Testing the limits of orthogonality: A study of the interaction between lexical frequency and independent variables
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Abstract
Spanish is a “pro-drop” language, meaning subject personal pronoun (SPP) expression may be phonetically null. Due in large part to the well-understood dialectal differences and universal constraints operating on SPP expression, Bayley, Cárdenas, Schouten, and Vélez Salas (2012) have highlighted it as a “classic” or “showcase” variationist variable.
The present study follows the current trend in using SPP expression as a starting point in order to investigate the effects of lexical frequency on morphosyntactic independent variables and furthers discussion by examining its behavior in a comparative study (Bayley, Holland & Ware, 2013; Erker & Guy, 2012). This study compares SPP expression of 6 Mexican immigrants living in the US with that of 6 speakers living in Mexico City (Butragueño & Lastra, 2000; Wilson, 2013). The data are coded for previous realization (perseverance), continuity of reference, tense-mood-aspect, genre, lexical frequency (based on 1% of non-lemmatized verbs from Bayley et al. (2013) and Erker and Guy (2012)), morphological regularity, and verbal semantic content. Lexical frequency is proven to behave non-orthogonally, supporting the conclusions of Erker and Guy (2012).
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