Effects of average and specific context probability on reduction of function wordsBEandHAVE

Abstract

In a study of word shortening of HAVE and contraction of BE, it is found that both high transitional probability and high average context probability (low informativity) result in reduction. Previous studies have found this effect for content words and this study extend the findings to function words. Average context probability is by construction type, showing that words are shorter in constructions with high average predictability, namely in perfect constructions for HAVE and in future and progressive constructions for BE. These findings show that in cases of grammaticalization, it is not an increase in frequency that results in reduction, but a decrease in informativity.

Communicative efficiency and the Principle of No Synonymy: predictability effects and the variation ofwant toandwanna

“…For instance, the omission of that is more likely after hope than after show because the former is more commonly followed by a complement clause than the latter, for example, I hope (that) everything will be just fine (Jaeger, 2010). As for subject-auxiliary contractions, such as she's or they have, their rate is also determined by diverse predictability measures, for example, predictability of the subject given the auxiliary or predictability of the next verb given the subject and auxiliary (Barth, 2019;Frank & Jaeger, 2008). Phonological reduction is also determined by predictability, measured in very different ways.…”

Formal grammar, usage probabilities, and auxiliary contraction

“…Yet that is far from the whole story: a number of researchers have pointed out morphophonological properties of the most common auxiliary contractions that are signs of the contracted forms being lexically stored (Kaisse 1985, A. Spencer 1991, Bybee & Scheibman 1999, Scheibman 2000, Wescoat 2005, Bybee 2006). And usage statistics show that the probability that words will be adjacent in naturally occurring speech determines their degree of fusion into lexical units (Bybee & Scheibman 1999, Scheibman 2000, Bybee 2002 and their likelihood of contraction (Krug 1998, Bybee 2002, Frank & Jaeger 2008, Bresnan & Spencer 2012, J. Spencer 2014, Barth & Kapatsinski 2017, Barth 2019).…”