19.1522, Diss: Comp Ling/Syntax: Spruit: 'Quantitative Perspectives on Synta...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-19-1522. Fri May 09 2008. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 19.1522, Diss: Comp Ling/Syntax: Spruit: 'Quantitative Perspectives on Synta...'

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1)
Date: 09-May-2008
From: Marco Spruit < spruit at cs.uu.nl >
Subject: Quantitative Perspectives on Syntactic Variation in Dutch Dialects

 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 09 May 2008 09:18:14
From: Marco Spruit [spruit at cs.uu.nl]
Subject: Quantitative Perspectives on Syntactic Variation in Dutch Dialects
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Institution: University of Amsterdam 
Program: Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2008 

Author: Marco Rene Spruit

Dissertation Title: Quantitative Perspectives on Syntactic Variation in Dutch
Dialects 

Dissertation URL:  http://people.cs.uu.nl/spruit/phd/pub/mrs2008book.pdf

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics
                     Syntax

Subject Language(s): Dutch (nld)


Dissertation Director(s):
Hans Bennis
John Nerbonne
Sjef Barbiers

Dissertation Abstract:

This dialectometrical research has investigated three quantitative
perspectives on syntactic variation in Dutch dialects. The first
perspective shows how to quantify syntactic differences between language
varieties and classifies the Dutch dialect varieties based on a measure of
syntactic distance. This objective classification is compared with--and
highly resembles--the traditional, perceptual classification based on
subjective judgements. This approach also affirmatively answers the
question whether syntactic variation patterns are geographically coherent.

The second perspective describes how to quantify the degrees of association
between pronunciational, lexical and syntactic differences. This approach
reveals that the degrees of association among the linguistic levels of
pronunciation, lexis and syntax are genuine but modest. Also, syntactic and
pronunciational differences are not more strongly associated with one
another than either one is associated with lexical differences.

The third perspective demonstrates how to discover relevant associations
between syntactic variables using a data mining technique based on
geographical co-occurrences. This approach contributes to the validation of
existing typological hypotheses and facilitates the identification and
exploration of variable relationships in general. 






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