The Transitivity Index. Adding Hierarchical Structure to Hopper & Thompson’s Transitivity Parameters

old_uid20093
titleThe Transitivity Index. Adding Hierarchical Structure to Hopper & Thompson’s Transitivity Parameters
start_date2022/02/22
schedule10h-12h
onlineno
location_infosalle Albrecht
detailsHybride - lien de connexion : http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/Info/Index.asp?Langue=FR&Page=Agenda&Jour=22&Mois=2&Annee=2022
summaryHopper and Thompson (1980) propose that transitivity should be modelled as a scale and not as a categorical property and propose ten (mostly binary) parameters to characterize the components of transitivity. A weakness of this approach is the lack of hierarchical structure among the parameters, thus assuming that all parameters are equally important across constructions (Givón 1995, Malchukov 2006). Using machine learning, I will present an innovative framework to derive a dynamic, structure-dependent hierarchy for the transitivity parameters. This method provides us with a single numerical value of transitivity for each clause, which I have called the Transitivity Index (Guajardo 2021a, 2021b, 2021c). Besides adding hierarchy to the transitivity parameters, another advantage of this approach is that no a priori subjective decision need be made on the part of the researcher about which parameters are the most relevant for a particular construction. The machine learning algorithm discovers the importance of each parameter from the data itself. Guajardo, G. (2021a) The Transitivity Index: Using Transitivity as a Continuous Measure to Account for Clitic Case Alternation in Spanish Causative Constructions. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246834 Guajardo, G. (2021b) Co-occurrence Strength and Transitivity Effects on Spanish Clitic Case Variation with Reverse-Psychological Predicates. Frontiers in Psychology https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.712959 Guajardo, G.(2021c) Transitivity on a Continuum: The Transitivity Index as a Predictor of Spanish Causatives. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2021-0019
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