Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax
- Cambridge Handbooks In Language And Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1The Comparative Syntactic Enterprise
- Part IComparative Syntax: Theory, Methodology, and Data Collection
- 2Theoretical Approaches to Comparative Syntax
- 3Databases for Comparative Syntactic Research
- 4Quantitative Approaches to Syntactic Variation
- 5Computational Approaches to Syntactic Variation
- 6Comparative Syntax from Formal and Functional Perspectives
- 7Micro-Comparative Syntax, Dialectology, and Sociolinguistics
- 8Change
- 9Universal and Language-Specific Properties of Language
- Part IIComparative Syntax: Building Blocks and Combinatorial Properties
- Part IIIComparative Syntax: Dependency Relations and Dependency Marking
- Part IVComparative Syntax: Interfaces
- Index
- References
4 - Quantitative Approaches to Syntactic Variation
from Part I - Comparative Syntax: Theory, Methodology, and Data Collection
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2026
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax
- Cambridge Handbooks In Language And Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1The Comparative Syntactic Enterprise
- Part IComparative Syntax: Theory, Methodology, and Data Collection
- 2Theoretical Approaches to Comparative Syntax
- 3Databases for Comparative Syntactic Research
- 4Quantitative Approaches to Syntactic Variation
- 5Computational Approaches to Syntactic Variation
- 6Comparative Syntax from Formal and Functional Perspectives
- 7Micro-Comparative Syntax, Dialectology, and Sociolinguistics
- 8Change
- 9Universal and Language-Specific Properties of Language
- Part IIComparative Syntax: Building Blocks and Combinatorial Properties
- Part IIIComparative Syntax: Dependency Relations and Dependency Marking
- Part IVComparative Syntax: Interfaces
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter discusses quantitative approaches to studying syntactic variation, more specifically approaches that pursue a combined quantitative–qualitative methodology, integrating components from both the formal-theoretical and the computational-statistical tradition. We first introduce a number of case studies of such integration, before zooming out and highlighting the advantages and benefits offered by a combined quantitative–qualitative approach and listing some of the fundamental theoretical issues it raises for the study of variation.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax , pp. 108 - 140Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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