1–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Four kinds of object symmetry. In Ludmila Veselovská & Markéta Janebová (eds.), Complex visibles out there. Proceedings of the olomouc linguistics colloquium 2014. Language use and linguistic structure, Palacký University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haddican, Bill & Daniel Ezra Johnson. 2012. Effects on the particle verb alternation across English dialects. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 18(2). 5.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Focus effects on particle placement in English and the left periphery of PP. Proceedings of NELS 43 (2).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hawkins, John A. 2004. Efficiency and complexity in grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 1986. Word order and syntactic features. Stockholm University dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmberg, Anders & Christer Platzack. 1995. The role of inflection in Scandinavian syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hughes, Arthur, Peter Trudgill & Dominic Watt. 2005. English accents and dialects: An introduction to social and regional varieties of English in the British Isles. London: Hodder Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, Kyle. 1991. Object positions. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 9(4). 577–636. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kallel, Amel. 2007. The loss of negative concord in Standard English: Internal factors. Language Variation and Change 19(1). 27–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard. 1985. Principles of particle constructions. In Jacqueline. Guéron, Hans-Georg Obenauer, & Jean-Yves Pollock (eds.), Grammatical representation, 101–140. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard S. 1998. Overt vs. covert movements. Syntax 1(2). 128–191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kroch, Anthony. 1989. Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language Variation and Change 1(3). 199–244. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1994. Morphosyntactic variation. In Katharine Beals (ed.), Papers from the 30th regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society: Parasession on variation and linguistic theory. 180–201. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kroch, Anthony & Cathy Small. 1978. Grammatical ideology and its effect on speech. In David Sankoff (ed.), Linguistic variation: Models and methods, 45–55. New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lohse, Barbara, John A Hawkins & Thomas Wasow. 2004. Domain minimization in the English verb-particle constructions. Language 80(2). 238–261. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Melnick, Robin, T. Florian Jaeger & Thomas Wasow. 2011. Speakers employ fine-grained probabilistic knowledge. Talk given at LSA Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pintzuk, Susan. 1999. Phrase structures in competition: Variation and change in Old English word order. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Richards, Marc. 2004. Object shift and scrambling in North and West Germanic: A case study in symmetrical syntax. University of Cambridge dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Richards, Norvin. 1997. What moves where when in which language? MIT dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Santorini, Beatrice. 1993. The rate of phrase structure change in the history of Yiddish. Language Variation and Change 5(3). 257–283. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sells, Peter. 2001. Structure, alignment and optimality in Swedish. CSLI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Svenonius, Peter. 1996. The optionality of particle shift. Working papers in Scandinavian syntax 571. 47–75.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Spatial P in English. In Guglielmo Cinque & Luigi Rizzi (eds.), Mapping spatial PPs, 127–160. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tortora, Christina & Marcel den Dikken. 2010. Subject agreement variation: Support for the configurational approach. Lingua 120(5). 1089–1108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Lee, Naomi & Laurel Mackenzie
2023. Social role effects on English particle verb variation fail to replicate. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 68:2 ► pp. 329 ff. DOI logo
Haddican, Bill, Cecelia Cutler, Michael Newman & Christina Tortora
2022. Cross-Speaker Covariation across Six Vocalic Changes in New York City English. American Speech 97:4 ► pp. 512 ff. DOI logo
GARDNER, MATT HUNT, DEREK DENIS, MARISA BROOK & SALI A. TAGLIAMONTE
2021. Be likeand the Constant Rate Effect: from the bottom to the top of theS-curve. English Language and Linguistics 25:2 ► pp. 281 ff. DOI logo
Haddican, Bill & Anders Holmberg
2019. Object symmetry effects in Germanic. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 37:1 ► pp. 91 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue