Support for end-weight as a determinant of linguistic variation and change

Abstract

The term end-weight refers to the tendency for bulkier constituents to occur at the end of sentences. While end-weight has occasionally been analysed as a more general short-before-long principle in the sense of Behaghel's (1909–10) Law of Growing Constituents, the operation of end-weight in absolute sentence-final position has until recently lacked empirical verification. This article shows that end-weight effects can be observed in grammatical variation contexts in which language users have a choice between variants that differ in terms of length and degree of explicitness. Using two variation phenomena as a testing ground, we empirically investigate the hypothesis that the more explicit and hence bulkier variant occurs preferably in final position. The first variation context concerns semi-reflexive verbs that can take either an explicitself-pronoun or a zero variant. It turns out that the rapid decline of theself-pronoun is delayed in end position. The second case study focuses on Early Modern English affirmative declarative clauses, which may alternate between finite verb forms ordo-supported ones. This study reveals thatdo-support is favoured in end position. These findings ultimately contribute to an empirical validation of end-weight, the implications of which are discussed against the backdrop of processing-related support strategies.

Spoken syntax in a comparative perspective: The dative and genitive alternation in varieties of English

“…As a result, the alternations are sensitive to a number of ordering principles such as the principle of end weight (Behaghel 1909;Eitelmann 2016), given-before-new (Clifton & Frazier 2004), and -more generally speaking -Easy First (MacDonald 2013).…”

The Complexity Principle at work with rival prepositions

“…Another point to be remembered is that the use of stranded upon instead of on has also been found to be sensitive to the end-weight constraint: at least in one analysis, the replacement strategy is applied distinctly more frequently in absolute clause-final position than in other cases where the stranded preposition is followed by additional material (see table 13 in section 3.2). In that respect, the substitution of on by upon is paralleled by the replacement of (synthetic) suffixed comparatives with (analytic) more -comparatives (Mondorf 2009: 99–107) and the exchange of ordinary verb forms for complex ones involving do- support in Early Modern English affirmative clauses (Eitelmann 2016).…”

Expression of Customer (Dis)satisfaction in Online Restaurant Reviews: The Relationship Between Adversative Connective Constructions and Star Ratings

“…943-944). Since its early description (Behaghel, 1909), end weight has proven to be an important organizing principle in language across many language families, registers, and time periods (see, e.g., Eitelmann, 2016) at the clausal, sentential, and discoursal levels-not just for organizing complex information but also for emphasizing information that is important. In business and professional writing, then, end weight can help to explain why good writers place new information or the information they want to emphasize at the end of a sentence (Strunk, 2018;Williams & Bizup, 2016).…”