How the Probabilistic Structure of Grammatical Context Shapes Speech
Does systematic covariation in the usage patterns of forms shape the sublexical variance observed in conversational speech? We address this question in terms of a recently proposed discriminative theory of human communication that argues that the distribution of events in communicative contexts shou...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2020-01-01
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| Series: | Entropy |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/22/1/90 |
| _version_ | 1798038045475209216 |
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| author | Maja Linke Michael Ramscar |
| author_facet | Maja Linke Michael Ramscar |
| author_sort | Maja Linke |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Does systematic covariation in the usage patterns of forms shape the sublexical variance observed in conversational speech? We address this question in terms of a recently proposed discriminative theory of human communication that argues that the distribution of events in communicative contexts should maintain mutual predictability between language users, present evidence that the distributions of words in the empirical contexts in which they are learned and used are geometric, and thus support this. Here, we extend this analysis to a corpus of conversational English, showing that the distribution of grammatical regularities and the sub-distributions of tokens discriminated by them are also geometric. Further analyses reveal a range of structural differences in the distribution of types in parts of speech categories that further support the suggestion that linguistic distributions (and codes) are subcategorized by context at multiple levels of abstraction. Finally, a series of analyses of the variation in spoken language reveals that quantifiable differences in the structure of lexical subcategories appears in turn to systematically shape sublexical variation in speech signal. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T21:34:51Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4dab0007c7a344cb91fb200bb4c9c8f9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1099-4300 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T21:34:51Z |
| publishDate | 2020-01-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Entropy |
| spelling | doaj.art-4dab0007c7a344cb91fb200bb4c9c8f92022-12-22T04:01:48ZengMDPI AGEntropy1099-43002020-01-012219010.3390/e22010090e22010090How the Probabilistic Structure of Grammatical Context Shapes SpeechMaja Linke0Michael Ramscar1Department of Linguistics, University of Tuebingen, Wilhelmstraße 19, 72074 Tuebingen, GermanyDepartment of Linguistics, University of Tuebingen, Wilhelmstraße 19, 72074 Tuebingen, GermanyDoes systematic covariation in the usage patterns of forms shape the sublexical variance observed in conversational speech? We address this question in terms of a recently proposed discriminative theory of human communication that argues that the distribution of events in communicative contexts should maintain mutual predictability between language users, present evidence that the distributions of words in the empirical contexts in which they are learned and used are geometric, and thus support this. Here, we extend this analysis to a corpus of conversational English, showing that the distribution of grammatical regularities and the sub-distributions of tokens discriminated by them are also geometric. Further analyses reveal a range of structural differences in the distribution of types in parts of speech categories that further support the suggestion that linguistic distributions (and codes) are subcategorized by context at multiple levels of abstraction. Finally, a series of analyses of the variation in spoken language reveals that quantifiable differences in the structure of lexical subcategories appears in turn to systematically shape sublexical variation in speech signal.https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/22/1/90speech variancecommunicative efficiencysampling invariancepower lawscommunicative distributions |
| spellingShingle | Maja Linke Michael Ramscar How the Probabilistic Structure of Grammatical Context Shapes Speech Entropy speech variance communicative efficiency sampling invariance power laws communicative distributions |
| title | How the Probabilistic Structure of Grammatical Context Shapes Speech |
| title_full | How the Probabilistic Structure of Grammatical Context Shapes Speech |
| title_fullStr | How the Probabilistic Structure of Grammatical Context Shapes Speech |
| title_full_unstemmed | How the Probabilistic Structure of Grammatical Context Shapes Speech |
| title_short | How the Probabilistic Structure of Grammatical Context Shapes Speech |
| title_sort | how the probabilistic structure of grammatical context shapes speech |
| topic | speech variance communicative efficiency sampling invariance power laws communicative distributions |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/22/1/90 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT majalinke howtheprobabilisticstructureofgrammaticalcontextshapesspeech AT michaelramscar howtheprobabilisticstructureofgrammaticalcontextshapesspeech |