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3 - A Columbia School Perspective on Explanation in Morphosyntactic Variation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2022

By
Ricardo Otheguy  and
Naomi L. Shin
Edited by
Tanya Karoli Christensen  and
Torben Juel Jensen
Tanya Karoli Christensen
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
Torben Juel Jensen
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
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Summary

Two approaches to developing a theoretical platform for the study of sociosyntax are compared. The first approach adopts a sentence-based theory of syntax and an objectivist theory of semantics, which serves to qualify forms as variants of a sociolinguistic variable. The second approach replaces the sentence with the sign (signaled by grammatical formatives and word-order patterns) as the primary organizing principle of grammar and the basic carrier of meaning. It also replaces objectivist semantics with subjectivist-construal, functional-semiotic semantics under which grammatical meanings offer particular speaker perspectives. In this second approach the alternants of interest to sociolinguists are in almost every case different in their component meanings, yet amenable to conceptualization as variants of a sociolinguistic variable. Variation is seen as resulting from pressures exerted simultaneously by the exigencies of communication and the force of both internal and external sociolinguistic factors. This approach offers considerable advantages for the study of sociosyntax, advantages that pertain to both overall theoretical coherence and clearer paths to the explanation of the effects of predictor variables. We illustrate these advantages with analyses that demonstrate the impact of switch-reference on the presence and absence of Spanish yo, tú, ella, él, etc. ('I, you, she, he').

Keywords

sociosyntaxtheoretical platformsentence-based syntaxobjectivist semanticssign-based syntaxsubjectivist-construal semanticsfunctional-semiotic semanticssemantic equivalenceColumbia School linguisticsSpanish subject pronouns
Type
Chapter
Information
Explanations in Sociosyntactic Variation , pp. 90 - 119
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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