A06
Modeling register variation across languages

Publications & Presentations

Publications

2023

• Adli, Aria; Verhoeven, Elisabeth; Lehmann, Nico; Mortezapour, Vahid; Vander Klok, Jozina  (2023) Lang*Reg: A multi-lingual corpus of intra-individual variation across situations[DOI] [ViVo]

  Language: German, Persian, Yucatec Maya, Kurdish, Javanese
  Size: 36 hours
  Description: same speakers varied by mode, acquaintance, professionalism, and expertise
  Features: transcription, syntactic segmentation, normalization, token, glossing or POS-tags, some syntax
  Access: transcription or annotation in progress; CC-BY-NC-ND

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• Pescuma, Valentina Nicole; Serova, Dina; Lukassek, Julia; Sauermann, Antje; Schäfer, Roland; Adli, Aria; Bildhauer, Felix; Egg, Markus; Hülk, Kristina; Ito, Aine; Jannedy, Stefanie; Kordoni, Valia; Kühnast, Milena; Kutscher, Silvia; Lange, Robert; Lehmann, Nico; Liu, Mingya; Lütke, Beate; Maquate, Katja; Mooshammer, Christine; Mortezapour, Vahid; Müller, Stefan; Norde, Muriel; Pankratz, Elizabeth; Patarroyo, Angela Giovanna; Plesca, Ana-Maria; Ronderos, Camilo R.; Rotter, Stephanie; Sauerland, Uli; Schulte, Britta; Schüppenhauer, Gediminas; Sell, Bianca Maria; Solt, Stephanie; Terada, Megumi; Tsiapou, Dimitra; Verhoeven, Elisabeth; Weirich, Melanie; Wiese, Heike; Zaruba, Kathy; Zeige, Lars Erik; Lüdeling, Anke; Knoeferle, Pia; Schnelle, Gohar  (2023) Situating language register across the ages, languages, modalities, and cultural aspects: Evidence from complementary methods In:  Frontiers in Psychology [DOI] [ViVo]

  In the present review paper by members of the collaborative research center ‘Register: Language Users’ Knowledge of SituationalFunctional Variation’ (CRC 1412), we assess the pervasiveness of register phenomena across different time periods, languages, modalities, and cultures. We define ‘register’ as recurring variation in language use depending on the function of language and on the social situation. Informed by rich data, we aim to better understand and model the knowledge involved in situation- and function-based use of language register. In order to achieve this goal, we are using complementary methods and measures. In the review, we start by clarifying the concept of ‘register’, by reviewing the state of the art, and by setting out our methods and modeling goals. Against this background, we discuss three key challenges, two at the methodological level and one at the theoretical level: 1. To better uncover registers in text and spoken corpora, we propose changes to established analytical approaches. 2. To tease apart between-subject variability from the linguistic variability at issue (intra-individual situation based register variability), we use within-subject designs and the modeling of individuals’ social, language, and educational background. 3. We highlight a gap in cognitive modeling, viz. modeling the mental representations of register (processing), and present our first attempts at filling this gap. We argue that the targeted use of multiple complementary methods and measures supports investigating the pervasiveness of register phenomena and yields comprehensive insights into the cross-methodological robustness of register-related language variability. These comprehensive insights in turn provide a solid foundation for associated cognitive modeling.

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• Lehmann, Nico; Serova, Dina; Lukassek, Julia; Döring, Sophia; Goymann, Frank; Lüdeling, Anke; Akbari, Roodabeh  (2023) Guidelines for the annotation of parameters of narration. In:  REALIS: Register Aspects of Language in Situation [DOI] [ViVo]

  The present guidelines describe the annotation of narrative phenomena on the clause level, using a combination of ideas and methods from linguistics and lit- erary studies. The main categories marking the discourse strategy “narration” in stretches of text have been narrowed down to mediacy, i. e. involving a narrator, and sequentiality of events. This document specifies how to define mediacy, and in turn determine whether a narrator is present, as well as how to identify events and their sequential ordering. Lastly, a functional layer annotation is proposed which allows researchers to compare different types of narrative instances. This offers a basis for investigating a potential narrative register which is said to be important for many kinds of register studies.

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• Varaschin, Giuseppe; Culicover, Peter W.; Winkler, Susanne  (2023) In pursuit of Condition C: (Non-)coreference in grammar, discourse and processing In:  Information Structure and Discourse in Generative Grammar [ViVo]
• Varaschin, Giuseppe  (2023) LFG and Simpler Syntax In:  Handbook of Lexical Functional Grammar [ViVo]

2022

• Lehmann, Nico; Verhoeven, Elisabeth  (2022) Discourse-Independent Variation in V-Initial Constituent Order: The Yucatec Mayan Preverbal Domain Revisited In:  ProcLingEvi2020, Universität Tübingen [DOI] [ViVo]

  Contribution to Linguistic Evidence 2020

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• Adli, Aria  (2022) Coherence and implicational hierarchies in the speech of the very old In:  The Coherence of Linguistic Communities Orderly Heterogeneity and Social Meaning [ViVo]
• Machicao y Priemer, Antonio; Müller, Stefan; Schäfer, Roland; Bildhauer, Felix  (2022) Towards a treatment of register phenomena in HPSG In:  Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Nagoya University & Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics [ViVo]
• Müller, Stefan; Machicao y Priemer, Antonio  (2022) Modelling Register Variation in HPSG In:  CRC 1412 – Spring Retreat 2022 [ViVo]

2021

• Machicao y Priemer, Antonio; Müller, Stefan  (2021) NPs in German: Locality, theta roles, possessives, and genitive arguments In:  Glossa: a journal of general linguistics [DOI] [ViVo]

  Since Abney (1987), the DP-analysis has been the standard analysis for nominal complexes, but in the last decade, the NP analysis has experienced a revival. In this spirit, we provide an NP analysis for German nominal complexes in HPSG. Our analysis deals with the fact that relational nouns assign case and theta role to their arguments. We develop an analysis in line with selectional localism (Sag 2012: 149), accounting for the asymmetry between prenominal and postnominal genitives, as well as for the complementarity between higher arguments and possessives, providing a syntactic and semantic analysis.

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2020

• Lüdeling, Anke; Alexiadou, Artemis; Adli, Aria; Donhauser, Karin; Dreyer, Malte; Egg, Markus; Feulner, Anna Helene; Gagarina, Natalia; Hock, Wolfgang; Jannedy, Stefanie; Kammerzell, Frank; Knoeferle, Pia; Krause, Thomas; Krifka, Manfred; Kutscher, Silvia; Lütke, Beate; McFadden, Thomas; Meyer, Roland; Mooshammer, Christine; Müller, Stefan; Maquate, Katja; Norde, Muriel; Sauerland, Uli; Szucsich, Luka; Verhoeven, Elisabeth; Waltereit, Richard; Wolfsgruber, Anne; Zeige, Lars Erik  (2020) Register: Language Users’ Knowledge of Situational-Functional Variation In:  REALIS: Register Aspects of Language in Situation [DOI] [ViVo]

  The Collaborative Research Center 1412 “Register: Language Users’ Knowledge of Situational-Functional Variation” (CRC 1412) investigates the role of register in language, focusing in particular on what constitutes a language user’s register knowledge and which situational-functional factors determine a user’s choices. The following paper is an extract from the frame text of the proposal for the CRC 1412, which was submitted to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in 2019, followed by a successful onsite evaluation that took place in 2019. The CRC 1412 then started its work on January 1, 2020. The theoretical part of the frame text gives an extensive overview of the theoretical and empirical perspectives on register knowledge from the viewpoint of 2019. Due to the high collaborative effort of all PIs involved, the frame text is unique in its scope on register research, encompassing register-relevant aspects from variationist approaches, psycholinguistics, grammatical theory, acquisition theory, historical linguistics, phonology, phonetics, typology, corpus linguistics, and computational linguistics, as well as qualitative and quantitative modeling. Although our positions and hypotheses since its submission have developed further, the frame text is still a vital resource as a compilation of state-of-the-art register research and a documentation of the start of the CRC 1412. The theoretical part without administrative components therefore presents an ideal starter publication to kick off the CRC’s publication series REALIS. For an overview of the projects and more information on the CRC, see https://sfb1412.hu-berlin.de/.

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• Machicao y Priemer, Antonio; Fritz-Huechante, Paola  (2020) Boundaries at play In:  Interfaces in Romance [DOI] [ViVo]

  Summary In this paper, we model the left-bounded state reading and the true reflexive reading of the se clitic in the Spanish psychological domain. We argue that a lexical analysis of se provides us with a more accurate description of the different classes of psychological verbs that occur with the clitic. We provide a unified analysis where the use of the two readings of se are modeled by means of lexical rules. We take the morphologically simple but semantically more complex basic items (e.g. asustar ‘frighten’) as input of the lexical rules, getting as the output a morphologically more complex but semantically simpler verb (e.g asustarse ‘get frightened’). The analysis for psych verbs correctly allows only those verbs assigning accusative to the experiencer or the stimulus to combine with se, hence preventing dative verbs from entering the lexical rules. The analysis also demonstrates how to account for punctual and non-punctual readings of psych verbs with se incorporating ‘boundaries’ into the type hierarchy of eventualities.

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2018

• Verhoeven, Elisabeth; Lehmann, Nico  (2018) Self-embedding and complexity in oral registers In:  Glossa: a journal of general linguistics [DOI] [ViVo]

  This article reports the results of a study on the self-embedding depth of nominal, verbal and clausal projections in spoken corpora of German. We compared two spoken registers featuring public and non-public (i.e. private) conversation by measuring the depth of self-embedding in C, V, and N projections. The findings confirm the hypothesis that the familiarity of the speech situation (public vs. non-public speech) has a significant impact on complexity in terms of self-embedding: speakers use more self-embedding in public speech production in different syntactic projections. In addition, we examined previous assumptions about the differences between right, left, and center embedding in C projections. The results confirm a preference against center embedding in non-public texts, which reflects the complexity of center embedding. Finally, we find evidence that the depth of self-embedding in V and C projections is correlated. This finding suggests that self-embedding depth is part of a general strategy, i.e., speakers select more or less complex structures (of different types) depending on factors of the speech situation.

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Presentations

2023

• Haig, Geoffrey  (2023) Which domains of morphosyntax are sensitive to register variation? Thoughts from Iranian languages. In:  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin: Kolloquium Syntax und Semantik (2023) [ViVo]
• Sailer, Manfred  (2023) Explicit or redundant: The social meaning of multiple exponence In:  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin: Kolloquium Syntax und Semantik (2023) [ViVo]
• Sailer, Manfred  (2023) Explicit or redundant: The social meaning of multiple exponence In:  Kolloquium SFB1412 (2023) [ViVo]
• Machicao y Priemer, Antonio; Varaschin, Giuseppe  (2023) Agreement in Brazilian Portuguese: A case of Register Variation In:  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin: Kolloquium Syntax und Semantik (2023) [ViVo]

2022

• Engel, Eric; Adli, Aria  (2022) Complexity and fluency at the end of the life span In:  Kolloquium SFB1412 (2022) [ViVo]
• Liu, Mingya; Adli, Aria  (2022) External Factors In:  CRC 1412 – Spring Retreat 2022 [ViVo]
• Liu, Mingya; Adli, Aria  (2022) External factors under investigation In:  CRC 1412 - Fall Retreat 2022 [ViVo]
• Sauermann, Antje; Verhoeven, Elisabeth; Meyer, Roland; Lütke, Beate; Alexiadou, Artemis  (2022) Multilingualism In:  CRC 1412 - Fall Retreat 2022 [ViVo]
• Lehmann, Nico; Lukassek, Julia; Serova, Dina; Döring, Sophia  (2022) On Narration In:  CRC 1412 – Spring Retreat 2022 [ViVo]
• Farokhnejad, Zahra  (2022) A general outlook of Kurdish register data: focusing on Code-switching and post-predicate constituents In:   Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin: Kolloquium Syntax und Semantik (2022) [ViVo]
• Abishek, Stephen; Farokhnejad, Zahra  (2022) CRC fellows present their research projects In:  Kolloquium SFB1412 (2022) [ViVo]
• Lehmann, Nico  (2022) Register and the function puzzle: Why register competence is not the whole story In:  Kolloquium SFB1412 (2022) [ViVo]
• Serova, Dina; Lehmann, Nico  (2022) Register Aspects of Language in Situation (REALIS) In:  CRC 1412 - Fall Retreat 2022 [ViVo]
• Varaschin, Giuseppe; Machicao y Priemer, Antonio  (2022) Agreement mismatches and register-driven variation in Brazilian Portuguese In:  Oberseminar Syntax and Semantics, Institut für England- und Amerikastudien, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main [ViVo]
• Schnelle, Gohar; Lehmann, Nico; Marklová, Anna  (2022) Reading circle terminology In:  CRC 1412 – Spring Retreat 2022 [ViVo]
• Machicao y Priemer, Antonio; Schäfer, Roland; Bildhauer, Felix; Müller, Stefan  (2022) Towards a treatment of register phenomena in HPSG In:  The 29th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Nagoya University & the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics [ViVo]
• Döring, Sophia; Lehmann, Nico; Serova, Dina  (2022) Narration In:  CRC 1412 - Fall Retreat 2022 [ViVo]
• Liu, Mingya; Adli, Aria; Szucsich, Luka  (2022) Area A on modeling In:  CRC 1412 – Spring Retreat 2022 [ViVo]

2021

• Müller, David; Verhoeven, Elisabeth; Adli, Aria; Lehmann, Nico  (2021) Cross-linguistic aspects of register variation: Right-peripheral constituents in German In:  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin: Kolloquium Syntax und Semantik (2021) [ViVo]

2020

• Machicao y Priemer, Antonio  (2020) L4L – LaTeX for Linguists Workshop In:  MGK Integrated Graduate School – CRC 1412, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin [ViVo]
• Adli, Aria; Lehmann, Nico; Mortezapour, Vahid; Verhoeven, Elisabeth  (2020) Cross-linguistic aspects of register variation: Creating a Lang*Reg Corpus In:  Kolloquium SFB1412 (2020) [ViVo]