What motivates verbal agreement variation

with collective-headed subjects?

Evidence from synchrony and diachrony

Yolanda Fernández Pena

yolanda.fernandez@uvigo.es

University of Vigo (Spain)

5 May 2016

Outline1. Introduction2. Aims3. Corpus-based study

1. Methodology2. Data analysis

1. Regional variation2. Syntactic complexity3. (C)overt morphology 4. Semantics5. Idiomatisation

4. Conclusions5. References

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3

AGREEMENT AND COLLECTIVE NOUNS

Collective noun:

“morphologically singular nouns designating a group of (in)animates”

(Dekeyser 1975: 35fn.1)

family, police, committee…

number, group, majority…

(1a) The crowdSG here isSG really thick despite the weather.

(1b) the crowdSG arePL on their feet, roaring and waving their arms

(1c) The crowdSG of cockneysPL werePL singing along [BNC: BPA 62]

1. Introduction

Morphologically motivated overrides/mismatches

2. Aims

Explore variation of verbal agreement in number with collective nounstaking of-PPs

(2) A large groupSG of people wasSG standing just beyond the wrought-iron gate.

(3) a groupSG of parentsPL werePL standing in the corner

Focus:

Present-Day British and American English

syntactic/structural/formal explanation for subject-verb agreement variation

Further issues:

“Inner Englishes”

Semantic and lexical determining factors

Late Modern English

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3. Corpus-based study

• 3.1. Methodology

• 3.2. Data analysis

1. Regional variation

2. Syntactic complexity

3. (C)overt morphology

4. Semantics

5. Idiomatisation

5

3.1. Methodology

6

DATA RETRIEVAL:‘NCOLL-of-NPL’ subject + verb inflected for number

• NCOLL

23 singular collective nouns

band crowd majority series

batch flock minority set

bunch gang number shoal

class group pack swarm

clump herd party troop

couple host rash

(Biber et al.’s 1999: 249 ‘quantifying collectives’

Huddleston and Pullum et al.’s 2002: 503 ‘number-transparent nouns’)

3.1. Methodology

7

DATA RETRIEVAL:‘NCOLL-of-NPL’ subject + verb inflected for number

• NCOLL

23 singular collective nouns

• NPL

oblique noun

(i) NN2 = overtly-marked plural N (boys, things…)

A group of boysNN2 / girlsNN2

A bunch of thingsNN2 / casesNN2

(ii) the non-overtly-marked plural N people

A group of people

CORPORA:

• British National Corpus (BNC)

100 million words (1970s-1993)

• Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)

over 450 million words (1990s-2012)

• Global Web-based English Corpus (GloWbE)1,9 billion words (2012-13)

20 varieties of English

• Corpus of Historical American English (COHA)400 million words

1810-20098

3.1. Methodology

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Abs. Freq. %

SG Verb PL Verb TOTAL SG Verb PL Verb

With of-PP 1,593 3,014 4,607 34.58 65.42

Without of-PP 51,892 13,383 65,275 79.50 20.50

PDE BrE & AmE (adapted from Fernández-Pena 2015)

Table 1Verbal agreement with collective nouns with of-PPs and without of-PPs in the BNC and COCA

3.1. Methodology

(χ2(1)=4832.62, p<0.0001; Crammer’s V = 0.263)

Without of-DEP: (4b) when a whole group is having a go [BNC:ATAW_non_ac_soc_science]

With of-DEP: (4a) a group of British skiers were horrified to see a man [BNC: CCK 737]

3.2.1. Regional variation

Collective nouns with of-PPsBritish English and American English show similar tendencies

10Figure 1.

Verbal agreement with collective nouns with of-PPs in the BNC and COCA

(χ2(1)=6.19, p=0.0128; Crammer's V = 0.0371)

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VARIETY SG Verb PL Verb

Jamaica 33.15 66.85

Nigeria 35.98 64.02

Ireland 36.03 63.97

Tanzania 39.44 60.56

Great Britain 42.74 57.26

Sri Lanka 43.98 56.02

Kenya 44.59 55.41

Ghana 44.59 55.41

Pakistan 44.71 55.29

Canada 47.63 52.37

South Africa 48.10 51.90

Australia 48.63 51.37

New Zeland 49.16 50.84

Singapore 49.73 50.27

Malaysia 50.60 49.40

India 50.84 49.16

United States 52.18 47.82

Philippines 52.78 47.22

Bangladesh 53.29 46.71

Hong Kong 55.46 44.54

9/20 >55% PL Verbal forms

11/20 <53% PL Verbal forms

Table 2. Verbal agreement in the

varieties of GloWbE

3.2.1. Regional variation

GloWbE

12Table 3.

Verbal agreement in the inner varieties in GloWbE

Variety SG Verb PL Verb TOTAL

Ireland178

(36.03%)316

(63.97%)494

Great Britain795

(42.74%)1,065

(57.26%)1,860

Canada291

(47.63%)320

(52.37%)611

Australia228

(48.10%)246

(51.90%)474

New Zealand206

(49.16%)213

(50.84%)419

United States911

(52.18%)835

(47.82%)1,746

TOTAL2,609

(46.56%)2,995

(53.44%)5,604

3.2.1. Regional variation

13Figure 2.

Pearson residuals in the inner varieties in GloWbE

3.2.1. Regional variationSG Verb PL Verb

Ireland

Great Britain

Canada

United States

Australia

New Zealand

14Table 3.

Verbal agreement in British and American English in GloWbE

Variety SG Verb PL Verb TOTAL

Great Britain795

(42.74%)1,065

(57.26%)1,860

United States911

(52.18%)835

(47.82%)1,746

3.2.1. Regional variation

(χ2(1)=31.78, p<.0001; Crammer’s V = 0.0944)

3.2.2. Syntactic complexity

Syntactic distance (Corbett 1979; Levin 2001)

Distance increases the likelihood of finding plural agreement

Meaning (not form) is kept activated

Collective NSG + ………………..………….…………………VPL

- Morphologically SG

- Conceptually PL

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of (…) NPL (…)

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Structure of the of-PP

1. (of) BARE NP [a group of boys/people] + V

2. (of) PREMOD + NP [a group of young boys/people] + V

3. (of) BARE NP + POSTMOD [a group of boys/people] from the UK + V

4. (of) PREMOD + NP + POSTMOD [a group of young boys/people] from the UK + V

3.2.2. Syntactic complexity

Table 4.Syntactic configurations of of-dependents in the BNC and COCA

17Table 5.

Verbal agreement in bare, preMod and postMod of-dependents in the BNC and COCA

Structure of the of-PPSG Verb PL Verb

Abs.freq. % Abs.freq. %

1. (of) BARE NP 478 31.95 1,018 68.05

2. (of) PREMOD + NP 605 34.99 1,124 65.01

3. (of) BARE NP + POSTMOD 265 33.46 527 66.54

4. (of) PREMOD + NP + POSTMOD 245 41.53 345 58.47

3.2.2. Syntactic complexity

Bare NP vs PREMOD + NP + POSTMOD(χ2(1)=16.7, p<0.0001); Crammer’s V = 0.0906

18Figure 3.

Pearson residuals in the structure of of-PP in the BNC and COCA

3.2.2. Syntactic complexity

SG Verb PL Verb

Bare NP

PreMOD + NP

NP + PostMOD

PreMOD + NP + PostMOD

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Type of NPL

Overtly-marked (-s)

a group of boys

Non-overtly-marked (-ø)

a group of people

3.2.3. (C)overt morphology

Table 6.Type of NPL in the BNC and COCA

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Structure of the of-PPNN2 (-s) people

SG Verb PL Verb SG Verb PL Verb

1. (of) BARE NP 38.61 61.39 9.38 90.62

2. (of) PREMOD + NP 36.60 63.40 21.81 78.19

3. (of) BARE NP + POSTMOD 35.48 64.52 30.07 69.93

4. (of) PREMOD + NP + POSTMOD 40.66 59.34 47.37 52.63

(χ2(3), p<0.0001); Crammer’s V = 0.2815

Table 7.Verbal agreement (%) with NN2 and people in bare, preMod and postMod of-dependents in the BNC and COCA

3.2.3. (C)overt morphology

COLLECTIVE NOUN

ANIMACY (Dekeyser 1975, Levin 2001)

(5) And to be a fair traded product, the charter says that erm thecompany who are selling the products should have an input at that level .

(Levin 2001: 56)HUMANNESS (Levin 2001)

(6) We have a tremendous population here that have not discoveredwhat’s on their doorstep.

(Levin 2001: 56)

Influence of semantics of the oblique noun on verbal agreement

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3.2.4. Semantics

2222Figure 4.

Frequency (%) of (in)animate and (non)human oblique nouns in the BNC and COCA

3.2.4. Semantics

2323Figure 5.

Verbal agreement in relation to the animacy/humanness of the oblique noun in the BNC and COCA

χ2 (1)=368.5, p<0.0001;Crammer’s V = 0.2672

3.2.4. Semantics

(7) a small crowd of people have gathered by the door [COCA: FIC MovElf]

(8) A flock of seabirds lands in our garden [BNC: CA5 1757]

(9) This batch of cars was transferred onto South Metropolitan tracks [BNC: CBK 1744]

VERB MEANING

(Biber et al. 1999: 189; Levin 2001: 148–158; Dodge and Wright 2002: 84–85; Depraetere 2003: 102–103)

(10) The committee comprises/consists of /has eight members.

*comprise/consist of/have (Biber et al. 1999: 189)

Influence of semantics of the verb on verbal agreement

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3.2.4. Semantics

VERB MEANING (only BNC)

(Levin 1993)

PL AGR ≥ 60%

- prototypical human reference

- most frequent semantic types:

possession (get, give) send/carry

existence (live, gather) communication (say, ask)

PL AGR ≤ 59%

- less straightforward connection with human reference

- most frequent semantic types:

change of state (increase, rise) appearance(come, appear)

motion (run, follow)

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3.2.4. Semantics

MEANING:

(11a) [A number of] these papersPL appearPL to have been a correspondence between this

gentleman and his more zealous brethren. [1827 FIC TennesseanANovel]

(11b) From this, [a number of] important consequencesPL followPL [1990 N ThinkingSociologically]

(11c) [a number of] his poemsPL havePL been sold during those same years [1962 NF

EnglishLiterature]

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Quantificational meaning

Figure 6. Verbal agreement with a number of + plural oblique in COHA

3.2.5. Idiomatisation

A number of

VERBAL AGREEMENT:

plural agreement

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MEANING:

(12a) [a group of] childrenPL werePL joyfully embracing the knees [1843 FIC LettersFromNew-]

(12b) [A group of] developersPL havePL sued CBS in federal court [1996 NEWS AP]

(12c) [A group of] old hagsPL beginPL beating a poor child [1872 NF Saunterings]

? Quantificational meaning

Figure 7.Verbal agreement with a group of + plural oblique in COHA

3.2.5. Idiomatisation

A group of

VERBAL AGREEMENT:

plural agreement

BUT singular AGR has increased

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MEANING:

(13a) [A majority of] casesPL arePL affected in that way [1887 MAG Century]

(13b) [a majority of] CongressmenPL don'tPL want to get involved [1971 NEWS WallStJrnl]

(13c) [A majority of] failing thriftsPL havePL no directors and officers liability insurance [1990

NEWS NYT]

Quantificational meaning

Figure 8.Verbal agreement with a majority of + plural oblique in COHA

3.2.5. Idiomatisation

A majority of

VERBAL AGREEMENT:

plural agreement

29Figure 9.

Verbal agreement with the majority of + plural oblique in COHA

MEANING:

(14a) the majority of menPL arePL imperfectly educated [1877 NF HistoryConflict]

(14b) the majority of personsPL doPL not believe in their existence [1913 FIC TTembarom]

(14c) the majority of savagesPL possesPLs this instinct in a much more perfect form [1897 MAG

NorthAmRev]

? Berg (1998: 54); “function of a quantifier such as most”

3.2.5. Idiomatisation

The majority of

VERBAL AGREEMENT:

plural agreement

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4. CONCLUSIONS

• Significance of of-dependency (with of-PP vs. without of-PP)

• Main observations:

– Regional variation: significant variability, discrepancies with literature

– Distance/complexity: no significant trigger of plural agreement

decreasing tendencies

– Morphology: overt vs. covert morphology differences with

increasing distance

– Semantics: influence of animacy and humanness

– Idiomatisation: fixation of syntactic patterns across time

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3131

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Department of Linguistics and English Language (University of Lancaster)

UCREL: University Centre for Computer Corpus Research on Language (Lancaster)

Englisches Seminar (University of Zurich)

David Tizón-Couto (University of Vigo)

Financial support:

• Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU, research grant FPU13/01509)

• the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the European RegionalDevelopment Fund (grants no. FFI2013-44065-P, FFI2014-51873-REDT)

• LVTC research group (University of Vigo)

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REFERENCES

What motivates verbal agreement variation

with collective-headed subjects?

Evidence from synchrony and diachrony

Yolanda Fernández Pena

yolanda.fernandez@uvigo.es

University of Vigo (Spain)

5 May 2016