Frequency Effects in the Lexical Diffusion of Phonological Change

1
"Frequency Effects in the Lexical Diffusion of
Phonological Change"

• Betty S. Phillips, Indiana State U.
  bettyphillips_at_indstate.eduLSA Summer Institute
  Workshop on Variation, Gradience, and Frequency
  in Phonology, 6-8 July 2007, Stanford U.

2
Lexical Diffusion

• DefinitionChen and Wang (1975) a
  phonological rule gradually extends its scope of
  operation to a larger and larger portion of the
  lexicon, until all relevant items have been
  transformed by the process.

3

• That lexical diffusion is sporadic
• That it always affects the most frequent words
  first.
• That lexically diffused changes show no clear
  phonetic conditioning
• That phonetically regular changes are productive,
  whereas lexically diffused changes are not.

4

• That lexical diffusion affects only phonetically
  abrupt changes associated with lexical rather
  than postlexical rules
• That word frequency is independent of word
  class.
• That analogy and borrowing suffice to account for
  lexical diffusion

5

• That age of acquisition or discourse factors
  account for patterns of lexical diffusion.
• That frequency effects are found over a
  population of speakers but not within individual
  speakers.
• That either lexical diffusion is the diffusion of
  a completed sound change OR "all phonological
  change starts with lexical diffusion and most
  ends up Neogrammarian, given enough time"

6
Misunderstanding 1

• That lexical diffusion is "sporadic"
• E.g., Hinskens (1998 169) "Although variable by
  nature, Neogrammarian sound change is
  pre-eminently 'systematic and recurrent' i.e.
  regular, as there are no lexical exceptions.
  Lexically diffuse and lexicalized sound change
  bring about 'non-systematic but recurrent' facts
  (Lloret 1997), which are only partially regular,
  hence 'sporadic'."

7
One clear way in which lexical diffusion is not
at all random Word Frequency Effects

• "Rarely-used words drag behind very frequently
  used ones hurry ahead. Exceptions to the sound
  laws are formed in both groups." -- Schuchardt
  (1885 58)

8

• A cursory glance at the newspapers suggests that
  adultery is on the increase in this century. If
  you think slavery has been abolished, go and look
  at the factory at the end of the road. Every
  mother will tell you that nursery schools are a
  mixed blessing. (Aitchison 2003)
• Which retain the medial schwa, and which lose it?

9
My ISU class project results
Word Celex - raw frequency Schwa-less Schwa-ful
every 9788 22 4
factory 1064 18 8
nursery 580 19 7
slavery 134 10 16
adultery 107 15 11
cursory 32 9 17
10
Modern English final /t,d/ deletion (Bybee 2002)
Env. More likely to delete (Celex frequency) Less likely to delete (Celex frequency)
-ld told (1763) held (765)
-lt felt (1449) built (456)
-nt sent (551) meant (515), lent (25)
-pt kept (750) slept (120)
-ft/-st left (1503) lost (759)
11
Stress shift in -ate verbs
Stress patterns CC(C)-ate disyllables in Gimson's 1988 1991 English Pronouncing Dictionary Stress patterns CC(C)-ate disyllables in Gimson's 1988 1991 English Pronouncing Dictionary Stress patterns CC(C)-ate disyllables in Gimson's 1988 1991 English Pronouncing Dictionary Stress patterns CC(C)-ate disyllables in Gimson's 1988 1991 English Pronouncing Dictionary
Frequency(Celex) Conservative/ Variable Innovative /
0-7 filtrate... X
9-36 mandate... X
39-666dictate... X
12
Misunderstanding 2

• That lexically diffused changes always affect the
  most frequent words first. E.g., Krug (2003)
  It has become a linguistic commonplace that
  high-frequency words and constructions tend to
  lead phonological change. . . .

13
Middle English Ormulum of /ø/ gt /e/ (Phillips
1984 328)--Verbs
Freq. Example Ave. e
2-10 beodeÞÞ, nedenn, chesenn... 69
11-47 cneow, fleon, heold, ... 68
69 seon 'see' 52
355 beon 'be' 41
14
Middle English Ormulum of /ø/ gt /e/ (Phillips
1984 328)--Nouns
Freq. Example Ave. e
1-8 breostlin, fend, wheol . . . 49
21-27 deor, leom, treo, ... 6
68-82 preost, Þeod 4
158 deofell 1
15
Middle English Ormulum of short /ø/ gt /e/
(Phillips 1984 328)--Nouns
Freq. Example Ave. e
1-2 berrhless, dorrf, sede . . . 75
26-90 weorrc, weorelld, heorrte 46
154 heofenn 6
16
1st example Stress Shift x / gt / x
UNCHANGED NOUNS exchange excuse exempt exhaust express Ave. Freq. 22.0 CHANGED NOUNS excise exploit export extract Ave. Freq. 2.5
17
Summary Development of Noun-Verb Homographs
(Phillips 2006)
18
Misunderstanding 3

• That lexically diffused changes show no clear
  phonetic conditioning (Kiparsky 1995).Blevins
  (2004 260) "lexical diffusion (without clear
  phonetic conditioning) is the diffusion of a
  completed sound change.

19
Example Southern Am. Eng. Glide Deletion
(Phillips 1994)
Freq. Words Glideless age 66-88 Glideless age 13-19
0-1 nude, Tudor, tuber, tunic, dues, neutron, duly, tuba, dude 59.4 69.8
1-10 nutrient, tutor, duel, duke, durable, tulip, dune, nuisance, neutral, nucleus 39.3 73.3
11-100 Tuesday, numerous, tune, duty, numeral, due, tube 19.0 54.1
101-1000 knew, during, new 11.3 53.0
20
Misunderstanding 4

• That phonetically regular changes are productive,
  whereas lexically diffused changes are not
• Bakken 2001 " A phonetically regular process is
  characterized by general productivity, and such
  productivity seems to be incompatible with
  lexical exceptions, i.e. lexical diffusion.
  Lexical diffusion and phonetic regularity are
  therefore truly mutually exclusive.

21
Labov, Yaeger, and Steiner (1972)

• We find no strong evidence for lexical
  diffusion in the (æh) patterns of Detroit and
  Buffalo and Chicago.. . . .
• Despite some initial oscillations the (æh) word
  class seems to move upward as a whole, with fine
  phonetic conditioning in the process. There is
  some indication that the word mad is lower than
  its phonetic class would justify for several
  speakers. . . . the low position of mad as
  compared to bad, ads, etc. , seems to be
  lexically determined. " (93 my bold).

22
Misunderstanding 5

• That lexical diffusion affects only phonetically
  abrupt changes associated with lexical rather
  than postlexical rules (Labov 1994 Kiparsky
  1995).

23
Reduction across word boundaries(By definition
"post-lexical")

• Alba (2003) la 'the' or una 'a' vowel-initial
  nouns (e.g., iglesia 'church', hija 'daughter')
  in 20 hours of tape-recorded interviews with 20
  native speakers of Spanish.
• Strings with high ratio frequency underwent
  hiatus resolution 87 per cent of the time,
  compared to 48 per cent for strings with low
  ratio frequency. That is, high string frequency
  positively impacted vowel reduction.

24
"Don't"

• Phonetic reduction ranges from initial /do/ to
  /?o/ to /??/ to /?/ depending on the frequency of
  the phrases in which it appears. --Bybee and
  Scheibman (1999) and Scheibman (2000)
• cf. "I don't know/think/have (to)/want/like" vs.
  "I don't need/follow/make contact"

25
Misunderstanding 6

• That Word Frequency is independent of Word Class
  in the lexical diffusion of a sound change.

26
Modern Dutch diphthongization of WGmc /î/

• "We do not find a relationship between token
  frequency and diphthongization....Highly
  frequent items such as krijgen, tijd (gt200) do
  not behave differently. . . from items such as
  vijg (0) and vijl (2). And among the items
  showing diphthongs rather often, such as vrijdag,
  vrijen, vrij, fijn and vijf, both low and high
  frequencies occur."
• -- Goeman et al. (1993)

27
Adjectives
Diphthongs Adjectives (Celex frequencies)
66-77 vrij (9214), vrije (1406)
53-60 blij (4277)/blijde (225), fijn (2200)
43-51 grijs (197), rijk (1378), rijp (636), rijpe (338), rijpst (0), stijf (1040), wijd (1091)
28
Function words as a special case

• Certain sound changes tend to affect word
  categories with low sentence stress, such as
  function words, but this does not correlate
  necessarily with word frequency.

29
/an, on/ gt /on, om/ in Pastoral Care (OE, late
9th c.)(Phillips 2006)
By WORD CLASS By WORD CLASS BY WORD FREQUENCY BY WORD FREQUENCY
Category lton, omgt Freq lton, omgt
Verbs 32 1-10 39
Nouns 44 11-20 49
Adjectives 44 21-60 53
Adverbs Function words 84 61-400 80
Adverbs Function words 84 over 400 98
30
/ø/ gt /e/ in the Ormulum ( ca. 1180
a.d.)(Phillips 1984 2006)
BY WORD CLASS BY WORD CLASS BY WORD FREQUENCY BY WORD FREQUENCY
ltegt ltegt
Numerals 0 1-10 62
Nouns 28 11-20 66
Verbs 67 21-30 45
Adjectives 70 31-60 43
Adverbs Function words 100 61-90 28
Adverbs Function words 100 91-400 21
31
Other Word Classes

• Word frequency effects have been shown to be
  clearest inside of word classes since in
  production word class is accessed before the word
  form.
• Specificially, the retrieval of a word's
  syntactic information precedes that of
  phonological information by approx. 40 msec. --
  Turennout et al. (1998)

32
Misunderstanding 7

• That analogy and borrowing suffice to account for
  lexical diffusion (Kiparsky 1995 Janda and
  Joseph 2003).

33
Attribution of Lexical Diffusion effects to
Analogy Borrowing

• Diffusionary effects in the spread of
  phonological change through the lexicons of
  speakers... are actually epiphenomenal, being the
  result of already-needed mechanisms of analogical
  change and dialect borrowing."
• --Janda and Joseph (2003)

34
The Problem with Lexical Diffusion as Analogical
Change

• Analogical changes affect the LEAST FREQUENT
  words first--"where memory fails"-- e.g., cows,
  dragons, aliens BUT mice, geese, teeth Regular
  verbs (correspond, irrigate, elucidate) vs.
  irregular verbs (be, go, see)
• whereas, Lexical Diffusion often affects the
  MOST FREQUENT words first.

35
Lexical Storage

• Bybee, J. 2001. Usage-Based Phonology. p. 22

36
Borrowing

• Lexical diffusionists "see sound change . . . as
  change affecting the sound in certain words and
  then diffusing gradually to other words in the
  lexicon. . . . This is like 'dialect borrowing',
  but with some words borrowing from others in the
  same dialect. It constitutes a different outlook
  on the transition problem." (Campbell 1998 199)
  

37
But surely,

• all change involves borrowing We have no
  criteria for determining absolutely that there is
  an axiomatic distinction between sound change and
  borrowing (or contact change) because.. all
  changes must arise from contact between
  speakers. -- Milroy (1992 88)

38
Wolfram and Schilling-Estes (2003)

• a change becomes propagated through social
  groups,
• through phonological and morphological
  environments, and
• through the lexicon.
• All of these happen simultaneously, and even
  within individuals variation is to be expected.

39

• "The notion of variability . . . applies to
  both intra-speaker and inter-speaker variation.
  In other words, an individual speaker will go
  through a period of fluctuation between the old
  and new variant, and speakers within a given
  speech community will show variation from speaker
  to speaker with respect to the use of the new and
  old variant" --Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 2003
  717.

40
As for changes that clearly imitate an external
dialect

• With regard to word frequency, there is no
  difference between "borrowed" changes and
  internal changes.
• In fact, the spread of a sound change from one
  dialect to another apparently follows the same
  direction of diffusion as the imitated dialect.
  E.g.,

41
Spread of broad /a/ to the U.S.

• fashionable import from Britain in the eighteenth
  or nineteenth century.
• A few words whose innovative pronunciations were
  not borrowed (haft aster rascal vantage
  ranch, stanchion Alexander, Flanders, slander),
  but only one (alas) that underwent the shift in
  the Eastern U.S. but not in England.-- Phillips
  1989

42

• Supports Trudgills (1986 58) observation that
  during accommodation people modify their
  pronunciation of particular words,... with some
  words being affected before others , which
  implies that the spread of a sound change from
  one group to another must of necessity proceed
  via lexical diffusion, affecting some words
  before others.

43
Second point

• Of the subset of (already frequent) words that
  had the innovative vowel in British English,
  Eastern U.S. English borrowed the most frequent.

44
Eastern U.S. Words in æ/a for RP a
Unchanged Words with æ Freq. of Unchanged Words with æ Ave. Freq. of Words with Borrowed a
haft 0.00 110.68 (-ft)
aster 0.16 71.93 (-st)
rascal 1.22 29.65 (-sk)
vantage 0.75 36.71 (-nt)
stanchion 0.24 14.23 (-nt?)
Alexander Flan-ders slander 10.27 1.47 0.40 10.92 (-nd)
45
Therefore

• Since borrowing (i.e., imitation of other
  speakers) is inherent to the spread of an
  innovation from speaker to speaker
• and since lexical diffusion is inherent in the
  spread of an innovation from one word to another
• BOTH ARE INHERENT TO SOUND CHANGE--not at odds
  with it.

46
AND

• Since the spread of all changes depends on the
  similarities shared by lexical entries,
• Analogy, too, is endemic to sound change.

47
Misunderstanding 8

• That age of acquisition or discourse factors
  account for patterns of lexical diffusion.

48
The AoA effect is reliable only for low-frequency
words -- Gerhand and Berry (1999)

49

• Gerhand Berry (1998) naming latencies in the
  reading by 33 British college students of 64
  words, divided into the following 4 categories
  (a) early-acquired, high frequency (win,
  cousin) (b) early-acquired, low-frequency (elf,
  rattle) (c) late-acquired, high-frequency (sex,
  union) (d) late-acquired, low frequency
  (cue, marvel) They found that the two effects
  , , , were "entirely additive Participants were
  faster to read aloud early-acquired than
  late-acquired words and were also faster to name
  high-frequency than low-frequency words."

50
Evidence from Adult Vocabulary

• Words for 'heaven', 'priest', and'devil' pattern
  with high-frequency words in the Ormulum ms.,
  written by a monk.
• Words that are frequent within a particular
  occupation under reduction typical of frequent
  words, as in boatswain /bos?n/, coxswain
  /kaks?n/, and kiln /k?l/.

51
Discourse Influence, as summarized by Wright
(2003)

• "In these studies talkers have been shown to
  produce more reduced speech when contextual
  information within the utterance or in the
  environment can aid the listener in recognising
  what is said,
• and to produce more careful speech when the
  talker is aware of conditions that may impede the
  listener's ability to understand what is said."

52
Berg (1998 243)

• "Frequency speeds up the word-recognition process
  . . . . If speakers exploit this principle, they
  can be more sloppy about the pronunciation of
  high-frequency words than about that of
  low-frequency items, while still achieving the
  same degree of communicative success. In fact,
  this is precisely what speakers do the higher
  the redundancy of a word, the less accurately it
  is articulated (Lieberman 1963)."

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Shortcoming

• Discourse considerations alone do NOT account
  for other types of changes, such as stress shifts
  or vowel shifts.

54
Misunderstanding 9

• That Frequency effects are found over a
  population of speakers but not within individual
  speakers.
• Labovs (1994) assessment of the
  neogrammarian controversy provides striking
  confirmation of regular sound change at the level
  of the individual, and lexical diffusion at the
  level of speech communities. (Blevins 2004)

55

Fidelholz (1975) Fidelholz (1975)
Reduced vowel Full vowel
astronomy mistake abstain gastronomy mistook abstemious
56
Misunderstanding 10

• that lexical diffusion is the diffusion of a
  completed sound change (Blevins 2004) OR
• "all phonological change starts with lexical
  diffusion and most ends up Neogrammarian, given
  enough time" (Lass1997)

57
Conclusions

• Phonological, morphological, semantic, social,
  pragmatic, and cognitive factors all influence
  which words are affected when.
• But Word Frequency must also be recognized a key
  factor in how a sound change spreads through the
  lexicon.
• And . . .

58

• The growing evidence of word frequency effects in
  even very low-level phonetic output supports the
  view that what seem to be Neogrammarian/regular
  changes must actually be changes that diffuse
  very rapidly over words in the lexicon.

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• THE END