FAQ
Jagiellonian University in Krakow logo

Linguistic profiles: A quantitative approach to theoretical questions

Publication date: 02.03.2016

Language and Method, 2016, 3, pp. 127 - 145

Authors

Laura A. Janda
All publications →

Titles

Linguistic profiles: A quantitative approach to theoretical questions

Abstract

A major challenge in linguistics today is to take advantage of the data and sophisticated analytical tools available to us in the service of questions that are both theoretically interesting and practically useful. I offer linguistic profi les as one way to join theoretical insight to empirical research. Linguistic profiles are a more narrowly targeted type of behavioral profiling, focusing on a specific factor and how it is distributed across language forms. I present case studies using Russian data and illustrating three types of linguistic profiling analyses: grammatical profiles, semantic profiles, and constructional profi es. In connection with each case study I identify theoretical issues and show how they can be operationalized by means of profiles. The findings represent real gains in our understanding of Russian grammar that can also be utilized in both pedagogical and computational applications.

References

Download references

Comrie B., 1976, Aspect, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Divjak D., Gries S. Th., 2006, Ways of trying in Russian: Clustering behavioral profiles,  Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 2, p. 23–60.

Dostál A., 1954, Studie o vidovém systému v staroslověnštině, Prague: Státní pedagogické nakladatelství.

Eckhoff H. M., Janda L. A., 2014, Grammatical Profi les and Aspect in Old Church Slavonic, Transactions of the Philological Society, Vol. 112, Issue 2, p. 231–258.

Endresen A., Janda L. A., Kuznetsova J., Lyashevskaya O., Makarova A., Nesset T., Sokolova S., 2012, Russian ‘purely aspectual’ prefi xes: Not so ‘empty’ after all?, Scando-Slavica, 58:2, p. 231–291.

Evans N., Levinson S., 2009, The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32, p. 429–492.

Firth J. R., 1957, A synopsis of linguistic theory 1930–1955 [in:] J. R. Firth et al. (eds.), Studies in Linguistic Analysis, (Philological Society), Oxford: Blackwell, p. 1–32.

Frank S. L., Bod R., Christiansen M. H., (2012), How hierarchical is language use?, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 279, p. 4522–4531.

Geeraerts D., Grondelaers S., Speelman D., 1999, Convergentie en divergentie in de Nederlandse woordenschat. Een onderzoek naar kleding- en voetbaltermen, Amsterdam.

Gries S. Th., Divjak D., 2009, Behavioral profi les: a corpus-based approach towards cognitive semantic analysis [in:] V. Evans, S. S. Pourcel (eds.), New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, p. 57–75.

Hanks P., 1996, Contextual dependency and lexical sets, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 1, p. 75–98.

Harris Z. S., 1970, Papers in structural and transformational linguistics, Dordrecht: Reidel.

Janda L. A., 2013, Quantitative Methods in Cognitive Linguistics [in:] L. A. Janda (ed.), Cognitive Linguistics: The Quantitative Turn. The Essential Reader, Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, p. 1–32.

Janda L. A., 2015, Cognitive linguistics in the year 2015, Cognitive Semantics, Vol. 1, p. 131–154.

Janda L. A., Lyashevskaya O., 2011, Grammatical profi les and the interaction of the lexicon with aspect, tense and mood in Russian, Cognitive Linguistics, 22:4, p. 719–763.

Janda L. A., Lyashevskaya O., 2013, Semantic Profi les of Five Russian Prefi xes: po-, s-, za-, na-, pro-, Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 21 (2), p. 211–258.

Janda L. A., Solovyev V., 2009, What Constructional Profi les Reveal About Synonymy: A Case Study of Russian Words for SADNESS and HAPPINESS, Cognitive Linguistics, 20 (2), p. 367–393.

Kuznetsova J., 2013, Linguistic Profi les. Correlations between Form and Meaning. PhD dissertation, University of Tromsø.

Nesset T., Endresen A., Janda L. A., 2011, Two ways to get out: Radial Category Profiling  and the Russian Prefi xes vy- and iz-, Zeitschrift für Slawistik, 56:4, p. 377–402.

Sokolova S., Janda L. A., Lyashevskaya O., 2012, The Locative Alternation and the Russian ‘empty’ prefi xes: A case study of the verb gruzit’ ‘load’ [in:] D. Divjak, St. Th. Gries (eds.), Frequency effects in language representation, (Trends in Linguistics. Studies  and Monographs, 244.2), 2012, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, p. 51–86.

Speelman D., Grondelaers S., Geeraerts D., 2003, Profi le-Based Linguistic Uniformity as a Generic Model for Comparing Language Varieties, Computers and the Humanities, 37 (3), p. 317–337.

Timberlake A., 2004, A Reference Grammar of Russian, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Падучева Е. В., 1996, Семантические исследования. Семантика времени и вида в русском языке. Семантика нарратива, Москва: Языки русской культуры.

Information

Information: Language and Method, 2016, 3, pp. 127 - 145

Article type: Original article

Titles:

English:

Linguistic profiles: A quantitative approach to theoretical questions

Published at: 02.03.2016

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY  licence icon

Percentage share of authors:

Laura A. Janda (Author) - 100%

Article corrections:

-

Publication languages:

English

View count: 2224

Number of downloads: 3721