Parameters and Language Contact: Morphosyntactic Variation in Dutch Dialects

TY - JOUR

T1 - Parameters and Language Contact

T2 - Morphosyntactic Variation in Dutch Dialects

AU - van Craenenbroeck, Jeroen

AU - van Koppen, M.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - The central issue addressed in this paper is the formal linguistic notion of parameter as a predictor for the (non-)occurrence of multiple linguistic phenomena. We start from a parametric analysis of a microvariational data set and we introduce a way of gauging the success of that analysis. At the same time, we explore to what extent language contactoperationalized here as geographical proximity—can be seen as an explanatory factor that is complementary to the parametric analysis. Methodologically, the paper advocates the use of k-nearest neighbors classification as an interesting new technique in the linguist’s toolkit.

AB - The central issue addressed in this paper is the formal linguistic notion of parameter as a predictor for the (non-)occurrence of multiple linguistic phenomena. We start from a parametric analysis of a microvariational data set and we introduce a way of gauging the success of that analysis. At the same time, we explore to what extent language contactoperationalized here as geographical proximity—can be seen as an explanatory factor that is complementary to the parametric analysis. Methodologically, the paper advocates the use of k-nearest neighbors classification as an interesting new technique in the linguist’s toolkit.

U2 - 10.5565/rev/catjl.363

DO - 10.5565/rev/catjl.363

M3 - Article

SN - 1695-6885

VL - 22

SP - 1

EP - 25

JO - Catalan Journal of Linguistics

JF - Catalan Journal of Linguistics

ER -