1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Languages in Contrast
  4. Volume 19, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 19, Issue 1
  • ISSN 1387-6759
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9897
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

Shortening is a common type of word-formation in many languages. Crystal (2008) distinguishes two kinds of abbreviation: initialisms and acronyms. Article use in English is variable with both acronyms and initialisms used as proper names (e.g. vs. ). The question is whether variability is largely dependent on the semantics of the underlying full form (i.e. whether this is derived from a proper name or common noun) or whether the two types of abbreviation show different behaviour with respect to variable article use. This paper uses data from , a new, word-aligned version of EuroParl, and a data-driven approach to investigate variable article use with abbreviations and their full forms uttered by English native speakers and compares the findings to data from parallel German and Italian corpora. The results show higher article variability in English and a marked preference for and near categorical article use in German and Italian. Furthermore, our evidence confirms that acronyms tend towards the proper name end of the cline, while initialisms behave syntactically more like common nouns.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/lic.16021.cal
2018-05-28
2024-09-09

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/lic.16021.cal
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Accademia della Crusca Online
    Accademia della Crusca Online 2011  Sulla Locuzione a livello di. Available atwww.accademiadellacrusca.it/it/lingua-italiana/consulenza-linguistica/domande-risposte/locuzione-livello [last access on18 October 2016]
  2. Biber, D. , S. Johansson , G. Leech , S. Conrad , and E. Finegan
    1999 The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Beccaria, G. L.
    1994 Dizionario di Linguistica e di Filologia, Metrica, Retorica. Vol.280. Torino: Einaudi.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Brief Glossary of European Union Abbreviations
    Brief Glossary of European Union Abbreviations. Available atwww15.uta.fi/FAST/GC/emgloss.html [last accessed on20 October 2015]
  5. Cannon, G.
    1989 Abbreviations and Acronyms in English Word-formation. American Speech64(2): 99–127. 10.2307/455038
     https://doi.org/10.2307/455038 [Google Scholar]
  6. Chesterman, A.
    1991 On Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511519710
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519710 [Google Scholar]
  7. Clematide, S. , J. Graën , M. Volk
    2016 Multilingwis – A Multilingual Search Tool for Multi-Word Units in Multiparallel Corpora. In Corpas Pastor, Gloria . Computerised and Corpus-based Approaches to Phraseology: Monolingual and Multilingual Perspectives/Fraseología Computacional y Basada en Corpus: Perspectivas Monolingües y Multilingües. Geneva: Tradulex.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Crystal, D.
    2008 A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Sixth Edition. Victoria: Blackwell Publishing. 10.1002/9781444302776
     https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444302776 [Google Scholar]
  9. Duden Online
    Duden Online 2017 Die Verteilung der Artikel (Genusangabe) im Rechtschreibduden. Available atwww.duden.de/sprachwissen/sprachratgeber/die-verteilung-der-artikel-genusangabe-im-rechtschreibduden [last accessed on28 June 2017]
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Duden Online
    Duden Online 2017 Abkürzungen, Kurzwörter und genormte Kürzel. Available atwww.duden.de/sprachwissen/sprachratgeber/abkuerzungen-kurzwoerter-und-genormte-kuerzel [last accessed28 June 2017]
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Engel, U.
    2004 Deutsche Grammatik – Neubearbeitung. München: Iudicum.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. European Parliament debates’ videos
    European Parliament debates’ videos. Available atwww.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/debates-video.html [accessed on23 March 2016]
  13. Graën, J. , D. Batinic , and M. Volk
    2014 Cleaning the Europarl Corpus for Linguistic Applications. InKonvens 2014, Hildesheim, 8–10October 2014.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Harley, H.
    2004 Why is it the CIA but not* the NASA? Acronyms, Initialisms, and Definite Descriptions. American Speech, 79(4): 368–399. 10.1215/00031283‑79‑4‑368
     https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-79-4-368 [Google Scholar]
  15. Huddleston, R. and G. K. Pullum
    2002 The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781316423530
     https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316423530 [Google Scholar]
  16. Hundt, M.
    2016 Who is the/a/ø Professor at Your University?A Construction-grammar View on Changing Article Use with Single Role Predicates in American English. In M. J. López-Couso , B. Méndez-Naya , P. Núñez-Pertejo & I. M. Palacios-Martínez (eds.) Corpus Linguistics on the Move: Exploring and Understanding English Through Corpora, pp.227–258. Amsterdam & New York: Brill/Rodopi. 10.1163/9789004321342_012
     https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004321342_012 [Google Scholar]
  17. (in press). Variable Article Usage with Institutional Nouns – an ‘Oddment’ of English?
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Koehn, P.
    2005 Europarl: A Parallel Corpus for Statistical Machine Translation. InMT Summit5: 9–86.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Korzen, I.
    1996 L’articolo Italiano fra Concetto ed Entità: Considerazioni Preliminari; Il Sintagma Nominale senza Determinante. Vol.36. Museum Tusculanum Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Krámský, J.
    1972 The Article and the Concept of Definiteness in Language. The Hague: Mouton. 10.1515/9783110886900
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110886900 [Google Scholar]
  21. Lyons, C.
    1999 Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511605789
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511605789 [Google Scholar]
  22. McCully, C. B. and M. Holmes
    1988 Some Notes on the Structure of Acronyms. Lingua74(1): 27–43. 10.1016/0024‑3841(88)90047‑2
     https://doi.org/10.1016/0024-3841(88)90047-2 [Google Scholar]
  23. Platt, J. T.
    1974 Alphabet Soups or a Mess of Pottage?. Foundations of Language11(2): 295–297.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Quirk, R. , S. Greenbaum , G. Leech , J. Svartvik , and D. Crystal
    1985 A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Ross, J. R.
    1972 Alphabet Soups and Name-calling. Foundations of Language9(1): 113.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Rowlinson, W.
    1994 German Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Teich, E.
    2003 Cross-Linguistic Variation in System and Text. A Methodology for the Investigation of Translations and Comparable Texts. Berlin: de Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110896541
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110896541 [Google Scholar]
  28. Tse, G. Y. W.
    2001 The Grammatical Factors Influencing the Choice between the Use and Omission of the Definite Article Preceding Multi-word Organization Names: a Statistical Analysis. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics8(1): 13–32. 10.1076/jqul.8.1.13.4090
     https://doi.org/10.1076/jqul.8.1.13.4090 [Google Scholar]
  29. 2003 Validating the Logistic Model of Article Usage Preceding Multi-word Organization Names with the Aid of Computer Corpora. Literary and Linguistic Computing18(3): 287–313. 10.1093/llc/18.3.287
     https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/18.3.287 [Google Scholar]
  30. 2004 A Grammatical Study of Personal Names in Present-day English: with Special Reference to the Usage of the Definite Article. English Studies85(3): 241–259. 10.1080/00138380412331339140
     https://doi.org/10.1080/00138380412331339140 [Google Scholar]
  31. Treccani Online
    Treccani Online 2012 Articoli. Available atwww.treccani.it/enciclopedia/articoli_(La_grammatica_italiana)/ [last accessed12 July 2016]
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Treccani Online
    Treccani Online 2012 Articolo. Available atwww.treccani.it/enciclopedia/articolo/ [last accessed12 July 2016]
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Treccani Online
    Treccani Online 2012 Omissione dell’Articolo. Available atwww.treccani.it/enciclopedia/omissione-dell-articolo_(La_grammatica_Italiana)/ [last accessed12 July 2016]
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Treccani Online
    Treccani Online 2012 Nomi Propri. Available atwww.treccani.it/enciclopedia/nomi-propri_(La-grammatica-Italiana)/ [last accessed28 October 2016]
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Treccani Online
    Treccani Online 2012 Nomi Propri [Prontuario]. Available atwww.treccani.it/enciclopedia/nomi-propri-prontuario_(Enciclopedia-dell’Italiano)/ [last accessed28 October 2016]
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Yoo, I. W.
    2007 Definite Article Usage before last/next time in Spoken and Written American English. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics12(1): 83–105. 10.1075/ijcl.12.1.06yoo
     https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.12.1.06yoo [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/lic.16021.cal
Loading
Variable article use with acronyms and initialisms
Languages in Contrast 19, 48 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.16021.cal
/content/journals/10.1075/lic.16021.cal
/content/journals/10.1075/lic.16021.cal
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): abbreviations; acronym vs. initialism; article omission; contrastive linguistics; English/German/Italian; proper name vs. common noun

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error