Dative Alternation In Varieties Of English:A Multivariate Analysis Based On Corpus Of Global Web-based English

Situated in the gradually established field of cognitive sociolinguistics,the current paper advances the researches on the phenomenon of dative alternation(I send him an email vis-à-vis I send an email to him)across four different varieties of English(British English,Canadian English,Hong Kong English,and Jamaican English).Specifically,it aims to tease out the roles of linguistic factors(e.g.constituent length,pronominality,etc.)featured in the decision-making of dative alternation and their varying magnitudes of influence across varieties and registers.To meet such purpose,the study tapped into a relatively new source of data of web-based language from the Corpus of Global Webbased English(GloWbE),which provides us new source of data and dimensions in the stylistic perspective with the previously unvisited registers of general webs(more formal)and blogs(more informal).Applying mixed-effects logistic regression and principle component analysis to the abovementioned data,we produced results that are largely in line with previous researches on this issue(e.g.Bresnan & Ford,2010;Szmrecsanyi,Grafmiller,Heller & R?thlisberger,2015;R?thlisberger,Grafmiller & Szmrecsanyi,2017): on the one hand,we are able to confirm the ‘core' probabilistic grammar pattern of dative alternation identified by R?thlisberger et al(2017),in which linguistic factors such as the length,NP category and definiteness of constituents accurately predict preferences for the ditransitive or prepositional dative variant regardless of regions and registers.On the other hand,we discovered variety-and register-related variations including: i)the higher sensitivity to the factor recipient pronominality in Canadian English compared with Jamaican English;ii)the lower sensitivity to the factor theme complexity in British English compared with all other varieties and iii)the higher sensitivity to the factor constituent length in general webs compared with blogs.Drawing upon insights from linguistic typology,psycholinguistic theories(e.g.MacDonald,2013)and contact-induced variation,we formulated two qualitative models which account for the significant correlation between linguistic factors and the probabilistic selections of dative variants.The paper ends by discussing future perspectives of dative alternation studies and appeals for converging evidence from two approaches.The first one concerns diachronic cross-constructional analysis between dative alternation and other alternations(e.g.genitive,particle placement),which will provide a more comprehensive picture of the prominent factors that constrain speakers' choice of interchangeable constructions.The second one has to do with machine learning-based computational modelling,which is able to serve as an ideal substitute for psycholinguistic experiments.