With the rise of exemplar theory (Bybee 2010), the role of lexical frequency in language variation and change has been a focus of considerable study, particularly in phonology (e.g. Bybee 2002; Jurafsky et al. 2001; Walker 2012). Results, however, have been mixed, with some studies showing strong frequency effects and others showing no such effects. Recently Erker and Guy (2012) extended the analysis of frequency effects to morphosyntactic variation. Based on data from 12 Dominican and Mexican speakers from Otheguy and Zentella’s (2012) New York City Spanish corpus, they examined the role of frequency in variation between null and overt subject personal pronouns (SPP), one of the most widely studied variables in Spanish sociolinguistics. Erker and Guy’s results suggest that frequency either activates or amplifies the effects of other constraints such as co-reference with the subject of the preceding tensed verb and person and number. In this paper I examine the role of frequency on SPP variation in two typologically distinct languages: Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, based on data collected in northern California, south Texas, and Harbin, China. Multivariate analyses of more than 8,600 tokens of U.S. Spanish and more than 6,000 tokens of Mandarin Chinese suggests indicate that frequency has only a minimal effect on speakers’ choices between overt and null subject pronouns. The results presented in this study, as well as results presented in Bayley et al. (2013), Li (2015), and Martínez-Sanz and van Herk (2012), suggest that the role of frequency, at least in this area of the grammar, has been considerably exaggerated and that well-established linguistic factors provide a better explanation for SPP variation than frequency.
References
Bayley, R., Greer, K., & Holland, C. 2013. Lexical frequency and morphosyntactic variation: A test of a linguistic hypothesis. Selected papers from NWAV 41. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 19(2): Article 4.
Bybee, J. 2002. Word frequency and context of use in the lexical diffusion of phonetically conditioned sound change. Language Variation and Change 14: 261–290.
Bybee, J. 2010. Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jurafsky, D., Bell, A., Gergory, M., & Raymond, W. D. 2001. Probabilistic relations between words: Evidence from reduction in lexical production. In J. Bybee & P. Hopper (eds.), Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure, 229–254. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Erker, D., & Guy, G. R. 2012. The role of lexical frequency in syntactic variability: Variable subject personal pronoun expression in Spanish. Language 88: 526–557.
Li, X. .2015. Frequency effects on subject pronoun use in Mandarin Chinese. Paper presented at NWAV 44, Toronto.
Martínez-Sanz, C., & van Herk, G. 2013. Saying nothing: Frequency effects in Dominican Spanish null subjects. Conference on Change and Variation in Canada, Toronto, May 4-5.
Otheguy, R., & Zentella, A. C. 2012. Spanish in New York: Language contact, dialect leveling, and structural continuity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Walker, J. A. 2012. Form, function, and frequency in phonological variation. Language Variation and Change 24: 397–415.
Bio
Robert Bayley
Professor of Linguistics
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
Robert Bayley (Ph.D., Stanford University) is Professor of Linguistics and a member of the Graduate Group in Education at the University of California, Davis. He is also the Editor of the Publications of the American Dialect Society and an Associate Member of the Centre for Research on Language Contact at York University in Toronto. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in sociolinguistics, second language acquisition, and general linguistics. His research focuses on language variation and language socialization, especially in bilingual and second language populations. Currently, he is investigating the role of frequency in language variation and change. He is also collaborating with Jamal Abedi of the UC Davis School of Education on a Spencer Foundation funded project to develop an assessment system to distinguish lower proficiency English language learners from students with learning disabilities.
Professor Bayley has produced more than 100 publications including Language as Cultural Practice: Mexicanos en el norte (with Sandra Schecter, 2002), Sociolinguistic Variation: Theories, Methods, and Applications (with Ceil Lucas, 2007), and The Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics (with Richard Cameron & Ceil Lucas, 2013). His grants, fellowships, and awards include four Fulbright Senior Scholar Awards to Argentina, Bolivia, and Mexico, research grants from the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the California Postsecondary Education Commission, the Texas Education Agency, and the U.S. Department of Education, and a National Academy of Education Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2003, he served as the Fulbright-York Chair in Linguistics at York University. In 2011, together with colleagues Carolyn McCaskill, Ceil Lucas, and Joseph Hill, he received the Andrew Foster Humanitarian Award from the National Black Deaf Advocates for the book and DVD, The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure. In 2015 he was named President of the American Dialect Society.