Probabilistic grammar and constructional predictability: Bayesian generalized additive models of <i>help</i> + (to) Infinitive in varieties of web-based English

Abstract

The present study investigates the construction with help followed by the bare or to-infinitive in seven varieties of web-based English from Australia, Ghana, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica and the USA. In addition to various factors known from the literature, such as register, minimization of cognitive complexity and avoidance of identity (horror aequi), it studies the effect of predictability of the infinitive given help and the other way round on the language user's choice between the constructional variants. These probabilistic constraints are tested in a series of Bayesian generalized additive mixed-effects regression models. The results demonstrate that the to-infinitive is particularly frequent in contexts with low predictability, or, in informationtheoretic terms, with high information content. This tendency is interpreted as communicatively efficient behaviour, when more predictable units of discourse get less formal marking, and less predictable ones get more formal marking. However, the strength, shape and directionality of predictability effects exhibit variation across the countries, which demonstrates the importance of the cross-lectal perspective in research on communicative efficiency and other universal functional principles.

Co-occurrence Strength and Transitivity Effects on Spanish Clitic Case Variation With Reverse-Psychological Predicates

“…More recently, researchers in this area have started to apply these association measures as predictors in statistical models. Levshina (2018) shows that the alternation between help + infinitive and help + to + infinitive in English can be predicted from the Attraction and Reliance scores between help and the infinitive verb in seven varieties of English. In a similar vein, in a study of that -omission in English with both native and L2 speakers, Gries (2021) demonstrates that the unidirectional association between the main verb and that is one of the predictors of that- omission.…”

“…One important aspect of association measures is the extent to which they can represent cognitive aspects of language use. Researchers have probed into the cognitive validity of association measures by using them to successfully predict human behavior in a variety of linguistic tasks and phenomena ( Wiechmann, 2008 ; Ellis and Ferreira-Junior, 2009 ; Gries, 2013 ; Gablasova et al, 2017 ; Levshina, 2018 ; Schneider, 2020 ; Li et al, 2021 , among others).…”

Verb-governed infinitival complementation in the recent history of English

“…This thesis seeks to advance the study of non-finite clausal complementation, particularly in relation to to-infinitive/BI alternation in post-verbal position in English. Previous studies have focused on the origin and rise of the to-infinitive and the competition with other forms (BI, -ing, subjunctive that-clauses; see Los 2005;Fanego 2004;Cuyckens and De Smet 2007), on specific main-clause complement-taking verbs (Mair 2003;Taeymans 2004Taeymans a, b, 2006Lohmman 2011;Callies 2013;Levshina 2018), and on the semantic/cognitive differences between the two complement alternatives (van der Auwera and Diewald 2012: 131) and other textual, dialectal and periodisation predictors. The aim of this research is to investigate the determinants of infinitival alternation in the recent history of American and British English.…”

“…This section presents a review of the literature on the alternation between BI and toinfinitive complementation governed by help in the history of English (Quirk et al 1985;Mair 2002;McEnery and Xiao 2005;Lohmann 2011 andLevshina 2018), in preparation for the multivariate analysis of the variation in Section 3.3. Quirk et al (1985Quirk et al ( : 1205 classify help as a Type (iii) predicate, "a residual class of two verbs [help, know] which are optionally followed by a to-infinitive" and observe that help is more common with to-complements in British English, whereas BI complements are more frequent in American English (1985: 1206, note [b]).…”

“…Non-finite complementation is a highly productive area of research (see Fanego 1996Fanego , 1998Fanego , 2004Mair 2003: 329;Taeymans 2004Taeymans a, b, 2006Schlüter 2005;Cuyckens and De Smet 2007;Lohmann 2011;van der Auwera and Diewald 2012: 131;Levshina 2018). My own interest in non-finite complementation in the LModE period was first prompted by Aarts et al's (2012) study on the completion, changes, rearrangements and/or regularisation of tendencies in the complementation system.…”