| Title: | Counting trees : a treebank-driven exploration of syntactic variation in speech and writing across languages |
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| Authors: | ID Dobrovoljc, Kaja, Institut "Jožef Stefan" (Author) |
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| Files: |  URL - Source URL, visit https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/cllt-2025-0046/html
 PDF - Presentation file, download (1,93 MB)
MD5: 956FA3ECE7A9C6897BC90B5C5D9AC9A7
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| Language: | English |
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| Typology: | 1.01 - Original Scientific Article |
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| Organization: |  IJS - Jožef Stefan Institute
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| Abstract: | This paper presents a novel treebank-driven approach to comparing syntactic structures in speech and writing using dependency-parsed corpora. Adopting a fully inductive, bottom-up method, we define syntactic structures as delexicalized dependency (sub)trees and extract them from spoken and written Universal Dependencies (UD) treebanks in two syntactically distinct languages, English and Slovenian. For each corpus, we analyze the size, diversity, and distribution of syntactic inventories, their overlap across modalities, and the structures most characteristic of speech. Results show that, across both languages, spoken corpora contain fewer and less diverse syntactic structures than their written counterparts, with consistent cross-linguistic preferences for certain structural types across modalities. Strikingly, the overlap between spoken and written syntactic inventories is very limited: most structures attested in speech do not occur in writing, pointing to modality-specific preferences in syntactic organization that reflect the distinct demands of real-time interaction and elaborated writing. This contrast is further supported by a keyness analysis of the most frequent speech-specific structures, which highlights patterns associated with interactivity, context-grounding, and economy of expression. We argue that this scalable, language-independent framework offers a useful general method for systematically studying syntactic variation across corpora, laying the groundwork for more comprehensive data-driven theories of grammar in use. |
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| Keywords: | register variation, dependency treebanks, syntactic structures, syntactic comparison, keyness analysis, corpus-driven linguistics |
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| Publication status: | Published |
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| Publication version: | Version of Record |
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| Submitted for review: | 02.06.2025 |
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| Article acceptance date: | 27.01.2026 |
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| Publication date: | 23.02.2026 |
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| Publisher: | Mouton de Gruyter |
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| Year of publishing: | 2026 |
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| Number of pages: | str. 2-37 |
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| Source: | Nemčija |
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| PID: | 20.500.12556/DiRROS-28231  |
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| UDC: | 81'32 |
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| ISSN on article: | 1613-7035 |
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| DOI: | 10.1515/cllt-2025-0046 |
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| COBISS.SI-ID: | 271469571 |
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| Copyright: | © 2026 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. |
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| Note: | Nasl. z nasl. zaslona;
Opis vira z dne 12. 3. 2026;
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| Publication date in DiRROS: | 12.03.2026 |
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| Views: | 47 |
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| Downloads: | 26 |
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