Grammatical typology and frequency analysis: number availability and number use

Authors

  • Dunstan Brown University of York
  • Greville G. Corbett University of Surrey
  • Sebastian Fedden University of Surrey
  • Andrew Hippisley University of Kentucky
  • Paul Marriott University of Waterloo

Keywords:

animacy hierarchy, frequency, number, Russian

Abstract

The Smith-Stark hierarchy, a version of the Animacy Hierarchy, offers a typology of the cross-linguistic availability of number. The hierarchy predicts that the availability of number is not arbitrary. For any language, if the expression of plural is available to a noun, it is available to any noun of a semantic category further to the left of the hierarchy. In this article we move one step further by showing that the structure of the hierarchy can be observed in a statistical model of number use in Russian. We also investigate three co-variates: plural preference, pluralia tantum and irregularity effects; these account for an item's behaviour being different than that solely expected from its animacy position.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15398/jlm.v1i2.69

Full article

Published

2013-12-18

How to Cite

Brown, D., Corbett, G. G., Fedden, S., Hippisley, A., & Marriott, P. (2013). Grammatical typology and frequency analysis: number availability and number use. Journal of Language Modelling, 1(2), 227–241. https://doi.org/10.15398/jlm.v1i2.69

Issue

Section

Articles