Eva Zehentner
Biographic Data
| ID | 4607527 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eva Zehentner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eva |
| FAMILY NAME | Zehentner |
| SIGNATURE | ZEHENTNER E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Zurich |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3911-4147 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Go to church or die in prison: PPs with bare institutional nouns in the history of English
This paper traces the diachronic development of prepositional phrases (PPs) with bare institutional/location nouns (e.g. go to church , stay in bed, die in prison ) from Middle English to Late Modern English. Based on a dataset of 2,249 instances extracted from the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English (PPCME2, PPCEME, PPCMBE2), we investigate changes in the usage of these constructions (i.e. formal and functional features). One question addr…
The English conative alternation between complexity effects and lexical biases: A Historical Perspective
This paper presents an in-depth study of the English conative construction ( hit the ball vs hit at the ball ), a particular case of variation between NP- and PP-patterns. Approaching the phenomenon from a usage-based, cognitive perspective, the study is interested in the different factors driving this alternation, specifically in the interaction of lexical effects on the one hand and high-level predictors relating to processing complexity on the…
I’m all virtual-peopled out: Creativity and productivity in the case of the English ‘exhaustive’ construction
This paper assesses the recent development of a particular constructional template, viz. the ‘exhaustive’ construction in English. This pattern combines a form of [ all X- (e)d out ] with a meaning of ‘being exhausted from excessive experiences with X’, where the X-slot is proposedly almost unlimited in its productivity, as any lexical item and word class can be coerced into it. The paper uses data from the NOW-corpus, covering the time-span of 2…
Alternations (at) that time: NP versus PP time adjuncts in the history of English
The present paper investigates variation between nominal and prepositional adjuncts of time as in, for example, [ on ] that day, they left . The main goals are (i) to assess potential changes in the distribution of these variants in the history of English, specifically from Middle English to Late Modern English (1150–1914), and (ii) to test which factors most strongly impact the choice between the two variants, with a focus on the impact of diffe…
Differences in syntactic annotation affect retrieval: Verb-attached PPs in the history of English
Prepositional phrases (PPs) play an important part in English argument structure constructions, but pose considerable challenges for linguistic investigations of any kind. In addition to the fact that PP-attachment is generally notoriously difficult to model computationally, a particularly striking methodological challenge in investigating verb-dependent PPs across (synchronic and/or diachronic) corpora is that such cross-corpus studies may have …
How redundant is language really? Agent-recipient disambiguation across time and space
Redundant marking of grammatical relations seems to be commonplace across languages, and has been shown to benefit learning as well as robust information transmission. At the same time, languages also exhibit trade-offs between strategies such as case marking or word order, suggesting that redundancy may also be dis-preferred in line with a tendency towards communicative efficiency. In the present paper, we assess redundancy in terms of number of…
Revisiting Gradience in Diachronic Construction Grammar: PPs and the Complement-Adjunct Distinction in the History of English
The present paper discusses the concept of gradience and fuzziness from the perspective of Diachronic Construction Grammar. It does so by investigating verb-attached PPs in the history of English, with a focus on their semantic and syntactic functions and features over time. Specifically, the paper uses the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpora of Historical English , including texts from Middle English (PPCME2), Early Modern English (PPCEME), and Late Mo…
Competing constructions construct complementary niches: A diachronic view on the English dative alternation
This paper traces the history of the English dative alternation by means of a quantitative analysis of instances of both the nominal and the prepositional construction in a corpus of Middle English ( PPCME 2), and compares the results to Wolk et al.’s (2013) data set from ARCHER . I show that the factors impacting the choice of one pattern over the other are subject to change over time: construction choice in Middle English is not straightforward…
Ambiguity avoidance as a factor in the rise of the English dative alternation
This paper discusses the role of cognitive factors in language change; specifically, it investigates the potential impact of argument ambiguity avoidance on the emergence of one of the most well-studied syntactic alternations in English, viz. the dative alternation ( We gave them cake vs We gave cake to them ). Linking this development to other major changes in the history of English like the loss of case marking, I propose that morphological as …
Ambiguity avoidance as a factor in the rise of the English dative alternation
This paper discusses the role of cognitive factors in language change; specifically, it investigates the potential impact of argument ambiguity avoidance on the emergence of one of the most well-studied syntactic alternations in English, viz. the dative alternation ( We gave them cake vs We gave cake to them ). Linking this development to other major changes in the history of English like the loss of case marking, I propose that morphological as …
Ambiguity avoidance as a factor in the rise of the English dative alternation
This paper discusses the role of cognitive factors in language change; specifically, it investigates the potential impact of argument ambiguity avoidance on the emergence of one of the most well-studied syntactic alternations in English, viz. the dative alternation ( We gave them cake vs We gave cake to them ). Linking this development to other major changes in the history of English like the loss of case marking, I propose that morphological as …
How redundant is language really? Agent-recipient disambiguation across time and space
Redundant marking of grammatical relations seems to be commonplace across languages, and has been shown to benefit learning as well as robust information transmission. At the same time, languages also exhibit trade-offs between strategies such as case marking or word order, suggesting that redundancy may also be dis-preferred in line with a tendency towards communicative efficiency. In the present paper, we assess redundancy in terms of number of…
Revisiting Gradience in Diachronic Construction Grammar: PPs and the Complement-Adjunct Distinction in the History of English
The present paper discusses the concept of gradience and fuzziness from the perspective of Diachronic Construction Grammar. It does so by investigating verb-attached PPs in the history of English, with a focus on their semantic and syntactic functions and features over time. Specifically, the paper uses the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpora of Historical English , including texts from Middle English (PPCME2), Early Modern English (PPCEME), and Late Mo…
Competing constructions construct complementary niches: A diachronic view on the English dative alternation
This paper traces the history of the English dative alternation by means of a quantitative analysis of instances of both the nominal and the prepositional construction in a corpus of Middle English ( PPCME 2), and compares the results to Wolk et al.’s (2013) data set from ARCHER . I show that the factors impacting the choice of one pattern over the other are subject to change over time: construction choice in Middle English is not straightforward…
Differences in syntactic annotation affect retrieval: Verb-attached PPs in the history of English
Prepositional phrases (PPs) play an important part in English argument structure constructions, but pose considerable challenges for linguistic investigations of any kind. In addition to the fact that PP-attachment is generally notoriously difficult to model computationally, a particularly striking methodological challenge in investigating verb-dependent PPs across (synchronic and/or diachronic) corpora is that such cross-corpus studies may have …
Alternations (at) that time: NP versus PP time adjuncts in the history of English
The present paper investigates variation between nominal and prepositional adjuncts of time as in, for example, [ on ] that day, they left . The main goals are (i) to assess potential changes in the distribution of these variants in the history of English, specifically from Middle English to Late Modern English (1150–1914), and (ii) to test which factors most strongly impact the choice between the two variants, with a focus on the impact of diffe…
Go to church or die in prison: PPs with bare institutional nouns in the history of English
This paper traces the diachronic development of prepositional phrases (PPs) with bare institutional/location nouns (e.g. go to church , stay in bed, die in prison ) from Middle English to Late Modern English. Based on a dataset of 2,249 instances extracted from the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English (PPCME2, PPCEME, PPCMBE2), we investigate changes in the usage of these constructions (i.e. formal and functional features). One question addr…
The English conative alternation between complexity effects and lexical biases: A Historical Perspective
This paper presents an in-depth study of the English conative construction ( hit the ball vs hit at the ball ), a particular case of variation between NP- and PP-patterns. Approaching the phenomenon from a usage-based, cognitive perspective, the study is interested in the different factors driving this alternation, specifically in the interaction of lexical effects on the one hand and high-level predictors relating to processing complexity on the…
I’m all virtual-peopled out: Creativity and productivity in the case of the English ‘exhaustive’ construction
This paper assesses the recent development of a particular constructional template, viz. the ‘exhaustive’ construction in English. This pattern combines a form of [ all X- (e)d out ] with a meaning of ‘being exhausted from excessive experiences with X’, where the X-slot is proposedly almost unlimited in its productivity, as any lexical item and word class can be coerced into it. The paper uses data from the NOW-corpus, covering the time-span of 2…
Linguistics (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (7 works) · Artificial Intelligence (5 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (5 works) · History (3 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (3 works) · Lexicography and Language Studies (3 works) · Psychology (3 works)