Rena Torres Cacoullos
Biographic Data
| ID | 737073 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rena Torres Cacoullos |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rena Torres |
| FAMILY NAME | Cacoullos |
| SIGNATURE | CACOULLOS R T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pennsylvania State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6130-0371 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 93 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Joint innovation
In this contribution we examine current views of the relationship between innovation on the one hand, and diffusion of a change through a community on the other. We also note in the recent literature much discussion of the role of the listener vs. the role of the speaker in innovation and spread. This paper re-examines the dichotomies just mentioned — innovation vs. spread and speaker vs. listener — and finds them unjustified. We consider two typ…
Bilingual clause combining
Objectives: Bringing linguistic experience into code-switching (CS) constraints, a new hypothesis considers cross-language variable equivalence , which arises from within-language variability. Bilingual choices are assessed for Spanish-English CS between clauses, where subordinating conjunctions may not be consistently equivalent. Methodology: Equivalence exists at the main-and-adverbial clause junction, inasmuch as the conjunctions are consisten…
Re-evaluating the Word Token for Bilingual Speech Processing
Natural Language Processing (NLP) metrics for bilingual code-switching (CS) have, until now, used words as the token level. However, the assumption that any two words constitute an equally likely switch point is erroneous. In spoken language, a major delimiter of CS is a prosodic chunk known as the Intonation Unit (IU). Switch points are far more likely between words at IU boundaries than between words in the same IU. The word as an elementary NL…
Mixing adjectives
How do bilinguals mix adjectives and nouns from two languages with a word order conflict at the boundary between them? Prominently competing theories of code-switching (CS) that appeal to abstract features or to a matrix language remain in a stalemate, since their predictions have been reported to mostly coincide. Here, we contribute data from northern New Mexico bilingual community members who switch between Spanish and English in both direction…
Form and function covariation
Shifts in the frequencies of English modals of obligation have been linked to shifts in modal function and changing interpersonal authority. Interpretation of over 2,000 tokens in spontaneous speech data recorded in Sydney, Australia, in the 1970s and 2010s establishes a replicable classification of obligation meanings, based on source of obligation, with a three-way distinction between Hierarchical authority, General circumstances, and Personal …
How to mix
The widespread occurrence of nouns in one language with a determiner in the other, often referred to as mixed NPs, has generated much theorizing and debate. Since both a syntactic account based on abstract features of the determiner and an account highlighting the notion of a Matrix language yield largely the same predictions, we assess how the tenets of each play out in speaker choices. The data derive from a massive corpus of spontaneous nomina…
Categories and Frequency
Are semantic classes of verbs genuine or do they merely mask idiosyncrasies of frequent verbs? Here, we examine the interplay between semantic classes and frequent verb-form combinations, providing new evidence from variation patterns in spontaneous speech that linguistic categories are centered on high frequency members to which other members are similar. We offer an account of the well-known favoring effect of cognition verbs on Spanish subject…
Variationist typology
A key parameter in received classifications of language types is the expression of pronominal subjects. Here we compare variation patterns in conversational data of English – considered a non-null-subject language – and Spanish – a well-studied null-subject language. English has a patently lower rate of expression (approximately 3% unexpressed 1sg and 3sg human subjects vs. 60% in Spanish). Despite the stark difference in rate of expression, the …
Bilingualism in the Community
Does the use of two languages by bilinguals inevitably bring about grammatical change? Does switching between languages serve as a catalyst in such change? It is widely held that linguistic code-switching inherently promotes grammatical convergence - languages becoming more similar to each other through contact; evidence for this, however, remains elusive. A model of how to study language contact scientifically, Bilingualism in the Community high…
Gauging convergence on the ground
Is grammatical convergence between bilinguals’ two languages inevitable and does code-switching inherently promote it? Despite the burgeoning of bilingualism studies, this question—and even what should count as code-switching—remains contentious. Cumulative scientific advances will depend on attention to the social context in which bilingual phenomena arise, proper handling of spontaneous speech data, and consideration of the probabilistic constr…
Stress on I
Much previous work on stress describes its function as being that of marking contrast. While some evidence has been adduced in experimental studies, work on spontaneous speech data has been plagued by a lack of operational definitions. To address this, we examine approximately 1,500 tokens of the English first singular subject pronoun in a corpus of conversational American English . Independently motivated operationalizations of contrast fail to …
Prosody, priming and particular constructions
Making Voices Count
Corpus compilation is of great relevance in linguistics today, with growing appreciation of studies based on spontaneous speech, in particular for minority communities. This paper puts forward a model for corpus compilation in bilingual communities, illustrated through the New Mexican Spanish–English Bilingual corpus, in which the same speakers—from a long-standing minority community in the United States—use both Spanish and English in the same c…
Grammaticalization through inherent variability
With the goal of elucidating the diachronic trajectory of a progressive, multivariate analysis is used to track the linguistic factors conditioning variation between the Spanish Progressive and the simple Present, in 13th–15th, 17th, and 19th century texts. The Progressive begins as more of a locative construction, as shown by the early favoring effect of co-occurring locatives. The direction of this co-occurring locative effect is retained over …
What do subject pronouns do in discourse? Cognitive, mechanical and constructional factors in variation
In languages with variable subject expression, or “pro-drop” languages, when do speakers use subject pronouns? We address this question by investigating the linguistic conditioning of Spanish first-person singular pronoun yo in conversational data, testing hypotheses about speakers' choice of an expressed subject as factors in multivariate analysis. Our results indicate that, despite a widely held understanding of a contrastive role for subject p…
Testing convergence via code-switching
In this study, we test the hypothesis that code-switching promotes grammatical convergence by investigating Spanish first-person singular subject ( yo ‘I’) expression in bilingual conversations of New Mexican speakers of Spanish and English. We find that variable yo expression in New Mexican Spanish follows the same grammatical patterning as has been identified for non-contact varieties, and that this is the case regardless of the degree of bilin…
Variably future-marked conditionals in Greek
It has been proposed that future-marked conditionals have discourse-pragmatic functions other than future temporal reference (Comrie 1982, Fillmore 1990, Dancygier & Sweetser 2005). Through a corpus-based multivariate analysis we show that future-marked conditionals in Greek are associated with speech-act conditional uses and correlate systematically with formal contextual features of polarity and subject-person and form. We argue that some of th…
On the persistence of grammar in discourse formulas
This article provides evidence that, just as lexical meaning is retained in grammaticization, grammatical conditioning persists in fixed discourse formulas. Despite their high frequency and formulaic status, such formulas are not completely autonomous from the productive constructions from which they emerge. This evidence comes from a variationist analysis of that and zero complementizer in a corpus of spoken Canadian English. Testing syntactic, …
The Present of the English Future
We use the variationist method to elucidate the expression of future time in English, examining multiple grammaticalization in the same domain ( will and going to ). Usage patterns show that the choice of form is not determined by invariant semantic readings such as proximity, certainty, willingness, or intention. Rather, particular instances of each general construction occupy lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic niches. While putative differences …
Defaults and indeterminacy in temporal grammaticalization
Adopting a grammaticalization path perspective on the envelope of variation, that is, the range of grammatical functions along the cross-linguistic perfect-to-perfective path, and employing the variationist comparative method, we compare use of the Present Perfect and Preterit in Mexican and Peninsular Spanish to identify the default past perfective form in each dialect. The linguistic conditioning of the variability provides evidence that the Pr…
Constructions and pragmatics
Quantitative measures of subjectification
By confronting variable use, the variationist method can reveal patterns of subjectification of grammatical morphemes. Applying this method to the analysis of salir(se) ‘go out’ variation in Mexican Spanish oral data, we conclude that subjectification is manifested structurally in the tendency for middle-marked salirse to co-occur with first-person singular or referents close to the speaker, positive polarity and the past tense. Further comparati…
Spanish /s/
Bare English-origin nouns in Spanish
We test the hypothesis that single other-language-origin words are nonce loans (Sankoff, Poplack, & Vanniarajan, 1990) as opposed to code-switches in a corpus-based study of English-origin nouns occurring spontaneously in New Mexican Spanish discourse. The object of study is determinerless nouns, whose status is superficially ambiguous. The study shows that, even with typologically similar languages, variable rule analysis can reveal details of t…
"Dialectologia urbana" rural
L'A. examine la valeur sociale des variantes de (r) et de (l) en fin de syllabe et de mot dans un dialecte rural de Panama. Les donnees proviennent de conversations enregistrees aupres de 34 locuteurs natifs adultes de la province de Cocle. Les variables sociales prises en compte sont le statut socio-economique, l'attitude a l'egard de la langue parlee a Cocle et le sexe. Les resultats montrent que le phenomene de stratification sociale touche au…
Defaults and indeterminacy in temporal grammaticalization
Adopting a grammaticalization path perspective on the envelope of variation, that is, the range of grammatical functions along the cross-linguistic perfect-to-perfective path, and employing the variationist comparative method, we compare use of the Present Perfect and Preterit in Mexican and Peninsular Spanish to identify the default past perfective form in each dialect. The linguistic conditioning of the variability provides evidence that the Pr…
What do subject pronouns do in discourse? Cognitive, mechanical and constructional factors in variation
In languages with variable subject expression, or “pro-drop” languages, when do speakers use subject pronouns? We address this question by investigating the linguistic conditioning of Spanish first-person singular pronoun yo in conversational data, testing hypotheses about speakers' choice of an expressed subject as factors in multivariate analysis. Our results indicate that, despite a widely held understanding of a contrastive role for subject p…
The Present of the English Future
We use the variationist method to elucidate the expression of future time in English, examining multiple grammaticalization in the same domain ( will and going to ). Usage patterns show that the choice of form is not determined by invariant semantic readings such as proximity, certainty, willingness, or intention. Rather, particular instances of each general construction occupy lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic niches. While putative differences …
Prosody, priming and particular constructions
On the persistence of grammar in discourse formulas
This article provides evidence that, just as lexical meaning is retained in grammaticization, grammatical conditioning persists in fixed discourse formulas. Despite their high frequency and formulaic status, such formulas are not completely autonomous from the productive constructions from which they emerge. This evidence comes from a variationist analysis of that and zero complementizer in a corpus of spoken Canadian English. Testing syntactic, …
Constructions and pragmatics
Quantitative measures of subjectification
By confronting variable use, the variationist method can reveal patterns of subjectification of grammatical morphemes. Applying this method to the analysis of salir(se) ‘go out’ variation in Mexican Spanish oral data, we conclude that subjectification is manifested structurally in the tendency for middle-marked salirse to co-occur with first-person singular or referents close to the speaker, positive polarity and the past tense. Further comparati…
Construction frequency and reductive change
A comparison of Old Spanish and present-day Spanish data provides evidence that reductive change in grammaticizing forms may be manifested not only as a diachronic process but also as a synchronic difference between formal and informal registers. Clitic climbing frequencies in Spanish auxiliary + gerund sequences have increased diachronically as part of a series of reductive changes and in tandem with construction frequency increases. In calculat…
Categories and Frequency
Are semantic classes of verbs genuine or do they merely mask idiosyncrasies of frequent verbs? Here, we examine the interplay between semantic classes and frequent verb-form combinations, providing new evidence from variation patterns in spontaneous speech that linguistic categories are centered on high frequency members to which other members are similar. We offer an account of the well-known favoring effect of cognition verbs on Spanish subject…
Variationist typology
A key parameter in received classifications of language types is the expression of pronominal subjects. Here we compare variation patterns in conversational data of English – considered a non-null-subject language – and Spanish – a well-studied null-subject language. English has a patently lower rate of expression (approximately 3% unexpressed 1sg and 3sg human subjects vs. 60% in Spanish). Despite the stark difference in rate of expression, the …
Making Voices Count
Corpus compilation is of great relevance in linguistics today, with growing appreciation of studies based on spontaneous speech, in particular for minority communities. This paper puts forward a model for corpus compilation in bilingual communities, illustrated through the New Mexican Spanish–English Bilingual corpus, in which the same speakers—from a long-standing minority community in the United States—use both Spanish and English in the same c…
From lexical to grammatical to social meaning
It is argued that a grammaticization perspective affords insights on the problem of functional equivalence in variables "above and beyond phonology." This is a study of variation between aspectual expressions involving Spanish estar 'be located' and andar 'go around' + gerund. An analysis of Mexican oral corpora shows both linguistic and social conditioning: Each auxiliary is favored by certain classes of main verbs, and andar is favored in popul…
Bare English-origin nouns in Spanish
We test the hypothesis that single other-language-origin words are nonce loans (Sankoff, Poplack, & Vanniarajan, 1990) as opposed to code-switches in a corpus-based study of English-origin nouns occurring spontaneously in New Mexican Spanish discourse. The object of study is determinerless nouns, whose status is superficially ambiguous. The study shows that, even with typologically similar languages, variable rule analysis can reveal details of t…
Le
Form and function covariation
Shifts in the frequencies of English modals of obligation have been linked to shifts in modal function and changing interpersonal authority. Interpretation of over 2,000 tokens in spontaneous speech data recorded in Sydney, Australia, in the 1970s and 2010s establishes a replicable classification of obligation meanings, based on source of obligation, with a three-way distinction between Hierarchical authority, General circumstances, and Personal …
Variation and Grammaticization in Progressives Spanish - NDO Constructions
This paper presents an account of the variation in Spanish Progressive constructions from the perspective of grammaticization. Retention of features of meaning from the source constructions is reflected in distribution constraints on the different auxiliaries, which, nevertheless, are converging toward continuous meaning. The evidence supports the hypothesis that progressives originate as locative or movement constructions and that the process by…
Construction frequency and reductive change
A comparison of Old Spanish and present-day Spanish data provides evidence that reductive change in grammaticizing forms may be manifested not only as a diachronic process but also as a synchronic difference between formal and informal registers. Clitic climbing frequencies in Spanish auxiliary + gerund sequences have increased diachronically as part of a series of reductive changes and in tandem with construction frequency increases. In calculat…
From lexical to grammatical to social meaning
It is argued that a grammaticization perspective affords insights on the problem of functional equivalence in variables "above and beyond phonology." This is a study of variation between aspectual expressions involving Spanish estar 'be located' and andar 'go around' + gerund. An analysis of Mexican oral corpora shows both linguistic and social conditioning: Each auxiliary is favored by certain classes of main verbs, and andar is favored in popul…
"Dialectologia urbana" rural
L'A. examine la valeur sociale des variantes de (r) et de (l) en fin de syllabe et de mot dans un dialecte rural de Panama. Les donnees proviennent de conversations enregistrees aupres de 34 locuteurs natifs adultes de la province de Cocle. Les variables sociales prises en compte sont le statut socio-economique, l'attitude a l'egard de la langue parlee a Cocle et le sexe. Les resultats montrent que le phenomene de stratification sociale touche au…
Le
Spanish /s/
Bare English-origin nouns in Spanish
We test the hypothesis that single other-language-origin words are nonce loans (Sankoff, Poplack, & Vanniarajan, 1990) as opposed to code-switches in a corpus-based study of English-origin nouns occurring spontaneously in New Mexican Spanish discourse. The object of study is determinerless nouns, whose status is superficially ambiguous. The study shows that, even with typologically similar languages, variable rule analysis can reveal details of t…
Quantitative measures of subjectification
By confronting variable use, the variationist method can reveal patterns of subjectification of grammatical morphemes. Applying this method to the analysis of salir(se) ‘go out’ variation in Mexican Spanish oral data, we conclude that subjectification is manifested structurally in the tendency for middle-marked salirse to co-occur with first-person singular or referents close to the speaker, positive polarity and the past tense. Further comparati…
Defaults and indeterminacy in temporal grammaticalization
Adopting a grammaticalization path perspective on the envelope of variation, that is, the range of grammatical functions along the cross-linguistic perfect-to-perfective path, and employing the variationist comparative method, we compare use of the Present Perfect and Preterit in Mexican and Peninsular Spanish to identify the default past perfective form in each dialect. The linguistic conditioning of the variability provides evidence that the Pr…
Constructions and pragmatics
On the persistence of grammar in discourse formulas
This article provides evidence that, just as lexical meaning is retained in grammaticization, grammatical conditioning persists in fixed discourse formulas. Despite their high frequency and formulaic status, such formulas are not completely autonomous from the productive constructions from which they emerge. This evidence comes from a variationist analysis of that and zero complementizer in a corpus of spoken Canadian English. Testing syntactic, …
The Present of the English Future
We use the variationist method to elucidate the expression of future time in English, examining multiple grammaticalization in the same domain ( will and going to ). Usage patterns show that the choice of form is not determined by invariant semantic readings such as proximity, certainty, willingness, or intention. Rather, particular instances of each general construction occupy lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic niches. While putative differences …
Variably future-marked conditionals in Greek
It has been proposed that future-marked conditionals have discourse-pragmatic functions other than future temporal reference (Comrie 1982, Fillmore 1990, Dancygier & Sweetser 2005). Through a corpus-based multivariate analysis we show that future-marked conditionals in Greek are associated with speech-act conditional uses and correlate systematically with formal contextual features of polarity and subject-person and form. We argue that some of th…
Testing convergence via code-switching
In this study, we test the hypothesis that code-switching promotes grammatical convergence by investigating Spanish first-person singular subject ( yo ‘I’) expression in bilingual conversations of New Mexican speakers of Spanish and English. We find that variable yo expression in New Mexican Spanish follows the same grammatical patterning as has been identified for non-contact varieties, and that this is the case regardless of the degree of bilin…
Grammaticalization through inherent variability
With the goal of elucidating the diachronic trajectory of a progressive, multivariate analysis is used to track the linguistic factors conditioning variation between the Spanish Progressive and the simple Present, in 13th–15th, 17th, and 19th century texts. The Progressive begins as more of a locative construction, as shown by the early favoring effect of co-occurring locatives. The direction of this co-occurring locative effect is retained over …
What do subject pronouns do in discourse? Cognitive, mechanical and constructional factors in variation
In languages with variable subject expression, or “pro-drop” languages, when do speakers use subject pronouns? We address this question by investigating the linguistic conditioning of Spanish first-person singular pronoun yo in conversational data, testing hypotheses about speakers' choice of an expressed subject as factors in multivariate analysis. Our results indicate that, despite a widely held understanding of a contrastive role for subject p…
Making Voices Count
Corpus compilation is of great relevance in linguistics today, with growing appreciation of studies based on spontaneous speech, in particular for minority communities. This paper puts forward a model for corpus compilation in bilingual communities, illustrated through the New Mexican Spanish–English Bilingual corpus, in which the same speakers—from a long-standing minority community in the United States—use both Spanish and English in the same c…
Stress on I
Much previous work on stress describes its function as being that of marking contrast. While some evidence has been adduced in experimental studies, work on spontaneous speech data has been plagued by a lack of operational definitions. To address this, we examine approximately 1,500 tokens of the English first singular subject pronoun in a corpus of conversational American English . Independently motivated operationalizations of contrast fail to …
Prosody, priming and particular constructions
Gauging convergence on the ground
Is grammatical convergence between bilinguals’ two languages inevitable and does code-switching inherently promote it? Despite the burgeoning of bilingualism studies, this question—and even what should count as code-switching—remains contentious. Cumulative scientific advances will depend on attention to the social context in which bilingual phenomena arise, proper handling of spontaneous speech data, and consideration of the probabilistic constr…
Bilingualism in the Community
Does the use of two languages by bilinguals inevitably bring about grammatical change? Does switching between languages serve as a catalyst in such change? It is widely held that linguistic code-switching inherently promotes grammatical convergence - languages becoming more similar to each other through contact; evidence for this, however, remains elusive. A model of how to study language contact scientifically, Bilingualism in the Community high…
Variationist typology
A key parameter in received classifications of language types is the expression of pronominal subjects. Here we compare variation patterns in conversational data of English – considered a non-null-subject language – and Spanish – a well-studied null-subject language. English has a patently lower rate of expression (approximately 3% unexpressed 1sg and 3sg human subjects vs. 60% in Spanish). Despite the stark difference in rate of expression, the …
Categories and Frequency
Are semantic classes of verbs genuine or do they merely mask idiosyncrasies of frequent verbs? Here, we examine the interplay between semantic classes and frequent verb-form combinations, providing new evidence from variation patterns in spontaneous speech that linguistic categories are centered on high frequency members to which other members are similar. We offer an account of the well-known favoring effect of cognition verbs on Spanish subject…
How to mix
The widespread occurrence of nouns in one language with a determiner in the other, often referred to as mixed NPs, has generated much theorizing and debate. Since both a syntactic account based on abstract features of the determiner and an account highlighting the notion of a Matrix language yield largely the same predictions, we assess how the tenets of each play out in speaker choices. The data derive from a massive corpus of spontaneous nomina…
Form and function covariation
Shifts in the frequencies of English modals of obligation have been linked to shifts in modal function and changing interpersonal authority. Interpretation of over 2,000 tokens in spontaneous speech data recorded in Sydney, Australia, in the 1970s and 2010s establishes a replicable classification of obligation meanings, based on source of obligation, with a three-way distinction between Hierarchical authority, General circumstances, and Personal …
Linguistic Variation and Morphology (24 works) · Linguistics (24 works) · Philosophy (20 works) · Computer Science (18 works) · Psychology (17 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (17 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (12 works) · Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies (9 works) · Mathematics (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works)