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Universals of reference in discourse and grammar: Evidence from the Multi-CAST collection of spoken corpora
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Abstract:
Data from under-researched languages are now available in sufficient quantity and quality to feed into corpus-based approaches to language typology. In this paper we present Multi-CAST (Multilingual Corpus of Annotated Spoken Texts), a project designed to facilitate cross-linguistic comparison of naturalistic discourse across typologically diverse languages, which implements a purpose-built shared annotation scheme. After sketching the rationale and architecture of Multi-CAST, we illustrate the efficacy of the method with two case-studies: The first one investigates the rates of lexical (as opposed to pronominal and zero) realization of arguments in discourse across a sample of 15 typologically diverse languages. Our results reveal a remarkable and hitherto unnoticed uniformity in the density of lexical references, despite the lack of content control in the corpora. The second addresses the question of whether cross-linguistically attested regularities in morphosyntax can meaningfully be related to frequency effects in discourse. We find some support for frequency-based explanations, but our data also show that the frequency accounts leave several key questions unanswered. Overall, our findings underscore that research based on language documentation-derived corpus data, and in particular spoken language data, is not only possible, but in fact crucially necessary for testing frequency-based explanations, because these data stem from spoken language and typologically diverse languages. We also identify a number of epistemological and methodological shortcomings with our approach, and discuss some of the requirements for further innovation in areas of corpus building, corpus annotation, and typological comparability. ; LD&C-SP25__5_Haig+Schnell+Schiborr.pdf
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Keyword:
corpus-based typology; discourse structure; marking asymmetries; referential choice; universals of language use
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URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/74660
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7 |
Universals of reference in discourse and grammar: Evidence from the Multi-CAST collection of spoken corpora
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Corpus-based Typological Research in Discourse and Grammar: GRAID and Multi-CAST
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Assessing the relationship between object topicalisation and grammaticalisation of object agreement
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Documenting endangered languages : Achievements and perspectives
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Comparing corpora from endangered language projects : Explorations in language typology based on original texts
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15 |
Attention focus and information packaging in Vera’a demonstratives
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17 |
Perspectives on information structure in Austronesian languages
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In: Language Science Press; (2018)
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18 |
Perspectives on information structure in Austronesian languages
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In: Language Science Press; (2018)
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19 |
Perspectives on information structure in Austronesian languages
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In: Language Science Press; (2018)
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20 |
Perspectives on information structure in Austronesian languages
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In: Language Science Press; (2018)
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