Variation (linguistics)

As a variation (from Latin variatio, "change" ) refers to the ability of different realizations of a unit of the language system in a concrete utterance in linguistics. Variations can occur in all grammatical levels of description.

Scope of the definition to variety

In the socio-and in comparative linguistics (special languages ​​, sociolects, style levels, ... ), the term of the variety used for different forms of a language.

Causes

Many linguistic variations may be associated with dialectal differences. For example, the choice of the pronunciation of the aloud in German (see below ) to the north-south differences is coupled. While in the southern part of Germany, the tongues -r is preferably used in the central and northern part of the uvula -r is predominant. Other important causes of variation are language change and borrowing. Thus, the variation of some verbs is between the strong and weak forms back to the language change, the gradual degradation of strong verbs is (example: smoldered - smoldering ). When borrowings are often inflectional language of origin ( to thread: Thread - ta ) and the host language ( Them s) over.

Variation in the various levels

In phonology

In phonology, the term free variation of two or more sounds ( Phone), where the same phoneme underlies and their appearance is not tied to a specific phonetic context. Is the emergence of two or more variants of a phoneme bound to a context, one speaks of allophones in combinatorial variation / complementary distribution.

For example, is subject to the pronunciation of the consonant / r / - sound in said Germans a free variation: The meaning of a word does not change, regardless of whether an included / r / -sound r with a rolled uvular ( suppository ) ( [ ʁ ] ), a rolled alveolar ( tongue ) r ( [r ] ) or as a voiced fricative ( [ ʀ ] ) is realized. The nature of the debate are at best clues about the regional origin of the speaker / the speaker.

The vocalized variant of / r / - sound in said Germans, however, is distributed complementary to the other variants. While the consonantal variants are articulated in standard German almost exclusively in the syllable, all other occurrences of the sound by the vowel a- schwa ( [ ɐ ] ) can be realized. [ ɐ ] on the one hand, and the variants of the consonants / r / on the other side are the same, therefore, allophones underlying / r / phoneme.

In morphology

In morphology leads to variation, when two or more morphological structures can be used to indicate the same syntactic properties. As in phonology to distinguish between free variation and combinatorial variation / complementary distribution.

Free Variation: For example, in the German serve both a genitive and a dative suffix to indicate the argument because of the preposition (compare for example due to d -em accident because of the accident -s). Some nouns also have the choice between different plural endings to a certain extent is free: How can be selected when the account between the noun plural forms, accounts, account, accounts.

Combinatorial Variation / complementary distribution: The plural of most nouns is controlled so that for a given noun only a certain plural ending can be selected. The choice of the plural ending can of the sound environment ( The plural ending is from the previous volume dependent: costume -en, but aunt -n. ) Or from the root word ( The foregoing volume does not decide the plural ending: Sand - Sand -e, edge - Ränd - he be. ) dependent.

Another case of variation in morphology, the inflectional forms of individual words concern by the speaker can choose between two equal forms, such as in the participle form of the verb " waving " ( regional: waved or standard language: waving ). The free variation is applicable to other regions in this case.

Usually, each a variant is considered to be stylistically better at morphological or morphosyntactic variation, while the other are sometimes dismissed as " wrong" or colloquial. Differences between general and technical language ( common language: acid -e - fachsprachlich sow -en ) or the importance of the different plural forms ( for example, in the forms Wört - he - Word s) may play a role.

Always apply the allomorphs of the same morpheme as variants of this morpheme.

In the syntax

In the syntax, there is free variation, if one or more structures of this can be used to express the same proposition.

An example from German is the syntactic structure of the embedded clause in a query constructor with a Matrixverb as "think" or "believe":

• What do / do you think she wrote?
• What do / do you think that she has written?
• What do / do you think what she has written?

All these sentences have the same content, but they differ significantly with respect to their sentence structure. While in the first example, the inflected verb ( has ) appears at the beginning of the embedded clause, it can be found in the other examples at the end of the sentence. Also missing in this sentence an introductory connecting element (such as a conjunction). The last two sentences differ in such a way that in the past a matter particles (which ) serves as a link, while in the middle a complementizer ( that ) indicates the hierarchical order both sets.

The semantics

In the semantics of the concept of variation corresponds to that of "reading ". Thus, there is an ambiguous sentence in several variants to understand this, so multiple readings. This can affect both the sentence semantics, ie, the word semantics.

The sentence Peter followed the man with the bicycle has two readings: in one variant, Peter is the one who has the bicycle with him, in the other reading the man Peter is pursued, the one with the bike. In this case, the ambiguity is associated with a structural ambiguity: the records of both readings are each different syntactic structures based.

A word like bank also has several meanings in: First, the bank could be meant, on the other seat.

In the pragmatics

In the pragmatics variation called linguistic differences that occur in a speech due to the extra-linguistic environment and are variable. The variations exist in space, time, society and the speech situation a conversation. They are called diatopic, diachronic, and diastratic diaphasic variation.