Effects of word frequency on spoken word duration are well documented and have long informed theories of the mental lexicon. In this study, we discuss the two theoretical constructs, ‘frequency’ and ‘word’, that are implicated by the notion of lexical frequency, in light of recent models of the lexicon that do not contain stable, discrete lexical representations, and in which lexical frequency therefore has no place. We compare two approaches (localist spreading-activation vs. discriminative learning (DL) models integrating distributional semantics) by assessing regression models of spoken word duration of English homophones grounded in each. We further show that the relationship between a homophone's form and its semantics is predictive of its duration, consistent with predictions of the DL-based model.

This study provides two mathematical formalizations of borrowability. These operationalizations allow us to quantitatively evaluate the borrowability of phonological segments and to make predictions about the likelihood that speech sounds will be borrowed in language contact situations. Our approach departs from traditional borrowability hierarchies based on qualitative observations and instead provides empirically motivated models based on probability theory and statistics. Our study uses as input two large crosslinguistic segment inventory databases, and our results show that segments have markedly different borrowability profiles, highlighting their different diffusion patterns through space and time.

The English pronoun they is currently undergoing a rapid change, in that they is increasingly being used to refer to specific (named) individuals as a singular personal pronoun. Although it has been used with a singular, indefinite antecedent for centuries, singular specific they is relatively new and coincides with rising recognition of the fluidity of gender identity and expression. For many individuals, they/them pronouns fit their gender identity best. However, such individuals are at a high risk of being misgendered because this new usage of they is neither well established grammatically nor part of prescribed use. In two experiments, adults from across the United States created short written narratives about individuals of different gender presentations. We varied whether participants saw a pronoun in the stimuli and, if so, whether they saw they, he, or she. We found that singular specific they was used less than she/he and that they-usage increased for those who reported being more familiar with it and with the LGBTQ+ community more generally. We further found that images that appeared androgynous or nonbinary were more likely to elicit singular specific they than were images that appeared binary. Finally, we varied whether participants received brief information about the person that included singular specific they. This type of modeling led to dramatic increases in they-production overall, and increases were most robust for participants who reported higher familiarity. Overall, this research illustrates that characteristics tied to social experience, modeling, and visual cues to an individual's gender identity are highly informative for the production of singular specific they. More broadly, we illustrate that language-processing costs related to language production can be boosted for users and therefore can intervene in the likelihood of misgendering.

Linguists in the last century have asked how lexico-grammatical systems may or may not vary, due perhaps to their origins in human biology or sociality; as well as how they may reflect their genetic relationships or geographic distributions. But alongside seeing linguistic systems as instances of principles we may posit, it is also important to leave room for local contingency, and that includes seeing linguistic systems, to the fullest extent possible, as people's intellectual, aesthetic, and expressive achievements. Four steps are proposed in that direction: (i) striving for perspicuous descriptions of linguistic systems on their own terms in order to identify pervasive design or ‘genius’ across suites of features; (ii) exploring cases where unusual suites of features persist over time, where consistent choice and continuing intellectual, aesthetic, or expressive engagement with those features stand among possible explanations for their persistence; (iii) investigating speakers' creative engagement with lexico-grammatical features in verbal art and elsewhere, emphasizing dialectical relationships that tend to form as creative practices and suites of features affect each other, and then gauging how these relationships might shape linguistic systems over time; (iv) examining degrees of awareness, attention, and purpose when considering people's creative engagement with lexico-grammatical systems and their implications for how we understand linguistic systems as creative achievements. Two extended examples are considered: the multimillennial persistence, across all of its branches, of an unusual lexico-grammatical design or genius in the Unangan-Yupik-Inuit language family, suggesting the ongoing renewal of a particular set of aesthetic or expressive sensibilities; and the work of Eastern Chatino speakers to gain and teach awareness of the extraordinary systems of tonal lexico-grammar across Eastern Chatino varieties and how that awareness, helped in part by their work as linguists, has led to intellectual and aesthetic engagement with tone in the context of an ongoing social and political struggle for Indigenous language recognition and maintenance.

The following report presents some of the findings of several years' research on the relations between standard English and the non-standard English used by Negro speakers in various urban ghetto areas. The immediate subject is the status of the copula and auxiliary be in Negro non-standard English. The approach to the problem combines the methods of generative grammar and phonology with techniques for the quantitative analysis of systematic variation. The notion ‘rule of grammar’ is enlarged to include the formal treatment of inherent variation as a part of linguistic structure. Furthermore, a model is presented for the decisive solution of abstract questions of rule form and rule relations, based upon the direct study of linguistic behavior.

We report an experiment eliciting ordering preferences for BINOMIAL EXPRESSIONS (e.g. bread and butter vs. butter and bread) in order to investigate the respective influences of productive and item-specific knowledge in language processing. Binomial ordering preferences reflect both (i) productive constraints involving phonological, semantic, and lexical properties, and (ii) item-specific relative frequencies. Bayesian and exemplar-based computational models of acquisition and use predict influences of both productive and item-specific knowledge on ordering preferences, with item-specific knowledge playing a smaller role the lower the expression's overall frequency. Our results confirm this prediction, but also reveal a role of item-specific knowledge even for binomials with overall frequency less than one in ten million. These findings bring a quantitative perspective to the debate over the roles of productive and item-specific knowledge in language.