Co se děje v češtině? Workshop on

variation and change in Czech

Laura  A.  Janda  

An example of an S-curve (cited by Blythe & Croft 2012)

few texts are found with frequencies in the intermediate range (Devitt 1989:38–46).Chambers observes that the merger of /w/ and /hw/ (in apparent time) takes a slightlydifferent trajectory in different regions of Canada, with some speeding up later than oth-ers, although all appear to begin and end at approximately the same point (Chambers2002:360–64). Nevalainen notes regional/social differences in the real-time changes inthe rise of Standard English that she observes (Nevalainen 2000:347–56). In sum, theoverall changes described display an S-shaped curve despite the variation in the behav-ior of individual words, speakers, texts, geographical regions, or social classes over thetrajectory of the change.

5. COMPARING THE MECHANISMS TO PRIOR MATHEMATICAL MODELS OF SOCIAL DIFFU-SION. Our aim in the rest of this article is to understand how the different selectionmechanisms defined in §3 are related to the trajectory of propagation of an innovation.In particular, we want to determine which selection mechanisms lead to an S-curve, andwhich do not. A partial answer to this question can be obtained through a brief survey ofexisting agent-based models of social diffusion, which is presented in this section.None of these models, however, are set up to easily allow the different mechanisms tobe enabled or disabled independently, thereby preventing a systematic investigation.This we provide in §6.

An important early agent-based model is due to Nettle (1999). It is rather compli-cated, but allows all the selection mechanisms of §3 to be implemented through specificparameter choices. In particular it allows for what Nettle calls ‘social’ and ‘functional’selection, which relate to weighted interactor and replicator selection respectively. Net-tle is most concerned with the THRESHOLD PROBLEM—the difficulty an innovation facesin becoming the new convention due to its necessarily low frequency when it has justbeen innovated. Nettle finds that an innovation can propagate with either functional se-lection or a high degree of social selection. The shape of the change trajectory, however,is not discussed in detail with reference to these mechanisms.

S-CURVES AND THE MECHANISMS OF PROPAGATION IN LANGUAGE CHANGE 281

16th 18th 19th 20th (Plays) 20th (Spoken)

Century

0

20

40

60

80

100P

roport

ion

(%)

Synth

Haver

Pres

Ir

FIGURE 1. Trajectory of the evolution of four variants of the future in Brazilian Portuguese. Although threevariants compete with the original synthetic future, the incoming ir ‘go’ periphrastic future is propagated

following an S-curve. Data from Poplack & Malvar 2007:144.

S-­‐curve  

Corpus investigations of competing constructions

In Russian there are two constructions to express that something happened in a given decade ‘in the twenties’:

–  with the Accusative case: v dvacatye gody –  with the Locative case: v dvacatyx godax

Nesset and Makarova have discovered that there has been a language change, and the accusative case is now the norm

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Percentage of accusative case in Russian “decades construction” over time

4 0.0  

10.0  

20.0  

30.0  

40.0  

50.0  

60.0  

70.0  

80.0  

1826-­‐1850   1851-­‐1875   1876-­‐1900   1901-­‐1925   1926-­‐1950   1951-­‐1975  

Perfec:ve   Imperfec:ve  

Corpus investigations of competing constructions

•  In Russian, there are two constructions for expressing 2, 3, or 4 things modified by an adjective: –  with the adjective in the genitive plural and the noun in the

paucal •  tri malen´kix stolika ‘three little tables’

–  with the adjective in the nominative plural and the noun in the paucal

•  tri malen´kie stolika ‘three little tables’ •  Most textbooks teach only the genitive plural construction •  But Nesset and Nordrum have discovered that there is a language

change going on and that gender is becoming the deciding factor, with masculine and neuter nouns preferring the genitive construction and feminine nouns preferring the accusative construction

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Genitive vs. Nominative plural Adjectives with numerals 2, 3, 4 in Russian over time

6 0.00%  

10.00%  

20.00%  

30.00%  

40.00%  

50.00%  

60.00%  

70.00%  

80.00%  

90.00%  

100.00%  

1825-­‐1849   1850-­‐1874   1875-­‐1899   1900-­‐1924   1925-­‐1949   1950-­‐1974   1975-­‐1999   2000-­‐2015  

M   N  

F  

Experimental investigation of Constructions

Kuznetsova and Nesset (2015) did an experiment on the factors that decide between a genitive construction and an accusative construction for a group of verbs:

–  slušat´sja ‘obey’, dožidat´sja ‘wait for’, bojat´sja ‘fear’, dostigat´ ‘reach’, izbegat´ ‘avoid’

Corpus data give evidence of a language change (genitive > accusative) and of significant factors relating to individuation of the direct object An experiment made it possible to sort out the contributions of various factors The experiment also showed that declension was an important factor:

III declension nouns are dispreferred in the accusative construction For example, particpants avoided the accusative construction with

the III declension proper name Ljubov´ (only 8% acceptance), whereas accusative is preferred for II declension names Ol´ga, Nina 7

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Our task today:

Select ongoing change or variation in Czech, for example: •  učit se čemu >> učit se co •  Loc sg –ě vs. -u •  Gen sg –a vs. -u •  3pl verbs –í vs. -ějí •  jezdit autem vs. jezdit s autem •  dívat se oknem vs. dívat se skrz okno •  jít ulicí vs. jít po ulici vs. jít podél ulice •  so-called facultative animates like dej si panáka, cigára,

musíme koupit sejra, mám bavoráka, dám si turka •  distributions of synonyms Consider possible factors, what kind of data can be collected, what kind of analysis can be performed Plan a publication

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